On our recent trip to North Dakota to dig for dinosaurs, we had originally planned to fly into Rapid City, South Dakota where the Marmarth Research Foundation offered to pick us up and take us to the location of our dinosaur dig in southwestern North Dakota about 180 miles away.  But since it was Sturgis Rally week, there were no seats to be had on the airplanes coming in and out of Rapid City (at least not using frequent flier miles).  So we put Plan B into effect and flew to Bismarck, ND instead and rented a car.

However, we found that plan wasn’t perfect either.  Very few seats were available on convenient dates, so we wound up flying two days earlier than planned.  Turns out it was a great inconvenience to have, because my son and I were then able to make a few extra stops on the way to Marmarth, including Theodore Roosevelt National Park, one of my favorite National Parks, and the North Dakota Heritage Center right there in Bismarck.  As luck would have it, there just happened to be a famous dinosaur being exhibited at the ND Heritage Center and it also just happened to be owned by the Marmarth Research Foundation.  I sent an e-mail back in the Spring to the person who found Dakota the “mummified” hadrosaur, Tyler Lyson, and he said to just stop by the Center and ask for Dr. John Hoganson when we get there and he’d let us see Dakota as it was being prepared for exhibit.

Well, by the time we arrived on August 1st, part of Dakota, a duck-billed Edmontosaurus that lived in the last of the age of dinosaurs just over 65 million years ago, was already on display in the museum proper — a section of her tail and one of her legs.  Knowing the rest of Dakota was still being prepared for a future exhibit, we ventured downstairs and asked to see John Hoganson.  He happily greeted us, and we told him we were on our way to Marmarth and that Tyler said we might be able to get a peek at “all of” Dakota while we were here.  John got us some visitor passes and took us back the lab where one of their preparers was painstakingly working on Dakota with dental picks, X-acto knives, and air scribes.

It was a great behind-the-scenes look at how a dinosaur gets so much TLC after being brought in from the field — and even moreso in this case since they were trying to preserve each scale on Dakota’s skin that was still salvageable.  The texture of Dakota’s skin was simply amazing to see, and Dr. H actually let us put our hands on Dakota’s hide and feel it for ourselves!  Wow… I felt so honored to even be allowed to do so, since once Dakota goes on display in the museum and is reunited with her tail and leg under plexiglas, absolutely NO ONE will be touching this beast.  There were so many exposed scales on Dakota’s skin, and so many different sizes and kinds of scales as well.  It was simply amazing. I already said that didn’t I?  Well, it was!

So the friendly homeschool lesson for today is “don’t be afraid to ask”…  Sure, we could have waltzed into the free ND Heritage Center, gazed at the tail and leg under glass, strolled through all the rest of the wonderful North Dakota exhibits, stopped at the gift shop, and gone on our way.  But being a homeschool family often has its rewards, and a great teacher-to-pupil ratio (1:1 in this case) was totally non-threatening to the museum director and staff, and we were greeted like friendly neighbors rather than a classroom full of bored middle school students with the hijinx and headaches people typically associate with accommodating such groups.

Resources:

• National Geographic’s “Dino Autopsy” which aired in December 2007.  Tyler told us there’s a revised version of Dino Autopsy in the works with updates based on the discoveries learned since the original show aired.
• Marmarth Research Foundation website

More later on our trip to Marmarth and the dinosaur dig…  ‘Til then,

Parke Diem!
— Jon

Don't think DEET will keep this guy away!

Everything is supposed to be BIG in Texas, right? Well, they obviously haven’t been to North Dakota where the bovines come in two sizes: Extra Large and Super-Sized! On August 1st and 2nd we camped at Theodore Roosevelt National Park where the bison roam free (along with LOTS of other interesting critters). The bison are even free to roam about your campground site if they so choose! Last time I was at this park in 1999, I saw several of them doing just that — milling about, walking past tents and picnic tables like they owned the place (yeah, well, they DO own the place). This time around, while we weren’t treated with the lovely smell of buffalo-breath on our wake-up call, they were still hanging around not too far off from where we pitched the tent. We could hear them grunting and booing (that’s buffalo for “mooing”) all night. Check out this big boy in the photo who was about to plop over and roll in the dirt for his morning bug protection.

New Salem Sue, watching over North Dakota

And if you think that guy is big… we drove our rental car from Bismarck toward TRNP the day before and spied what has to be the heaviest holstein in the universe, right there along I-94. Well, this one is made out of fiberglass, but it’s still a sight to behold, makes for a fun foto opp, and there’s a great view from the promontory where “New Salem Sue” stands for all to see from miles away.

We had a great trip to North Dakota and I’ll be writing more over the weekend about our visit to the North Dakota Heritage Center, our horseback ride at TRNP, our week of digging up dinosaurs, and our exciting drive back to Bismarck trying our best to avoid suicidal teenage pheasants.  Stay tuned!

Parke Diem!
— Jon

Dig It!  The Secrets of Soil

Now though January 2010 you’ll find a highly interactive and eye opening exhibit on soils.  Soils?!  Ewwww. That sounds boring, Mom!  Well, think again young Dirtwalker.

Did you know there are more creatures in a shovelful of healthy soil than there are humans on the planet?  Has your brain just popped a gasket at the thought of trillions of tiny critters jockeying for space right there under the plants in your garden?

And not only is there a fantastic exhibit (did I mention it’s, umm, FREE?), there are also numerous online education resources for you to do pre- and post-work on the subject.

Just a few of the education links I could “dig up” in a few minutes of searching:

• Listening to the Prairie lesson plans and activities (pre-K thru 12th grade materials)
• Nourishing the Planet middle school curriculum | high school curriculum
• Dig It! exhibit activity sheets (to use during your visit)

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Speaking of the exhibits, here are the highlights from the Smithsonian Exhibit Fact Sheet:

• In the “At Home in the World of Soils” gallery, visitors explore the connections between soil and culture. While we walk on soils every day, we rarely think about how soils affect our daily lives. This gallery explores these connections with a scale model of a typical suburban house lot that highlights soils in and around our homes. Nearby, an evocative video features soils as the “secret ingredients” in thousands of everyday items including medicine, food, fiber, paint, cosmetics, and pottery.
• The “Underneath it All” gallery explores soils in a broader perspective. A large topographic model illustrates the role of soils in residential, urban, and agricultural areas. Touchable soil samples provide closeup looks of two very different urban soils found right here in Washington, D.C. Exhibit panels examine how soil management can help meet modern day demands for food production, infrastructure construction, and environmental protection.
• “The Big Picture” area gives the global view, symbolized by a centrally-placed art sculpture depicting soils at the center of Earth’s water, nutrient, life, and carbon cycles. A world map and computer interactive stations highlight surprising global connections to soils. Nearby, the “Get Soil Savvy!” display uses dramatic images and video to explore the importance of soils in land management and conservation.
• Curious visitors can also dig into life, death, and decay in the “Matters of Life and Death Theater,” where a ten-minute video follows an edgy detective story about the micro- and macroscopic soil food web. Outside the theatre, visitors learn more about how microorganisms that inhabit soils impact our planet. Visitors can activate two soil “breathalyzers” (infrared gas analyzers) and detect the amount of carbon dioxide produced by soil organisms in two very different environments.
• In “Sizing Up Soils,” visitors will get the dirt on soils in an array of fun interactives and exhibition stations. A “Chef’s Challenge” kitchen features two flamboyant “soil chefs” who create two very different soils from the same ingredients. Visitors can find their “home earth” in a display of 54 soil samples, or “monoliths,” representing each state in the nation, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. Visitors become soil detectives and use clues to deduce what landscapes three mystery soils support. Other interactives explore soil color, texture, particle size, and minerals.

Go on a dinosaur dig!

Oh, but the economy is in the doldrums and gas prices are so high and we really need to tighten our belt and… Ahhhh BALONEY!  I refereed over 50 lacrosse games this Spring so I’d have money for our vacations this year and by Jove we’re going! 

Thursday my son and I leave for Southwestern North Dakota to dig up hadrosaurs, turtles, T-Rex teeth, and any other 50-70 million-year-old stuff we can get our hands on with the Marmarth Research Foundation.  In early September we’re heading to Boston for a 3-day mystery/history trip to see some world-class museums and historic sites, do some whale watching, and just have some good old-fashioned fun. 

In late September, the family heads to California for some family time with the grandparents and hopefully a visit to a west coast historic site like Rosie the Riveter National Historic Site (my wife’s grandmother was a “Rosie”), and next Spring there’s a trip to the Old Country in the works… details to come. 

Don’t let the economy get you down — make travelling with your kids and sharing the world with them a priority with your family, especially if you’re home schooling.  As Rosie would say, “WE CAN DO IT!”

Parke Diem!
— Jon

From an NPS press release:
Cast Away: Park Rangers Take Public on Podcasting Adventure

WASHINGTON – All across the country, park rangers are turning into podcasters. Hundreds of brief audio and video programs are up on park websites and on iTunes giving visitors a new national park experience. People can learn about park resources, take a guided tour, get help planning trips, and, best of all, meet actual rangers.

“While nothing can replace a personal experience in a national park, we think our podcasts will enhance people’s trips or give them the opportunity to learn about a park that they can’t visit,” said Mary A. Bomar, Director of the National Park Service. “Whether people download them to portable devices or watch them on their computers, these free electronic presentations give us another way to serve park enthusiasts of all ages.”

Learn About Parks

Many parks offer interpretive podcasts about wildlife, history, and topical issues like climate change and fire management. The most extensive collection of park podcasts is from Yellowstone National Park where they are reaching out to new and nontraditional audiences to spark an interest in visiting the park. The Inside Yellowstone series has more than 50 episodes, which are one to two minutes in length. More episodes are on the way.

“Our podcasts give people from every corner of the earth the chance to fall in love with Yellowstone and become its stewards for the future,” said George Heinz, one of the writers and on-screen personalities for the podcast series. The park has another online series called Yellowstone InDepth that presents mini-documentaries on subjects like volcanoes, invasive species, bears, and wolves.

Yosemite National Park launched a new monthly podcast called Yosemite Nature Notes. A printed publication of the same name began in the 1920s and existed for five decades. “Just like the earlier version of Nature Notes, our podcasts tell Yosemite’s stories from the perspective of the people who work here,” said Steve Bumgardner, videographer and producer at Yosemite National Park. “I like the idea that we’ve brought this institution back to life and that we use new media to put a personal face on the National Park Service.”

“My favorite podcast about Canyonlands National Park is the one on potholes,” said Carter, an 8-year-old visitor who watched all of the park’s podcasts before his trip. “It was so interesting to learn that tiny creatures are living in a bunch of dirt.” Carter’s sister Brooke, 11, appreciated knowing how to recognize cryptobiotic soils so she didn’t walk on the delicate crust. Their mother, Tiffani, thought the podcasts empowered her kids and said, “they loved being the experts and teaching us (their parents) what they learned while we walked around the park.”

Take a Guided Tour

In addition to general information, podcasts are a great way to offer ranger-led tours of specific areas that people can enjoy on their own schedule. More and more people download guided tours onto their iPods or mp3 players prior to their national park trip. When they arrive, they literally have a ranger in the palm of their hand to guide them on a walking or driving tour.

At Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, people stop at overlooks along the South Rim Road and watch podcasts about geology, history, life, and recreation at those exact spots. Everglades National Park also has a car tour (audio only) that leads listeners on a guided exploration down the main park road. Four civil war battlefields – Gettysburg, Antietam, Petersburg, and Richmond – offer podcasts that allow you to walk or drive along as you listen to an NPS historian talk about decisive and dramatic battles.

Urban parks use podcast tours to reach local residents who may not know much about the parks they pass every day. For example, residents in Minneapolis and St. Paul can listen to information about Mississippi National River and Recreation Area while walking a four-mile loop near the river. Residents of Washington D.C. can download walking tours for Rock Creek Park and people in St. Louis can do the same for Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.

Plan a Trip

Visitors already use the internet to research park trips, but now podcasts make it more personal. “It’s a blast when visitors hear my voice and recognize me from the podcast,” said Elysha Iversen, Wilderness Visitor Use Assistant at Grand Canyon National Park. “It tells me that we actually reach people and help them plan their hikes before they get here.” Iversen and others record podcasts with important safety information about trail conditions. The park also offers hiking and river running orientation videos as podcasts and will soon, launch new podcasts about Leave No Trace to help people reduce their recreational impacts.

Glacier National Park offers videos online about hiking, and rangers say the programs speed up the backcountry permit process. “Rather than having to watch the video at the permit station which is required, more and more visitors have watched it online ahead of time,” said Bill Hayden, Interpretive Specialist.

Other parks help people plan trips with podcasts, too. Visitors can learn about recreational activities at Curecanti National Recreation Area, like fishing, hiking, and camping. Katmai National Park and Preserve has an audio podcast weaving together music, stories, and tips for reaching that remote wilderness area.

Take a Virtual Tour

While not available for download like podcasts, virtual tours give people a park experience right on their home computer. For example, Clara Barton National Historic Site offers a virtual tour of Barton’s home, a building that served as the national headquarters for the American Red Cross. The tour allows visitors to navigate through all three levels of the house and gives access to images, text, and audio clips.

Acadia National Park has an eCruise along the rocky shores of Mount Desert Island and Glacier National Park offers eHikes that take visitors through stunning wilderness areas among glaciers, wildflowers, and bears. The experiences really have visitors buzzing. One man wrote, “I am a fighter pilot in Iraq…and it makes my day when I can take a hike in Glacier even if it’s from behind my computer.” A teacher from Michigan said, “the virtual hikes are awesome for a classroom project I am doing with my 5th graders.” And, another visitor remarked, “they are perhaps the next best thing to actually being there.”

New virtual tours are coming soon: Zion National Park will release an eHike for Angel’s Landing; Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks will launch eHikes that go through the Sierra Nevada foothills or among the giant sequoias; and the Statue of Liberty will provide an eTour covering Liberty Island, the inside of Lady Liberty, and a 360-degree view from her crown.

Some worry that creating podcasts and virtual tours about national parks may keep people, especially children, disconnected from the actual places. “Personally, I don’t think that people are going to give up on the real thing,” said Todd Edgar, Media Specialist at Acadia National Park. “After learning about parks from our online resources, people want to get outside and explore on their own.”

For many other national park podcasts and virtual tours, go to www.nps.gov. If a park unit offers online programs, you will find them by clicking on “Photos and Multimedia” in the left navigation bar of the park’s home page. The following list provides links for the podcasts mentioned above:

Acadia NP | Antietam National Battlefield | Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP | Canyonlands NP | Clara Barton National Historic Site | Curecanti National Recreation Area | Everglades NP | Gettysburg National Military Park | Glacier NP | Grand Canyon NP | Jefferson National Expansion Memorial | Katmai National Park and Preserve | Mississippi National River & Rec. Area | Petersburg National Battlefield | Richmond National Battlefield | Rock Creek Park | Yellowstone NP | Yosemite NP

Planning a trip to a National Park, Monument, or Historic Site and need the map to help plan ahead? You can always write to the park well ahead of time and have them send you those nice NPS park maps that you always get when first entering the park or when strolling through the Visitor Center. I’ve done that many times and the vast majority of National Park Service units will send you out their park map, Junior Ranger booklets, and other brochures and learning materials ahead of time if you just ask. However, there’s always a time, perhaps because of last minute planning (or procrastinating as the case may be) where you need a map FAST and you need a map NOW! Never fear — an NPS website is here!

http://home.nps.gov/applications/hafe/hfc/carto.cfm

Maps are available in a variety of types, file formats, and sizes, and guides to map symbols used by NPS are available.  Check ’em out, print ’em out, and you’ll never need to ask for directions again!  Well, maybe.

If it turns out you need a printed park map after all, you can request a printed park brochure (which includes a park map), by contacting Frances Cherry in the NPS Office of Public Affairs (address: National Park Service, Office of Public Affairs, Room 7012, 1849 C St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20240; phone: 202-208-4747; email: Frances_Cherry@nps.gov). Be sure to include your address and postal code with the request.

Parke Diem!
— Jon

Glacier National Park

When was the last time you were able to experience complete and total quiet?  Have you ever experienced it?  The places we can go to truly get away from it ALL are disappearing before our very eyes, but there are a few gems of the National Park Service that can still boast of little traffic or loud music.  Take the kids now, and experience this together as a family before it’s too late, and if you don’t think the kids can handle being quiet, maaaaaybe best to wait a little while and not spoil it for everyone else.  😉

If the next few generations don’t value these sorts of places, they’ll be sure to disappear in our lifetime.  Don’t let it happen!

Resources:

• A Natural Resource Called “Peace” — a lesson plan for grades 7-12.
• Soundscape at Big Bend National Park, TX
• Soundscape at Shenandoah National Park, VA
• Soundscape at Grand Canyon National Park, AZ
• Soundscape at Biscayne National Park, FL

Parke Diem!
— Jon

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The Top Five National Park Service units for peace, quiet and natural sounds in the lower 48, according to the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees:

• Great Basin National Park, Nevada. “You can hear the birds’ wings as they fly,” says a retired superintendent of this park. “Come to Great Basin National Park to experience the solitude of the desert, the smell of sagebrush after a thunderstorm, the darkest of night skies, and the beauty of Lehman Caves,” beckons the park’s Web site.
• Isle Royale National Park, Michigan. Isle Royale is a remote wilderness park, at least remote for the Eastern half of the country. It is surrounded by the large, clear, cold, and untamed waters of Lake Superior. The land base is 99% designated wilderness, although the majority of the park acreage is in Lake Superior where motorized boating is allowed—requiring some attention to location and timing to find places where the sounds of nature prevail.
• North Cascades National Park, Washington. Jagged peaks and deep valleys, encompassing 9000 feet of vertical relief, cascading waterfalls, over 300 glaciers, temperate rainforests and ponderosa pine systems make the North Cascades National Park Service Complex scenic, diverse, and a great place to explore. Opportunities for solitude are greatest in the more remote cross-country zones. Overnight recreational use is closely managed to provide a high level of solitude, including permits, designated campsites, and party size limits. As in other parks, ask the rangers for their advice to help plan your trip to the quietest parts of the park.
• Big Hole National Battlefield, Montana. The battle at Big Hole grew out of a long struggle between non-Indians, hungry for land and gold, and the Nimiipu, or Nez Perce. It is considered a sacred burial ground by the Nez Perce. The battlefield sits in the beautiful U-shaped Big Hole Valley near Wisdom, Montana.
• Muir Woods National Monument, California. This small park in the greater San Francisco Bay area hosts daily crowds of tour buses from the city who come to enjoy the half-mile path through the redwood forest. But this park has a big commitment to a natural soundscape. When visitors commented that rambunctious kids were the main source of human noise, the parks’s Junior Ranger program was reworked to have quieting exercises and a new poetic treasure hunt that emphasizes listening and appreciating the natural soundscape. The park has also tested quiet days and quiet zones. In December 2007, a Winter Solstice celebration included quiet times and five Quiet Days are planned in 2008.

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Sign of the Geologic Times:
Labelled and dated… how easy is that?

While the Cowboy State is HUMUNGOUS and keeping kids interested in what’s outside the car window can sometimes be a challenge, the State of Wyoming earns king-sized kudos from me for its roadside geological signs.

Last summer my son and I criss-crossed the state on our way from South Dakota to Yellowstone with several destinations between, and this became a great opportunity for him to practice some scientific field collection methods.  In the past we’d simply been collecting neat rocks and fossils, bagging them up, and taking them home.  But this time, with the aid of many roadside guides, we upped the ante a bit, and my son was required to keep notes in a notebook as he collected some really old rocks to take home.  

Keeping on top of collection process

Each sample was wrapped in toilet paper and placed in a ziploc bag, and the outside of each bag was marked with a permanent marker using the ID number system he created on his own.  His notes were to include the name of the road we were on (ex: U.S. Highway 16), the information shown on the sign, the unique ID number for his collectible (using the date and a number (ex: 08/26/2007-4), the GPS coordinates of the find, and the number of the photo he took showing the area from which he took the sample. 

Is this exactly the way a true geologist would have collected some rock samples?  Perhaps not exactly, but it gave him a good taste of the difference between a kid collecting rocks and a scientist studying them.  Over the past year he’s pulled out his collected rocks several times and continued the process of labelling them with whiteout and permanent marker so he won’t forget where “cool rock #37” came from. Even if he never looks at those rocks again, it was a worthwhile experience, and knowing approximately how old the rocks were as we collected them kept up his interest stop after stop (and we stopped a LOT of times) along the way.

Our final challenge was getting the rocks home.  My suggestion to you if you’re attempting a similar feat, is to arrive early at the airport so you can load balance your various pieces of luggage.  I weighed all our bags prior to check-in, got a sense of which bags were overweight and which were under, and shifted our treasures around until all bags got in under the 50-pound limit.  I can only imagine what the x-ray image looked like to the TSA technicians in charge of scanning all the bags!

Parke Diem!
— Jon

From an NPS press release:

Barrett Young, age 12 of Paola, Kansas, earned Dinosaur National Monument’s Junior Ranger and Junior Paleontologist badges during his visit to the Monument in early May 2008. Beginning when he was just a year and a half old, Barrett has now completed 161 Junior Ranger Programs and visited over 180 National Park Service sites around the country.

Barrett’s parents, Wayne and Dee, introduced him to the Junior Ranger program while visiting national parks as part of their family vacation. Today, Barrett is home-schooled. “[The National Park Service Junior Ranger Program] works well with home school curriculum,” according to Dee Young. On their two-month trip, the Youngs and Jim, a family friend, visited over 30 NPS units in the West and Northwest to help Barrett expand his knowledge of American history and the environment.

“By visiting some of the national parks with living history demonstrations, I have gained a love and interest in re-enacting,” said Barrett. “I really like re-enacting the French & Indian War, the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War.”

Barrett volunteers at Fort Scott National Historic Site in Kansas, where he dresses in costume and portrays a child from the 1840s to 1860s. His zeal for events in the 18th and 19th centuries has Barrett considering a career related to history. Perhaps in the future, Barrett will add a National Park Ranger badge to his collection of Junior Ranger badges.

Lake Superior Day is a special day held annually on the third Sunday in July that encourages people to take action that helps protect or restore one of the world’s biggest freshwater lakes.  There’s a long list of things to do on the days leading up to Sunday, July 20th — be sure to check ’em out.

For more information on Lake Superior Day and ways you can celebrate it, go to the Lake Superior Binational Forum website.  Be sure to visit http://www.superiorforum.info for more information!

Lake Superior’s National Park Service units:

• Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore
• Apostle Islands National Lakeshore
• Isle Royale National Park

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Top Ten Ways You Can Protect the Lake Every Day

1.  Install water saving devices on your kitchen and bathroom faucets and showerheads. Purchase these at local hardware and building supply stores–most cost between one dollar and nine dollars.

2. Replace regular light bulbs with energy efficient bulbs. Burning an energy bulb requires less energy, which means power plants burn less coal and that produces less mercury in the air.

3. Never burn garbage, especially plastics or tires, in burn barrels on your property. These produce more toxins in the air than an industrial incinerator. Not only do you breathe these toxic fumes as the garbage burns, but the pollutants enter the lake when it rains.

4. Instead of burning garbage, recycle or compost what you can and throw away the rest.

5. Take your lawn and household hazardous materials to area Cleansweeps collection days in Ashland, Bayfield, Douglas, and Iron counties this summer. Call the Northwest Regional Planning Commission at 715-635-2197 for dates and locations of collections in your county.

6. Put your lawn on a chemical-free diet. Poisonous lawn herbicides and pesticides seep into waterways that end up in the lake and soil, which can hurt your family and neighbors. Lawn chemicals can also sicken or kill birds and pets. Bring these kinds of chemicals to a Cleansweep event where they are disposed of safely.

7. Never pour any liquids into a storm drain. Storm drains empty untreated liquids into a nearby river, stream, or Lake Superior.

8. When you’re boating or fishing, inspect your boat and trailer and remove any plants and animals before leaving the water body. Drain water from the motor, live well, bilge, and transom before leaving the water body. Never release live bait fish in the water or live earthworms on the land or water.

9. When planning landscaping or gardening activities, use plants that are native to the region. Consult with garden centers or the Sigurd Olson Environmental Institute for a list of the best native plants for this area. Learn what non-native species look like and additional prevention tips by contacting your local state or federal natural resource management agency and ask for information and identification material for non-native species.

 And the number one thing you can do to protect the lake is…

10. Love it! When you care about something as grand as Lake Superior, you’ll feel good about making sure it stays a Great Lake.