If you had the option of either spending your summer vegging out on a beach, or exploring a National Park and identifying wildlife, which would you choose? Though the beach is pretty tempting, I met a group of awesome young women last week who have chosen the latter option, all in the name of science and exploration!
Members of Project Exploration’s All Girls Expedition are, at this very moment, in Yellowstone National Park, exploring the natural habitat of species such as coyotes, bald eagles and yellow monkeyflower, just to name a few.
Ariel T. points out the distinctive shoulder humps of the Grizzly Bear.
I spent some time with the girls last Friday here in Chicago as they wrapped up a week of intense research and preparation with their team leaders and area scientists. At their send-off event, each of the student researchers became experts on two of the species found in Yellowstone, giving presentations leading demonstrations for their parents and friends. I learned quite a bit! For example, the girls taught me that Yellowstone National Park sits on top of an active volcano (one of the largest in the world).
Xochitl V. wears a Red Fox skin like a scarf as she talks about how they grow to about 43 inches in length. (sorry about the blurry photo!)
(But don’t worry, Yellowstone visitors; active is a relative term, as the last time it erupted was 640,000 years ago!) The result was the huge caldera (a deep depression formed by collapsed land after an eruption) of Yellowstone surrounded by extensive mountain ranges. For more about what the Expedition team learned and presented at the send-off, check out the Project Exploration Blog for a really great post by Jehad, one of the group’s students.
The All Girls Expedition will be in Yellowstone National Park until Friday. I’ve never been to Yellowstone National Park, so I can’t wait to hear about their trip and all the things they discovered as real-life scientists. Thanks to Project Exploration for letting me come last week, and safe travels home!
-Rabiah
July 22, 2009 at 10:30 am
Thanks for the post about All Girls Expedition. We just returned from an awesome trip. Ariel saw her grizzly bear, which was thrilling (for her and me!). Yellowstone definitely beats out hanging out at the pool. I mean, how many times do you get to sit on an active supervolcano?!
July 22, 2009 at 4:20 pm
[...] Director Rabbiah Mayas attended the recent All Girls Expedition Send off and blogged all about it. Check out her take on it all on the Science Chicago blog. Tags: Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Leave a comment [...]
July 23, 2009 at 4:04 pm
[...] In the first week of the program here in Chicago, we learned that Yellowstone sits on an active supervolcano and has all the ingredients for over 10,000 hydrothermal features, like Old Faithful Geyser. We learned all about the wildlife that we might see and how to track coyotes. In addition, each team member became an expert on two organisms (plants and animals) in the park. You can read about the send-off event where the girls presented on Science Chicago’s blog. [...]
July 24, 2009 at 1:13 pm
so jealous (and proud). never been to yellowstone, but have always wanted to go.
July 26, 2009 at 10:08 am
Awesome! So glad you had a great trip, and that you saw a Grizzly, too! Thanks again for letting me come to the send-off:-)