Interview with a geologist

For the past month and a half, our class (and the scientists of JRL Associates lab 204) have been studying islands. We read about a few, thought about how islands are made, and even made up our own!

We thought of questions to ask a geologist. We interviewed Dr. Nicole Kinsman, the head geologist in the Coastal Hazards division of Alaska's Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys. She, along with the team of scientists that she manages, is in charge of studying Alaska's coastline and how it is changing. She was kind enough to answer a bunch of far-ranging questions we had.

She said, "Thanks for thinking of so many great questions to ask me about geology and Alaska!  We need more earth scientists all over the United States and there are so many adventures to have if you are interested in becoming a geologist when you grow up."

Is it awesome to study geology?
        Studying geology is AWESOME!  As a geologist I get to travel all over Alaska and the world to see very different types of places and meet lots of amazing people.  There are many kinds of  geologist and only some of them study rocks; I work with people who study earthquakes, glaciers, rivers, fossils, minerals (like gold!), volcanos and oil.  I am a coastal geologist so I work near the ocean most of the time and the ocean is one of the most awesome things on earth- we have only just begun to explore this part of our world.

Do you like being a scientist?
        I do like being a scientist.  My favorite part about being a scientist is that you never have to stop asking questions and I get to think about interesting puzzles every day.

How did you become a geologist?
        When I was a kid I used to hike around and play outside a lot.  As I got older I just kept on looking for ways to play outside at school and when I went to college too.  Now, playing outside is a big part of my job!

Do you climb mountains to see new coastlines far away?
        Sometimes I climb up mountains, but there is so much to see that it is usually faster to fly around in a plane or helicopter to see new parts of the coast.  I do need to go to the tops of mountains sometimes because that is where we set up antennas for some of the equipment that helps us map the coastline.

What kinds of transportation do you use to get to the beaches you study?
I use MANY types of transportation to get to the beaches I study. Sometimes it can take a long time to get places in Alaska because there are not many roads.  Here are some of the things I use to get around:
- big planes
- very tiny planes
- helicopters
- trucks
- 4-wheelers (ATVs)
- boats
- jet skis
- snow mobiles (when it is winter)
- my legs

Do you ever go to the coastline to study the coast?
        I go to the coastline all the time in the summer because being there in person is one of the best ways to understand a place.  I also visit the coast other times of the year if there is a big storm so that I can learn more about erosion and flooding.  When I am not at the coastline I can still study what is happening with satellite pictures and by looking at numbers from equipment I leave at the beach (like tide gauges).  People who live near the coastline will send me pictures from their phones when I am not there so I can see what is happening too.

Do you work on the coastline or in a lab with other scientists?
        Sometimes I work on the coastline and sometimes I work in a lab because I can look at things like the sand more carefully when I am in a lab.  I also do a lot of my work on the computer with other scientists to make maps.  We have computer programs that are sort of like video games that help us figure out how areas near the coast will flood during a big storm.

Have you been to all the islands in Alaska or only a couple?
        I have been to a lot of islands in Alaska, but it seems like only a couple because of how many there are that I have not been to.  We have over 3,000 islands in Alaska; there are so many islands in Alaska that if every single student in all of the schools in Watertown each visited a different island there would still be extra islands to see.

Do you ever find fossils in the rocks?
        I do.  My favorite fossils are ancient coral reefs all the way on top of mountains.

Are there any fossils under rocks deep underground?
        There are lots of fossils underground, and this means there are lots of fossils to still find and unbury.

Are there rocks underwater at the beach that have fossils?
        There are rocks underwater that have fossils and sometimes, where there is a big storm, these rocks get moved around and the cliffs next to the beach will get washed clean by the waves.  When this happens it is one of the best times to look for fossils on the beach because new fossils get uncovered.

Have you found any coal on the beach?
        Yes.  I also find shells and seaweed and things like soda bottles and fishing buoys that have floated to Alaska all the way from places on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

What animal fossils have you found?
        There are lots of squid fossils, corals and wooly mammoth fossils in the places where I work in Alaska.  I really like finding the wooly mammoth fossils because people make jewelry out of the old tusks.

Have you found any crystals or special rocks on the beach?
        I think most rocks that I see are special and when I find a really cool one on the beach I will bring it home to add to my collection.  I have not found many crystals but other people who I work with find crystals all the time.

What kinds of rocks do you find on the beach?
        I find all sorts of rock types on the beach, some of my favorite beaches have green sand because the rocks there came from volcanos and they contain a lot of a green mineral called "olivine".  Sometimes I find gold in the beach! Alaska's beaches are famous for having a lot of gold on them.
 
What have you discovered about the shoreline?
        There is so much shoreline in Alaska that if you stretched it out around the equator it would go around the earth one and a quarter times, so there is a lot to discover about how this coastline is changing.  One of the biggest discoveries is that many parts of the coastline are eroding and sinking because ice under the ground in Alaska (we call this permafrost) is melting.  There is also less ice on the sea than there used to be so the shoreline gets attacked by lots of waves in the fall when it used to be protected, this means that in many northen parts of Alaska the shoreline is getting closer and closer to houses, schools and to the airports that Alaskans use to get around.

Are islands in Alaska mostly volcanic, mountainous, or sandy and glacial?
        We have all types of islands in Alaska.  Most islands on the north and west coasts are sandy, the islands in the south are mostly mountainous and glacial and Alaska has a long tail of islands in the southwest part of our state called the Aleutian Islands that are volcanic.  Some of the Aleutian islands are active volcanoes!

What is it like living in Alaska?
        Sometimes Alaska can feel far away because you have to fly for a long time to get there from other parts of the United States, but living in Alaska is fun because there is so much to do and explore, especially if you enjoy the outdoors.

Is it fun being in Alaska?
        I think it is very fun to be in Alaska. Even though there are not a lot of people, the people that do live in Alaska live there because they love it so much.  In the summer I like to hike, fish and canoe, and you can do a lot of things because the days are very long, in some places the sun never sets at all.  In the winter I do a lot of skiing!

How cold does it get?
        Where I live in Alaska it get to be -50 degrees F sometimes, but this winter it has been a lot warmer than usual and it is -10 degrees F out right now. One of the reasons if gets so cold is that the days are very short, in the winter.  Sometimes people just think that Alaska is cold all the time, but in the summer it will get up to 90 degrees F.

What kinds of food do you have in Alaska?
      We have grocery stores and we eat a lot of the same foods that you do.  Many people in Alaska also hunt, fish and gather foods then they will trade or share things like blueberries and moose meat with their friends and family. Fish is very popular to eat in Alaska, especially salmon!

Bar Models!

This past week, we have been working with bar models to help us think about addition and subtraction problems. Bar models aren't a method of doing addition or subtraction. We will still be using the methods for addition and subtraction - using place value drawings and number-based strategies - that we learned in the fall. Instead, bar models are a great way to think about how story problems work using the beginnings of algebraic thinking.

These pictures show the product of a game we played to introduce the concept of bar models. Students pulled two cards out of a deck, then used two colors of cubes to show the two quantities. Then, they drew a bar model to show the additive process, with an addition and a subtraction sentence that match. The game is also a thinly-veiled excuse to practice basic math facts, and to explore the reciprocal nature of addition and subtraction.

Bar models can model addition problems, which we call "part, part, whole" problems, or subtraction problems, "whole, part, part". If you know both parts and you are trying to determine an unknown whole, it is an addition problem. If you know the whole and one of the parts, then it can be solved with subtraction. The model above can show both of these story problems. Can you figure out which is "part, part, whole" and which is "whole, part, part"? (they are a little sneaky, so read carefully!)

Kate went shopping with her robot two days last week. On Monday, she bought 7 cans of oil. She bought some more on Thursday. At the end of the week, she had 23 cans of oil. How much did she buy on Thursday?

Pete picked 7 pumpkins in the school garden. Maya picked 16 more pumpkins than Pete did. How many pumpkins did Maya pick?

You can do the same thing with larger numbers:

Alex ate 437 pizza slices on Monday. He ate 516 cucumber slices on Tuesday. How many slices of food did he eat on those two days?

Since with this story problem we know both parts, and the whole is unknown, we draw a bar model with the whole as the unknown, shown with a question mark, like this:

If it was a "whole, part, part" story problem instead, the question mark would go in the box of the unknown part instead of under the bracket.

When students get older, bar models can be a visual representation of an algebraic equation, with letters representing the unknown parts or wholes. Students will also use bar models for problems that require multiple steps to solve, as well as problems with more than two "parts" that make up the "whole". Bar models are a very useful tool, and a crucial part of the Math in Focus curriculum.

What is under an island?

We are studying islands! One big question that we have is: what is under an island? Before our research lab experimented today, some of us thought that islands were floating on top of the water. Some of us thought that islands are on top of piles of rocks. And some of us thought that islands were connected to the bottom of the ocean.

To find out if islands can be floating, we tried using common island materials: sand, rocks, and sticks. We worked in groups today to attempt to make these materials float. Only the sticks ended up floating, everything else sunk to the bottom of the containers. We concluded that the part of an island we can see above the water must be connected to a part below the water that touches the bottom of the ocean, lake, or river. Soon, we will learn about three different ways that islands can form. Look for future updates as our work continues!

We also thought about things that float, and put them on a continuum from small to medium to large. Things that float can be very large and very heavy!

Bonus science fact! The reason that sand and rocks sink is not because they are heavy. Many very large and heavy things can float. Giant cruise ships and oil tankers are a great example of this. Boat hulls can be made of very heavy materials like steel and concrete. Things float when they have positive buoyancy. A giant ship can float because even though it is very heavy, the volume of water displaced by its hull would weigh even more than it does! 

Our Writing Checklist

Imagine this: you are on an airplane, ready to fly to a tropical island for a vacation. You have been planning this trip for months, your bags are packed, and as you buckle your seatbelt you imagine warm beaches and clear, blue water. Your pilot comes on over the intercom. "Please make sure your belt is buckled, your tray table is locked, and your seat is in the upright position. We are cleared for takeoff!" You hear the engines get louder, and the plane starts to roll down the runway. Suddenly, the engines go quiet and your plane slowly comes to a stop. You never left the ground. A crackily - and sheepish - voice comes on through the speakers: "Um, sorry about that, folks. We seem to have forgotten to get gas..."

People in many different jobs use checklists. For pilots who fly airplanes, checklists are crucially important. Before any flight, a pilot uses a checklist to make sure all of the parts of the airplane are working normally and there are no problems with the plane. Your plane would never run out of gas on your way to a tropical island, because every pilot checks the gas before going anywhere.

People in other jobs use checklists, too. Nurses and doctors use checklists to make sure their patients stay safe and get better. Mechanics who fix cars follow checklists to make sure they put your engine back together the right way. Bakers follow checklists to make sure they add enough yeast to their bread.

Checklists are a great tool. They can help you plan your day, help you get everything you need for a recipe at the grocery store, and help you know which Horrible Harry books you haven't checked out of the library yet.

We used a checklist in our writing workshop today. This simple checklist helps us go through writing that we have finished to make sure it is the best it can be. So far, we are looking for basic things: conventions, a title, star words, and feeling words. As the year goes on, the checklists will change, too. Students find checklists a helpful way to make sure you have done everything you need to do. And they help you get to your vacation on time, too.

Writing Like Kevin Henkes

Kevin Henkes is an amazing author, one of my favorites. Any time you want to learn about writing a narrative - a story - you can read one of his books and try something that he does. We have worked on three of his strategies.

Kevin Henkes Strategy 1: Star Words

Kevin Henkes uses words that are intriguing, specific, fun, and unique. When he writes his books, he clearly spends a lot of time choosing these interesting words so that the book is more interesting to read. Good authors choose interesting words. We chose interesting words, too! We call these words star words.

Kevin Henkes Strategy 2: The Rule of Threes

Have you ever noticed that many authors from all around the world use groups of threes in their writing? It is incredibly common, and once you start looking for it, it is a strategy you will see everywhere. Kevin Henkes uses groups of three, too.

Kevin Henkes Strategy 3: Showing How a Character Feels

In Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, Kevin Henkes doesn't just tell you how Lilly feels, he shows you. As a reader, you can figure out from his description exactly what feeling she has.

Books We've Read Recently

Here are some of the books our class has read recently. Ask us about them!

More math games to play!

Have you been playing Sushi Monster for a while and you need a new challenge? Try these games out! Some of them are decidedly difficult, especially at the harder levels. That's ok, because the students in room 204 know that having to struggle makes your brain grow more connections!

Ten Frame Math -
Ten frames are a great way to visualize numbers, especially if you are working on your tens facts. Play around with the levels here.
http://illuminations.nctm.org/Activity.aspx?id=3565

Gate -
In this game, you use place value to defeat the shadows, hopefully unlocking the mystery of the gate. At first, you will probably just add ones, tens, and hundreds to make the numbers, but as you get better and the game gets harder, you will build bigger numbers and subtract, too. At the higher levels, you have to use decimals, too, which we don't talk about in second grade, but you can probably figure out how they work as you play the game. Good luck, this is a hard one!
http://www.brainpop.com/games/gate/

Battleship Numberline -
Enemy ships are located somewhere on the number line. As you play this game, you will work on locating whole numbers (and fractions at the harder levels) on a number line.
http://www.brainpop.com/games/battleshipnumberline/

Lure of the Labrynth -
What on earth is going on in these three games? You are given very little information about how to play or how to solve this enormously challenging math puzzles, but keep trying things out and you'll pick them up on the tenth or eleventh try. These were designed for middle schoolers, so don't be discouraged if you have no idea what is going on at first.
http://www.brainpop.com/games/lureofthelabyrinthemployeecafeteria/
http://www.brainpop.com/games/lureofthelabyrinthmineshaft/
http://www.brainpop.com/games/lureofthelabyrinthemployeelounge/