Earlier I posted the story about Paul Salopek's journey for National Geographic tracing one of the main paths of human migration across the globe. But, close on his heels appears to be a new form of tourism which is arising based on tracing human history in various
locations across the globe. All of this traveling is based in one way or another on the new information provided by the recent
discoveries from the human genome research. The
New York Times just published a story in their travel section about the influx
of tourists traveling to Leicester to visit the grave of Richard III. Royal Remains Draw the Curious to Leicester You
have probably seen the many news features in the last month about the way that
these bones were confirmed to be Richard III by comparing the DNA from the
bones with a living descendent of Richard III ‘s sister who is currently alive
and well and living in Canada.
Another
recent travel story featured Eddie Izzard traveling all over the globe. This was a two-part television story
presented by BBC. Celebrity travel
stories are not new – Michael Palin has been globetrotting and presenting
interesting television specials for over a decade. His most recent series was based on his
travels in Brazil.
But,
Eddie Izzard is one of the first people to follow a travel itinerary based on
the markers in his DNA. For the BBC programs he makes two related
journeys.One tracing the migration
patterns indicated from his maternal DNA marks and the other based on the DNA
marker from his Y chromosome which traces his paternal line.Meet the Izzards
We are taking some
journeys this week ourselves. They aren't based on any new genetic data but they are focused on learning more about related species and their inherited characteristics. Our grade
4 classes are traveling the short distance to Regents Park on a series of water
bird surveys. I will post some photos
from our field trips and the results of our surveys later early next week.
It is February at last and right on cue a seed catalog has appeared in my mailbox at school. It is filled with color and possibilities. It sits on my desk suggesting that if would be much more fun to imagine spring gardens and ponder which seeds to start now for our planter boxes rather than to do the dull grading that has piled up on the other side of the desk.
This is the time of year that always seems so full of promise….nothing much is showing yet outside yet – but you can just feel that things are going to start popping into bloom very soon.
This week I also came across a wonderful NPR story about a library in Colorado that is getting everyone ready for spring and finding a new role for public libraries in the community as well-the story explains how it works - if you have a library card you can also check out a packet of seeds! And then you grow the plants from your packet and harvest the seeds from the best of the vegetables or fruits that you grow in the summer and return those to the library so that other people can check them out and plant them the next year.
The director of the library says "while a library may seem like an odd location for a project like this, seeds and plants should be open to everyone. That makes a public library the perfect home for a seed collection. The American Library Association says there are at least a dozen similar programs throughout the country."
All this reminded me of the projects we did in the public schools in West Hawaii, on the island of Hawaii to try to collect and grow the seeds of some of the most endangered Hawaiian plants. We collected a number of seeds from endangered plants and then grew them in our school garden. Some, such as the wiliwili tree seeds we kept growing for a couple of years in pots to protect them from the invasive introduced gall wasps.
Here is a short movie that we made with Mrs. Pinnow's class at Waikoloa Elementary School about one of our seed projects. We made this movie about 8 years ago!
The native Hawaiian dry land forest is one of the most endangered habitats on the plant because it exists exactly in the same location as most of the resort development. The land is so valuable for development that most of it was developed before there was enough protest at the destruction of the native forest to result in any reserves or protected areas. The dryland forest plants are also vulnerable to fire and the trees are easily damaged or destroyed by introduced species such as rats and goats that are now found all through out the islands. There are so many different and unique dry land forest trees and plants such as the wiliwili, the mamane and the uhiuhi that could disappear in our life time if people don't act quickly to save seeds and to re-plant more trees.
When we moved from the island five years ago we donated the wiliwili trees to the Waikoloa Dryland Forest Initiative as they were hoping to be able to start to re-plant native trees back into an area that had been set aside. In thinking about all this again I did a quick search and found their website and was so happy to read their most recent post from January 2013….
"Help us get started on our 2013 planting at Waikoloa Dry Forest! On Saturday January 19th we will be planting native trees and shrubs in a brand new site. This year we have big plans to plant four acres with over 1200 plants! We are very excited to open up new weed free zones and re-plant our native dry forest species. On the 19th we will be planting ‘ohe makai, wiliwili, ‘a ‘ali‘i, ‘akia and more."
Fortunately, there are many dedicated folks working hard to conserve biodiversity of the dryland forest and to save all these and many more endemic plants - here are some more links to some of the other native plant projects on the island of Hawaii ….
The Grade 4 students recently read a book called The Code which describes how genes code for a living thing's characteristics and those genes come from its parents.
We have been discussing the differences between the characteristics that we inherit in our genes and the characteristics that we acquire during the course of our life time. This is such an exciting time to be learning about genetics and the human genome because there is new research being reported every week from some area of this field.
The amount of information that we have about the human genome and the history of the human species has exploded in the last few years. Thanks to the information provided by analysis of the variations in our DNA we have a new window into our deep history and how humans moved across the planet from our African origins. There is a National Geographic sponsored project called the Genographic project that is collecting small samples of DNA from people who take a cheek swab and send in their sample for genetic analysis. The data that is generated is helping with basic research and the funds that people pay to find out more information about their ancestral migration patterns is used to conserve and revitalize indigenous cultures around the world. They already have DNA samples from more than 500,000 people and it is increasing all the time.
Here is an news story from a few years ago that describes the project
Recently, US journalist Paul Salopek started out on what will become a 21,000 mile journey that will pass along some of the major migration routes taken by human beings over the course of the last 50,00-70,000 years as they migrated from Africa across the adjacent continents and then across the whole Earth.
What do you Pack for a Seven Year Walk? - Paul Salopek in Ethiopia in early January as he is about to embark on the walk that will take him all the way to the tip of South America.
Why do this? "The short version is I'm interested in narrative, I'm interested in storytelling,"
Here is the route he plans to take ending in South America seven years from now
I admit that January is my least favorite month. At least any January when I am living in the northern hemisphere above the 45 degree parallel. It is cold and it is dark.
The view from the lower school science room on a recent morning after a light snow fall
But, lately there has been much discussion about the weather in grade 3 science and close monitoring of the temperature each morning because we have been getting a series of snow storms!
One of the causes of this recent set of cold weather is due to Sudden Stratospheric Warming (say that fast three times). Here is a recent BBC weather report discussing the event
The Grade 3 Meteorologists braving the snowy weather to get the morning readings
Then, just as we were getting used to the idea of stomping to school every day in our snow boots - the weather changed completely again - as it will do in London.
And of course - it will change again - the latest predictions are for warm, wet and WINDY weather for the next few days. Never a dull moment ....
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