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On the bus ride home from Yellowstone, students were asked to think how they would like to share some of what they learned about interconnected systems.
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Interconnected Yellowstone, Day1
5th & 6th-grade Science Summer Camp
By Jacob Williams
At 7:00 AM on June 8th, 2022, some of the fifth and sixth-grade children of the Rexburg Madison Middle School began their journey to Yellowstone with the teachers, scientists, and chaperones involved in the Interconnected Yellowstone AIM science summer camp. Sharee Barton, Rosa Vasquez, Andrés Ruzo, Anne Madden, Daniel Dewey, Dan Taylor, and Ryan Sargeant lead the young scientists. On a tight schedule, the troop arrived a bit late to their destination and split into groups. Each scientist taught about their own topic.
Rosa and Anne taught about the many, many microbes in which the park abounds. The students learned of everything from a special symbiosis between amphibians suffering from a fungal epidemic and the saving purple microbes which fight the fungus to the many lichens species in the area, one of which makes its own ‘sunblock’ which helps shield away the UV rays of the sun.
Dan demonstrated many intriguing facets of entomology. The insects can exist almost anywhere, in dead trees, in the ground, and even inside the boiling multicolored pools of Yellowstone National Park. They can do many things that even we as humans can not do, some of them with shocking ease. These little crawling creatures can be very intelligent in some ways, choosing only the best places to live and the best ways to eat.
Andrés shared his knowledge of geology, especially the fascinating geothermal activity all over Yellowstone. The students have realized that rocks are involved in, are formative parts of, and are constantly recording everything. Everything that happens on this earth is recorded and preserved in the earth’s layers, just like a book. Things on the top are newer, while the things on the bottom are older. Rocks can output lots and lots of energy, amazing heat, and fascinating formations.
Ryan Sargeant talked all about the environmental chemistry and minerals in the water. As the young learning scientists approached the boiling ‘paint pots’, he asked them what they could smell. One of the chemicals brought up by the bubbling, boiling water was sulfur. Then, sulfur combines with hydrogen to produce a chemical called hydrogen sulfide. That is what makes the smell of ‘rotten eggs’, and that is also what attracts certain microbes.
Lastly, Daniel Dewey expounded on botany. One of the most important things that happen in Yellowstone is fire, he taught. The many lodgepole pine trees in the area have tight cones in which lie the seeds which reproduce the trees. The tree does not release them until a fire comes, and the cones pop open with the pressure. This, he informed the students, is because without proper space the trees will not grow well and will die, partly because of their lack of sunlight. However, after a fire, many of the trees will have been reduced to ashes on the ground. This gives the new trees both nourishment and the best soil and space to grow and catch the sunlight.
These students have really learned now that Yellowstone, and the many layers of science involved in it, are all interconnected!
JACOB WILLIAMS
6TH-GRADE STUDENT
