22 posts tagged “aquarium”
All 67 guppies are moved into their new tank.
They really are happy:
If only it were that easy for us, when we move. Just keep doing your daily stuff until someone scoops you up and puts you somewhere else, where you just start doing your daily stuff again, but in a new place.
I didn't get everything quite filed today. I will spend 1 hour, no more, on Sunday night, tidying up, and then start on Biology lesson plans first thing Monday morning. New to my curriculum this year is the Understanding by Design approach. I've always sort of designed lessons backwards, from the perspective of, what do kids need to know about this? How will they learn it? How will I know that they are learning it? UbD just takes al this to a more specific level. Add in the differentiation I need to do in my 2 Bio classes and especially in the Intro to Science skills class, and my curriculum will take on a very different look this year. Intro to Science has 17 students. 7 of them are Life Skills students, meaning they take no academic classes but spend their school days learning to make toast, launder their clothes, walk across the street without being hit by a car, dress themselves, and some even learn to handle money. These students are not enrolled in any other academic classes. Some are in PE or adaptative PE, and some are in Choir, but none of the 7 are in any type of social studies, math, or language arts. One is in a wheelchair, is blind, and as far as I know she does not speak. I have absolutely no idea how to share science with this child. She can't even see the guppies.
My new twitter name will be Stardiverr1, if they ever get it working. My phone is verified there now, anyway. THe links on this page:
http://twitter.com/Stardiverr1
all point back here:
Sigh.
The teacher from hell at school has managed to get a lovely article about herself in the teeny local newspaper for attending a workshop at NASA, to collect data and teach a class that she doesn't teach. The article made her sound like superteacher, and pretty much implied that it was a wonder that NASA had actually been able to launch anything into space for the last few decades without her presence. The entire staff is in hysterics.
Int he meantime, the aquarium was awesome last night. I got 95 minutes in the shark tank and it was excellent. Got a pile more sand tiger teeth, too.
What a hell week, timewise. I wonder if this will ever end?
First day of school went really well, I guess. According to our new principal:
'Wow! What an awesome beginning. Thanks to all of you, this had to be one of the smoothest starts I’ve ever witnessed. Great Job! I appreciate the team effort. I’m looking forward to a great year with all of you. As some of our students might say, “You Rock!” '
My first period class is exceptionally quiet. 2nd period physics is fun, because I know all of them but the new girl and the exchange student. His name is Marco and of course he is now known as Marco Polo. 3rd period is ok, and 4th period Honors Biology is okay too. th period I have Intro Science. You figure it out. I have 3 autistic kids, 1 with Aspergers symdrome, 2 with behavior issues to the point of being behaviorally handicapped, and 5 more kids who are just generically special ed. Oh, and 12 kids who don't have anything noted as being an issue but either failed their freshman science class or were identified as being in need of a slow-moving, hands-on science class. At least the SPED teacher has given me her para for that period, so when one of the autistic kids blurts something that pissis off a SBH kid wnd the SBH kid leaps across the room to kill the autistic kid, I have an extra set of hands to help me pull them apart while my TA calls the cops. Yesterday, I only had one issue, with one of the SBH kids drawing a penis on the "#13" post-it that numbered his desk for seating chart purposes his desk after I called him on moving the numbers around to sit somewhere else. The kid will need to have a phone home episode today if he does not bring his homework, and I will relate this as well. All is of course documented. Argh.
The biology books and physics books (and chemistry and earth science) are not in yet. This is most likely due to their not having been ordered yet. We began the process to adipt new books last fall, and our assistant principal refused any help or input with the process. When our new principal arrived, she made one phone call and consulted our district operating policy and got us moving again, but not in time to have the paperwork done and to the school board for two considerations before we are allowed to place our order. The second board meeting is Thursday, so if they approve, the PO gets faxed Friday AM and IF the books are in stock we may have them by the end of next week. I already know that the physics and chem books are not in stock. We may have them by early October. And my physics laptops haven't been updated yet so this means that we essentially have nothing to do but things that I come up with. Thankfully I have an arsenal - but these kids expect more. And they deserve more.
I'm going now to go set up a demo for my ungrateful 5th period class and to get out a Fermi question exercise for my physics class. I slept maybe 4 hours last night, and I have aquarium tonight, so it will be a long day. Goodie.
By request, here are some ratfish photos.
A few of my favorite photos of my favorite wolfies at the aquarium. We were cleaning and they were not amused. Top photo is Junior, in his rockpile at the bottom of the North Pacific Aquarium.
This is Senior. He lives in a rock cave along one of the viewing windows. This is his den from the center of the aquarium:
In the wild. Taken at Sunrise Wall near Tacoma in Puget Sound, in 2002. Eel at top has what appears to be part of an urchin in its mouth.
So I get home from the aquarium and find that he has removed his bandage. Mom is in bed. I'm not sure, now, that that was a bad thing.
I get the stuff and chase him around the house. He finally runs upstairs and lands in the center of our bed with a flying leap. I land on top of him. I get the ears in place, the gauze squares in place, and wrap with the windy gauze. I have no colored tape, having dropped it somewhere in the house.
I release the dog, who dashes down the steps and into the dining room and dives beneath the table, certain that I would never think to look for him there. I get his antibiotic and bury it in some chicken to lure him out. Ear and bandages forgotten, he lunges from beneath the table to gulp his goodie.
He suddenly remembers the bandages and dashes into the kitchen. I retrieve the roll of sticky colored tape from the stair landing and once again give chase. He laps the kitchen again and then the living room, dashes down the hallway and through the foyer, and once again bounds up the stairs. I tackle him on the top landing. He wedges his head as tight to the floor as he can. I once again, position the ears, the gauze, and attempt to wrap. To go under his head, I have to lift all 10 tons of his head up and slide the bandage beneath. He is resigned to his fate and digs his toenails into the carpet. I finish up with the really sticky tape and release him. He is panting like a rabid wolf by now and runs around the house rubbing his head on *everything* for several minutes, and then runs to the door. I take both dogs out.
While I am retrieving the trash cans from across the street, he runs along every piece of shrubbery he can find, rubbing his head. Then he drops to the ground and rolls. I get him to stand up and come in with the promise of yet another biscuit.
While getting the biscuit, I notice a huge dark spot on the top of his head and his bandage.
It stinks. It REALLY stinks.
You guessed it.
I'm getting good at this bandaging stuff.
One more teaching day, and then 2 days of exams, and then a worthless day when students show up for 25-min classes to turn in their books and pay their fines and demand to know their grades which aren't done because their exams aren't yet graded and the late work t hey turned in at the last minute (more on this later) isn't in the computer gradebook yet.
Groups are finishing their scavenger hunt defense later today. I need to write this up for the conference in the fsall before the deadline passes. I might even need to publish it. But the dissertation calls....... maybe this will be not too much work since I already have all the student work done. I'm farther ahead this year than I've ever been, so perhaps the classroom will even get clean and organized before school is out and I can spend my last day doing true finish-up stuff. Woo hoo.
Looks like I won't get to dive this week. I've never missed a night, but the district has decided that we are conducting interviews for the open science position on Thursday and out dive was moved to Thursday night. If the last interview is at 4, and over at 4:30, and we debrief until 5, I could make it on a mad dash. We'll see. In any case, I will scram over as fast as I can and at least help pull people out of the water, but I for sure won'[t get there in time to go see if Qannick is out to the public yet. Dang. I may treat myself to a day at the beach next week if the tides are right and do some diving. There are no dive-police there so solo won't be an issue.
Oh, and we have a new principal. The rest of the staff (who met her during the interview process) is pleased with the choice. I liked her on paper and in person, but she's my 9th principal and I've worked for the good, the excellent, and the shouldn't-be-in-the-business, so I can pretty much work for anyone. I've found what I can't stand is when the rest of the staff has no confidence in the principal and the whole mood is sour. This past year has shown me that I can make even weak leaders step up to the plate; I just don't want to have to do that anymore. I want to do my job and be held accountable to high standards and have excellence expected of me and be supported in the process. I want someone to come down on my colleagues when they are slacking and to discipline and write them up when they are openly ineffective or breaking rules.
Now I'm off to polish the biology exam and work on some last-minute grades. I love long daylight hours up here now. I really hate getting up and going to school in the dark and coming home in the dark.
but is still behind the scenes, so I didn't get to see him when I went to dive tonight. Press reports state he made the trip very well and was swimming in his new digs immediately. Once he settles in, I will be right over to have a look.
I dove the North Pacific tank with two new people. We're growing, so soon there will be two dive teams.
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Qannik, the first successful birth for former Tacoma resident Mauyak, is set to arrive at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium some time in the next couple of weeks, zoo officials said. The 6-year-old male will join Beethoven, a 14-year-old male who has been swimming solo since tank mate Turner died of a liver malady in September.
Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium has chartered a DC 8 military transport plane for Qannik’s move. He will rest in a soft cradle in a fiberglass and steel reinforced and foam-padded tank. Veterinarians will monitor the 1,000-pound mammal throughout the journey, spokeswoman Jennifer Huntley said. The flight alone will cost $84,000, Huntley said. The total cost of the move is $120,000. Point Defiance is paying the bill.
Qannik (kah-NICK) has been at Chicago’s John G. Shedd Aquarium since his birth in July 2000, but technically belongs to Point Defiance because his mother is still owned by Point Defiance. Mauyak (MI-yak) arrived in Tacoma in 1984 after being captured from Hudson Bay in Manitoba. She gave birth to two calves during her years at Point Defiance, only to see both die moments after birth. The first calf, born in 1992, had a malformed respiratory system. The second calf, born two years later, drowned when her blow hole opened under water.
The death of the second calf was attributed to Mauyak’s inexperience in calf rearing, and experts decided she could learn by watching other females. She was moved to the Chicago aquarium in 1997 as part of a national cooperative breeding program for belugas. She gave birth in 1998 to a third calf that also died soon after birth. Two years later, after witnessing several other whales give birth, she finally became a mother with the successful birth of Qannik.
The youngster’s Inuit name means “snowflake.” His mom’s name means “soft snow.” Visitors to the Shedd Aquarium and its Web site chose the name.
Point Defiance officials were eager to acquire a second beluga after Turner’s death last fall because they didn’t want Beethoven to remain alone, said John Rupp, aquatic animal curator. Members of the breeding group decided Qannik was a good fit for the Tacoma aquarium, Rupp said. As experts learned more about belugas, they concluded that Tacoma’s aquarium wasn’t large enough to properly isolate a pregnant female so she could give birth, he said.
Beethoven belongs to Sea World. He’s in Tacoma as part of the cooperative breeding program.
The Tacoma aquarium’s role in the breeding program has become one of obtaining semen from males for use in artificial insemination, he said. The technology is still in infancy, but experts hope to eventually move away from the complicated, expensive and controversial practice of moving whales around the country for breeding. Point Defiance is one of two institutions in the world that has obtained a semen sample from a beluga, Rupp said, although experts haven’t figured out yet how to keep it from becoming contaminated by salt water.
Officials wouldn’t divulge the exact date of Qannik’s arrival, for fear of attracting protesters. Some activists protest the captive breeding of belugas as inhumane, and allege that cross-country shipment of the whales is dangerous. In some cases, protesters have attempted to block the movement of a whale, endangering the animal’s safety, Rupp said.
Qannik will be on view as soon as the day after his arrival, which officials say should be no later than June 21.
Jason Hagey: 253-597-8542
