WHY SOAR?

SOAR has a serious side in its missions to help kids find ways of helping the ocean and watersheds throughout the world. I started on having seen hundreds of albatrosses killed by plastic debris at Pihemanu (Midway Atoll). I was inspired by the questions of young people in Ohio and by USFWS biologists working hard to protect endangered species and damaged habitats.



SOAR has a very fun and tough to define side.....thanks to FRED AND FRIENDS, Project SOAR helps with watershed and ocean workshops throughout the world, and generally makes people smile while they learn some tough stuff about how we treat our rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, and the one ocean on planet earth..........

INVITING SOAR INTO YOUR SCHOOL, ORGANIZATION, AND COMMUNITY

SOAR introduces young people to ways they can make a difference in their local community and the wider world.



Take advantage by:



1) Invite a SOAR learning kit or bring Ron Hirschi to your school as a guest author or speaker for your organization. Ron has many years experience as an author and as a biologist. SOAR adds another dimension to his list of hands on projects he shares in writing, art, and ecology workshops.



Many schools invite Ron for his work as author of more than 50 nonfiction books, including many with ocean themes. Others bring him to school as a scientist or artist, but the best fit is always when schools use Ron to help them integrate curriculum.



Tom Bates, Principal at Tremont Elementary in Ohio recently said in an interview following Ron's visit, "What stood out to me was how Ron was able to gear his activities and discussion and information so it was meaningful to the students, whether they were in kindergarten or fifth grade."



Be in touch at whalemail@waypoint.com for visit information.



2) SOAR now has a new kit circling the globe along with a Laysan Albatross "Friend of Fred". This duo is packaged with a box full of ideas, activities, information about Papahanaumokuakea, ocean debris, and other materials aimed at sparking new projects related to the sea. Also included is a journal chronicling Fred's adventures, all of which began when kids at Columbus School for Girls (CSG) learned how they could take action to help the ocean.



Currently, this treasured package is in the hands of The Bush School in Seattle.


NOTE: You might also be lucky to receive one of the earlier packages with a FRED and Friend, already traveling. To date, Fred has visited Australia, Switzerland, Israel, England, The Dominican Republic, and many corners of the United States.

20 March 2011

ART, SCIENCE, AND INSPIRATION FOR KIDS


Green Darter. Photo by Barb Mayer. Midway Atoll.

Project SOAR and Friends of Fred have added DRAGONFLY
to our growing list of species.

The above photo was taken by Barb just as the adult Dragonfly
began unfolding its wings at the edge of quiet waters.
Google Green Darter and you will find many articles about these insects.
Team up with Friends of Fred and you will soon learn much more and,
hopefully get involved in the science and art of Dragonflies.

I spent a couple days presenting and attending the
National Art Educators Association convention this week.
On returning home, I realized I should have presented a talk
called INSPIRATION........

Dragonflies inspire for sure.........They are beautiful creatures.
Their wings seem so delicate and yet they carry these predators
as if made of Boeing aluminum and fitted to the body with rivets.
Some kids, when I ask about this beauty tell me God made them.......
To each his and her own beliefs........

As an ecologist, I am adding Dragonflies to SOAR
because they represent a critical link
in watershed ecology
AND
Their beauty helps kids create dazzling art,
ART THAT MAKES THEM THINK!!!!!!!

Art and Science go together in the world of children
like chocolate and peanut butter.....and honey, and nuts, and more
chocolate!

Dragonflies link with their relatives, the even more delicate Damselflies.

Dragon and Damselflies are aquatic, totally so for most of their lives.
They are somewhat unusual in that the juvenile form, known as NYMPHS,
lives far longer than the adult form and there is no intermediate stage between
EGG
and
NYMPH.

The NYMPHS are so kid friendly.

I take hundreds of kids out onto and into ponds, netting up big wads of gooey muck.
We haul the net onto the shore and take a look..........
At first there may be no sign of life.......nothing at all. Then, suddenly, as if added by
Steven Spielberg,
DRAGONFLY NYMPHS crawl out of the goo, greeted by screams of delight!

A Dragonfly Nymph might measure a couple inches and, equiped as it is with 
HUGE AND POWERFUL JAWS,
The Nymph can and does feast on fish!

As a juvenile, the Dragonfly is an awesome predator, inspiring kids
with its curious shape, strong legs, and water lifestyle. 

Follow this blog thread and we will share seining trips to 
Buck Lake in Washington State with kids from Breidablik Elementary
and, later in the spring, with kids from Ohio and beyond.

Watch for the Nymphs this spring as they crawl out of the muck
at a pond near you........Watch as they become motionless, then crack open to reveal
a dazzling 
GREEN DARNER!!!

Much Smaller Damsels are also predatory as juveniles, live in the same 
basic wet habitats, and go through a similar metamorphosis......

To tell a Damsel adult from a Dragon adult?

Like butterflies and moths, the two generally have different wing resting positions.
Dragonflies hold their wings out when at rest.
Damselflies hold their wings together. 

If you live in Hawaii,
Watch for endangered Damselflies and read more about them in:

HAWAIIAN INSECTS AND THEIR KIN
by
F.G. Howarth and W.P. Mull

and

Hawaiian Damselflies: An Identification Guide
by Dan Polhemus and Adam Asquith


Happy Dragon and Damselfly Watching!
  
Posted by at

1 comment:

Barb said...

Hi Ron!

I really like the way dragonfly wings sometimes look like they have a rainbow in them.

The website that accompanies my name below will take you to my dragonfly experience on Pihemanu/Midway Atoll.

Thanks for all your work with kids...and all of us; aloha!

March 20, 2011 at 2:42 PM

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X310 Plastic Ocean Activity


It's me, Fred, the Monkey.

If you look closely, you can see I wear X310's leg band around my neck. It's to remind me of her. She was a Laysan Albatross. She was born in March 2008 and lived on Pihemanu, one of the most remote atolls on earth, now part of Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.

You can wonder about Pihemanu and about X310. She didn't live very long, dying in June 2008. Her parents flew thousands and thousands of miles finding food for her. But x310, like lots of baby albatrosses died before she got to soar the seas. Some albatrosses fly three million miles during their life. Like X310's parents, their sea is a new challenge in food finding because of our actions on land.

Adult albatrosses fly more than a thousand miles just to get a single meal for their babies. But the ocean is full of plastic. And if you read my buddy, Ron's blog and website, you learn about plastic in the sea. It is everywhere and babies like X310 die because they eat so much plastic, they can not get it out of their stomachs.

Where's all this plastic come from?
Where does it go?

Here is a simple activity:

Get up from your chair and walk around the classroom or wherever you are sitting.

Write down each thing around you that is made of plastic.

Everybody compare lists and make a total of the plastic products.

Now, the hard part of this activity:

Can you find alternatives for the things you use, alternatives not made of plastic?
Maybe start with drinking water from a fountain or glass or reuseable container?
Maybe start a really good recycling project?
Maybe make some art from recycled plastic?
Learn more on links here on this site and others.
Talk about times with no plastic.
X310 would have appreciated if people, just a few years ago had decided to make a plastic-free world for you....
You and X310.

Learn how you can SOAR with FRED by arranging a visit with Fred and his ocean teaching kit by emailing his banana provider at whalemail@waypoint.com

FEEDING A BABY ALBATROSS OCEAN ACTIVITY

What you need:

Pint size plastic beverage container with wide mouth (about 1.5 inches) ---This approximates the size of a baby albatross stomach and esophagus.

Important to have the lid too.

Enough plastic items (bottle caps, toothbrush, legos, fishing line, small chunks of nylon rope, markers, pens, more bottle caps and even a few more bottle caps since they are pretty much the most common marine debris.

Talk with your audience of kids of any age about ocean debris and the way adult albatrosses fly out a few hundred or even a thousand miles to find flying fish eggs and squid for the little ones. They return to Pihe Manu or up on the Northeast shore of Kauai, find their young one among thousands of others and begin to feed by regurgitating "food".......

As you talk about this, have the kids place one or two pieces of the plastic into the bottle.

Replace cap with each addition of plastic. Shake gently to mimic bird moving around the nesting area a bit.

Remove cap. Shake gently to mimic the bird trying to dislodge "food" that can not be digested. In a perfect ocean, this would be squid beaks, fish bones, or other natural pieces of food.

Add more plastic, repeating above until no plastic falls out of the bottle when cap is removed (bill is opened) and the bird tries and tries, but can not toss up the mass of debris. See how much and how many different kinds of plastic can be added. Does the rope tangle with the legos and bottle caps. Do five bottle caps cause a blockage in the esophagus???

In nature, the upchucked mass is like an owl pellet and is known as a bolus. Natural foods slip freely through the esophagus and more feeding can continue. Most times, a baby albatross will toss up one bolus before leaving the nesting island. Unfortunately, thousands die because plastic blocks the stomach completely.

Your feeding the baby albatross activity can lead to a lot of discussion of plastics we use, discard, then find their way into the ocean and into the mouth of a baby albatross.

If you want to have a Baby Albatross Feeding Kit, complete with some plastic items that actually came from once living albatross at Pihe Manu, Papahanaumokuakea, be in touch.