Cool Tools: Identifying common snakes of NC!

Yesterday I had a personal encounter with a snake that I was unfamiliar with; so this morning I was searching to find out what species it was and I found a really helpful website.

This site is great for identifying all of North Carolina's reptiles/amphibians. It is easy to use and has lots of pictures to help narrow down the search. It even has maps to show the range of where the species can be found. It is always a good idea to carry a field guide with you any time you are exploring in NC; my favorite is Amphibians and Reptiles of the Carolinas and Virginia.
by Bernard S. Martof, William M. Palmer, et al. You can pick one up at most book stores.

The snake that was in my backyard was a Black Rat Snake, it was really cool because we actually found him climbing a tree! It was a huge snake, 5ft. This is why I am a firm believer that we should never approach (especially touch) wildlife, certainly not snakes!

Found anything interesting in your backyard? Let me know!

Cool Tools: Be SunWise!

Hi everyone, Nancy here.

With the UV index on the rise, our colleagues at the EPA want to get the word out about sun safety and raise awareness about a largely preventable health issue: skin cancer.

The EPA has partnered with members of the National Council on Skin Cancer Prevention, the American Cancer Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to promote Don't Fry Day, the first ever national sun safety day being held the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, May 22, 2009.

As many of us prepare to kick off summer this weekend and spend a lot of time outdoors, the EPA and their partners are reminding us to practice sun-safe behaviors.

Educators are invited to go online and take the SunWise pledge. Participating classrooms will receive a set of sun safety resources.

To learn more, visit the National Council on Skin Cancer Prevention's resource page where you'll find background information, statistics and facts and public service announcements you can either put in your school's newsletter or deliver electronically to parents and caregivers.

You can also visit the EPA's SunWise site. The SunWise Program is an environmental and health education program that aims to teach the public how to protect themselves from overexposure to the sun through the use of classroom, school, and community-based components.There are a lot of great interactive tools on this site to use at school or at home.

If you are visiting the Museum this weekend, visit our Investigate Health exhibit and check out the sun safety station where you can use a special camera that demonstrates how sunscreen protects your skin from ultraviolet light.

Stay tuned and stay sun-safe,
-Nancy

Cool Tools: Bat Day

Are bugs bugging you? If so, put a bat house in your backyard! Bats can eat up to half their weight in food in a single night, one little brown bat can eat more than 600 mosquitoes in one hour! Thats a lot of insects! Now imagine a whole colony of bats...you won't have any problems eating outside this summer!

You can get bat houses in many ways; you can order a pre-cut house and just assemble, paint and put in your yard or you can order the plans off-line and build it yourself. There are certain tips (or guidelines) for your bat house. The paint color, location and height are all dependent on the region that you live in - but you can find all that information right here!

Let us know about your bat success stories!

Piedmont Wildlife Festival

As many of you know, the spring is the busiest time for museum outreach. We travel all over the triangle, go to all types of events, educate people about the museum as well as cool science, and much more.

Last weekend we went to the Piedmont Wildlife Festival, in Durham. There were lots of solid education venues there; SEEDS, the Eno River, the Falconers Guild, Piedmont Wildlife Center and many more. It is always nice to see what our counter-parts are doing and its great to chat with them about whats going on at our museum!

We focused on NC wildlife this time out; so we took a few of our animal friends, skulls, animal track identification, did a little bit of promoting bat day and bear awareness week and a few freebies. As far as animals go - we took Ed the alligator and Optimus Prime the pine snake.

We always have fun when we are given the chance to go out into the community.  We will be hosting our own events and going out in the triangle all summer long, so come visit us!  

Cool Tools: 2,4,6,8, Who Do We Appreciate?

Hi everyone,

Nancy here.

If you started doing the cheer up in the caption but had a little trouble filling in the blank, allow me to assist: TEACHERS!

Today, May 9th brings to an end national Teacher Appreciation Week, a week designated so that students and their caregivers and families and Parent Teacher Organizations take time out to recognize and celebrate their teachers for all their hard work.

So, for you teachers, I wanted to share a hot tip on an event that our friends at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University are doing beginning on Sunday, May 17th from 12:00 to 4:00 p.m.

This May and June the Nasher Museum of Art will be participating in a special project, the FUNDRED DOLLAR BILL PROJECT, that is encouraged for you to do with your students. It is a collaborative nationwide project intended to support the rebuilding of New Orleans by making the environmental conditions safer for its residents. The project's idea was created by artist Mel Chin, and he needs 3 million people to create FUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS. A FUNDRED DOLLAR BILL is a student-designed and created $100 bill.

The project is easy to implement in your classroom and is linked to the North Carolina Standard Course of Study Competency Goals in Science: Science K-12 Strand:Science in Personal and Social Perspectives.

You can even find a lesson plan to help guide you on the project's website.

If you make FUNDREDS with your students, you can contact Julie Thomson (julie.thomson@duke.edu, 684-8816) at the Nasher Museum so that they can be included in an exhibition at Golden Belt.

Looking for more ways to link art and science in the classroom? We can help you get started. Just contact us in the Resource Center via email or by phone at 919-220-5429x356.

Stay Tuned, Stay Curious , Happy Mother's Day and Congrats to all our local college graduates!

-Nancy

Citizen Science: Butterfly Bash- Dare Cafe!

This year was our 10th Anniversary of the Magic Wings Butterfly House, so we celebrated it with Butterfly Bash this year!  There were many new exhibitors and some veteran ones too!  If you remember from my last BFB post, I told you about Dare Cafe!  We talked about Entomophagy, different types of insects to try, the nutritional value and we got it all on video!  

Brad (he is in charge of our Nanoscale Science programs and research at MLS!!) and I made this awesome video of Dare Cafe!  It highlights some unforgettable moments from the program and shows off many of our members and visitors loving bugs! It will make you want to come to our bash NEXT year and experience this!

A big thanks to everyone who participated in Dare Cafe, to Brad for the help with this video and to Nancy and Uli for making the bash possible!  The amount of hard work that goes into these events is mind blowing, it really makes me appreciate my fellow life and sciencers! 

Here are pictures taken by a member.  Her whole family really dug into this program and raised the bar for everyone (young and old) to give it a try! Thanks Maya!! 

Did you make it on the video?  If so, tell us how it turned out!  We are very proud of our productions here and we love feedback!