Version:
2/6/12

picture of the week

thought-bite of the week:

Humboldt's travels in the Americas
click on image to see full-size graphic

"Even when nature does not produce the same species in analogous climates,… we still noticed a striking resemblance of appearance and physiognomy in the vegetation of the most distant countries.… [R]eason cannot stop man forming hypotheses on the origin of things"
(Humboldt, "Personal Narrative", from Jaguars and Electric Eels, ed. & trans. Wilson, p. 13)

mini-text of the week (start):

"The destruction of the forests… forcefully explains why the present Lake Valencia is decreasing.…"

Humboldt, "Personal Narrative", from Jaguars and Electric Eels, ed. & trans. Wilson, p. 31 (read more)

(X') = anticipated time in minutes (total=75)

(0001) etc.=item in Humboldt Project document collection

Key to notes added AFTER the class meets:

√ = topic / activity that was adequately dealt with during the class

+ = topic that was started but needs more attention & will be resumed at next / subsequent meeting(s)

- = a topic / activity that was proposed though not begun, but will be taken up later

Struckthrough text like this = a topic / activity that was proposed but not included is not going to be taken up after all

Italic bold green text like this = comments after the meeting

√

(5') Thought-bite of the week and yesterday's folk holiday: ground hogs and marsupials

√

(10') Followup on the "mother's milk" topic from meeting #7: the efficiency of the process and what that indicates about a) the precariousness of life in marginal societies; b) the evolution of the ability.

Followup on the food and energy needs of explorers (info from Holland, Feasting and Fasting with Lewis and Clark). How does these travelers' caloric need compare to that of a nursing mother (one of which was along on the expedition), and how does that convert into number of buffalo/bison, elk, deer, salmon or dogs needed per day for those 32 people? Oddly enough, they appear not to have eaten one of our local delicacies.

How is nutritional research conducted - how do we get, so to speak, a window into the stomach? (see Wrangham, Richard, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, pp. 55-70)

√

(20') SINQing the Humboldt canoe (wrapup, literally [learn how to use this word correctly]):

Followup about the question one of you asked: "So did Humboldt actually calculate that all out when we was loading his canoe?" An example: "Alexander, Wie berechnest du die Größe von deinen Kanus? Alexandre, Le bateau ici - est-ce-que tu sais exactement s'il est assez grand?" And how did they figure out how much wood they needed for those boats and crates? They planned and calculated carefully; we have the expedition mission orders and packing lists of Cook and Lewis & Clark.

Key concepts: displacement and density (Wikipedia: density); key fact: density / weight of (salt, fresh) water (Wikipedia: water weight)

So: What is the volume of that original Humboldt Canoe (40' long, 3' wide, semi-circular cross section throughout)? How about one with a 3' width, rectangular transom (1.5' high), and flat bottom? How about one with a triangular cross section (3' wide, with bottom (keel) as right-angle? What about - we're getting dangerously close to calculus here - a real canoe, with its constantly changing lines and pointed bow and stern? How does that relate to how many supply and sample boxes they could get into the Canoe, how much wood is needed to make various shapes of containers, and what your airline carry-on baggage allowance is? What if H were starting with a needed cargo weight and working backward to the best combination of length, beam, and draft? Would(n't) this all be easier if we used the metric system? ••Maybe: Worksheet about volume, weight, and displacement.

If time: How you can win a bar bet but also contribute to the understanding of sustainability: What are the weight and volume of the human race? commentsabout 100 billion pounds; 14 billion cubic feet (if people were cubes and could be stacked with no space in between, the entire human reace would fit into a corner of a cubic mile, with plenty of room to spare - the cubic mile could contain 60 billion people)

Main point: They generated, found, collected a huge amount of data and then organized it and drew conclusions from it, for both immediate practical purposes and as contributions to science. Without that data and the rest of their work we would not have even a notion of sustainable environmenalism or such specific things as GPS.

What does all this have to do (see picture of the week above) with getting up the Orinoco, through the Casiquiare Canal, and down the Amazon; the Whiskey Rebellion; the Mexican War; and the science and economy of then and ("interpreting the past") now?

If time: money, currency, and the heaviness of gold

-

(10') About classification of species:

Ungraded quiz: Which of these life-forms do you recognize when you encounter their biological (Latin!) names? - Ursus horribilis, Cannabis sativa, Pseudotsuga menziessi, Canis lupus (familiaris), Sphenicus humboldti, Metacarcinus magister (formerly Cancer magister), Bos primigenius, Sus domesticus (and farmer talk: "bossy" and "soo-ee"). Can you see and smell the difference between Quercus rubra and Quercus alba (sounds like a city in New Mexico, doesn't it)?

Linnaean classification of a Humboldt-named species; why shellfish are called "shellFISH" but aren't actually fish (also: crawfish, crayfish, crawdad); illustration of a "type specimen" (C. humboldtiana); get ready to choose "your" Humboldt-named species.

We're getting into controversial territory here (see thought-bite of the week), so soon we'll do an activity about "hot-button" topics. For the moment: Relation of science to religion as science emerged as a recognized endeavor - it has been sometimes harmonious, sometimes not. How long have people known that fossils were fossils and dinosaurs were dinosaurs? Bishop Ussher's famous dating of the age of the world according to the best knowledge and science of the time.

Earlier words for "science" and "scientist". While we are at it: "cosmos" / "nature" (and what "cosmos" has to do with "cosmetic" and "galaxy" has to do with "milk")

√

(20') More about writing assignment #3 and how it relates to later parts of this course.

Followup on the slavery-math controversy in Georgia: "Frederick the slave gets beaten twice a day…". You can do better.

Canoe SINK/Q as material for discussion of curriculum: for math: age-appropriate activities; "spiral" syllabus; calculus?! AP?! Which other subject areas did we address / could be addressed?

Food for thought: How do you know where you learned X? How do you know that what you learned is really true? How/When did you learn how to learn?

:-) Should we offer the Humboldt-named schools a lesson plan organized around a banquet of Humboldt-named plants and animals? Maybe with a fund-raiser?

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(5') If we were having a midterm… but we're not. Oh, yes, we are - people appear to want it.

√

(5') Checkups & Previews: Does everyone have the main texts and know where to find assignments and deadlines? Has everyone read the Wikipedia article about AvH? Has everyone done the several questionnaires? (Intake experiences • Skills inventory I • Academic background & interests. See "schedule and assignments" page (week 4) for directions about getting smart phone apps for the course. What shall we do with/to the people who haven't gotten on board the SINQing Humboldt Canoe - haven't come forward with information about their interests and skills? Maybe we can find an idea in Walls's description of loading the canoe.:-)

about writing skills - comments about the "Humboldt Portrait" and "Leaving Home" assignments will be posted soon (and emailed). Think about this analogy: Our writing assignments are like doing science (broadly defined: systematic, reasoned investigation, reasoning, arguing the case): the assignments need evidence (details, stories, examples) the way the science needs data

Next week: animals; reading Darwin; Humboldt-named species; forming teams and scoping out projects; the iconic graphic of Chimborazo; apps Humboldt would have liked. What shall we do with the people who haven't