The NPA Lichen Project is off to a great start!
Ms. Brown received enough money from Our Generous Donors (press the button at the bottom of the page or click the square in the top left corner to see who our donors are and how much they donated), to buy 30 mini iPads, iPad cover, Vernier sensors and probes, microscope attachments for the iPads, calipers and a weather station - phew! That's a lot of great science equipment!
The iPads are allowing us to document our project as well as various experiments to learn more about climate change. The weather station is tracking weather in our onsite garden that will be used in conjunction with measuring the growth and overall health of our lichens. We will use our student garden here at NPA to practice data collection and analysis so that we are prepared when we obtain the data from the three garden sites along an elevation gradient with the help of the Southwest Experimental Garden Array (SEGA). This project is a long-term research project to learn about our changing climate with the help of our partners at Northern Arizona University (NAU) and The Arboretum at Flagstaff.
Next Friday, I will be interviewing Dr. Anita Antoninka about her love of science and amazing passion for biocrusts. Her interview will be shared in a future post. Dr. Antoninka is a scientist at NAU that is helping us learn about biocrust and mosses and the impact of changing weather patterns.
Also, I will be interviewing Riley Smith, another local scientist who is part of the GK-12 program at NAU. She is in our class every Friday to help with this project as well as bring current science into the classroom.
OH, MY GOSH! I cannot wait to interview them, I get ENTHUSIASTIC when it comes to science. I hope that my passion is evident in all of my future writings.
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