zooplankton = wonder
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Making plankton.
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Let ‘em float!
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

A menagerie in Marzipan.
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

13 choices for Which Critter is Best.
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

A beach combing scavenger hunt.
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Taking inventory of the scavenger hunt.
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Dolphin Batik Tote Bag
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Party Favors for all!!
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

What a great day! Everything went well, we had beautiful weather, and everyone had fun. What more could we ask for? Johann wanted to have an ocean–themed party, but when I started planning activities, I quickly realized there was no way we could do it at our house with our space limitations.

We looked at a number of places around town and finally decided on Project Oceanology at Avery Point. They have fantastic oceanography education programs for kids and I thought that maybe they did parties too, so I checked their website. Since their programs are for 4th grade and up, having a party there was a great opportunity to do something for younger kids.

Johann chose the party option entitled “Plankton Pandemonium”. Emily was the young lady who did the activities with the kids and she was great! She got a sample of plankton and put out petri dishes at a number of microscopes so everyone had a chance to see the plankton. There was also a video of plankton the kids could watch. Then the kids made their own “plankton” out of mesh fabric, coffee filters, yarn scraps, feathers, pom-poms, etc.

Since Project O is in a two–story building with an open staircase, once the crafting was done, we held plankton races. All the kids went upstairs and when Emily gave the signal, they dropped their plankton creations. There had to be two heats, because of the number of kids there, and then a tie breaker race. Because plankton have to float to stay alive, the winner of the race was the one who’s plankton stayed afloat the longest.

While Emily prepared the second activity for the kids, we had cupcakes and ice cream. Johann loved having Happy Birthday sung to him. Once he blew out his number 9 candle on one of the cupcakes, I put the platter with all the marzipan cupcakes on the table. All the kids had the roundest, big saucer eyes I’d ever seen! Some of the moms asked me if I was in business making cake decorations and that I should be if I wasn’t. One said the marzipan was too beautiful to eat. Eric explained what each creature was and then everyone chose what they wanted. We chose invertebrates that the kids might not have seen before, to show them there is much more in the ocean besides the high profile fish and cetaceans everyone is familiar with.

Since the weather held, we were able to do the scavenger hunt at the small beach near the Project O building. The kids divided up into teams, got their plastic bins, checklists, and beachcombing guides, and jumped right in! Once the teams had everything on the list that they could find, Emily discussed each item with the kids, explaining more about the animals and answering any questions. Eric said it was a good thing that we had the outdoor activity right after the sugar rush of the cupcakes and ice cream! All the kids had loads of fun exploring on the beach.

Then it was time to open presents. Johann liked everything he got. They were surprised when we gave out our party favor gifts. Eric, Johann, and I dyed the blank tote bags using Eric’s copper dolphin chop and soy wax. We got each child their own copy of The Ocean Book, Aquarium and Seaside Activities and Ideas for All Ages, a small all–weather notebook for writing down observations, an ocean creatures pencil, and an orca eraser.

In answering questions and compliments, I explained to the moms why we chose Project O and why we did everything we did for the party. Johann said he loves the ocean so much that he wanted to share that with all of his friends. And since this is the first birthday party he’s ever had for friends, we wanted to make it extra special. Johann thanked us for the party on the way home in the car. He said it was the best day of his life.

The adults learned just as much from the party as the kids did. An audible “wow” came from the group when Emily told them that phytoplankton is responsible for most of the oxygen we breathe. We helped instill a new appreciation for the ocean and the organisms that live there. Hopefully from now on when the kids are at the beach or they think about the ocean, they will look at everything in a whole new way.

Making of an Ocean Birthday creature gluing the gill rosette on a white spotted sea goddess rendered in marzipan.
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Johann decided on Project Oceanology and an ocean theme. Since Project O is all about hands-on ocean education, it’s perfect for us! I thought cupcakes would be easier to serve than worrying about a cake and inevitably forgetting to bring a knife to cut it. While surfing the web looking for ideas, we found a business that uses fondant to decorate cakes and cupcakes. The owner did some cupcakes for a party with sea creatures on it that looked wonderful. I didn’t feel I knew enough about fondant to make decorations for this party using it, but I could do something similar in marzipan.

When I was 10, my family was stationed in Germany and I was taking art lessons from Heidi Herzfeld. She was a kind, gentle person. She only taught children how to draw and paint in watercolors, I think because she knew children wouldn’t get hung up on her handicap or have a problem with her being in a wheel chair. A childhood case of polio had left her paralyzed. She was one of the very few people in my life who saw my talent and nurtured it. In fact, I loved her so much that when the time came for us to move, I asked to stay in Germany with Heidi so that I could continue to study with her.

Tammy hard at work on a marzipan rendition of the Giant Pacific Octopus
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

One day, when I was the only child that had come for lessons, she took me into her back room and showed me the new project she had been working on. She smiled and her eyes shone when she saw my amazed reaction. She had a 4–foot–long table covered in marzipan creations, all various fruits and vegetables. They were so perfect, I had to keep reminding myself that these didn’t come from miniature trees and plants, but they were marzipan that she had molded and painted with food coloring. She explained to me how she did it and then demonstrated how she made a green apple, even how she painted on the blush highlights so it looked like it had been kissed by the sun.

Although my tutorial had been excellent, I had never done it before, so I wasn’t sure I could pull it off. Now was my time to try. If it didn’t work, I would just serve plain cupcakes. We went out to buy new paint brushes yesterday, since I couldn’t find any in the house that hadn’t already touched paint. When we got home, I got to work. Eric and Johann helped me choose creatures and provided pictures and toy animals as models. It took me all day, but it was worth it! I had so much fun making the critters and they will add a special touch to Johann’s party.

Even though we showed him how a statically charged balloon will light up a compact fluorescent bulb when held up to it, he had yet to see a big enough charge that threw a spark on its own. He had played with the classic experiment of dragging his socked feet on the rug in order to shock both of us, but that was still something you couldn’t see. He knew it was there because you could feel it. I wanted him to see it too and I wasn’t sure he believed me that you could under the right conditions. This was beyond frustrating.

About a month ago I was doing one last load of laundry before bed. Eric and Johann were getting into their pjs in the bathroom where it’s warmer. I was in the bedroom folding the white polyester blanket. Since I’d run out of fabric softener, it was more staticky than usual. I heard a couple of good crackles as I started to pull it apart and realize this was my chance to show Johann.

I ran and got Eric and Johann, we turned out the lights, and then I pulled the folds of the blanket apart. It was a fairy fireworks display! The moment I was waiting for finally happened. Johann not only saw it, but got big round eyes and had a sense of wonder and awe on his face. “Whoa! That’s really cool, Mommy!”

We played with the blanket until it seemed like all the static was gone, but then by shaking the blanket, we were able to generate more static electricity. Eric got into it and at Johann’s urging, kept shaking it more and more to make more sparks. Eric brought the blanket high as he was shaking it and I noticed the ceiling light flickered.

Eric did it again for Johann to see. The same compact fluorescent light bulb lit up. You could see the light inside the coil was the same purple-blue light of the sparks. Eric continued to shake and lift the blanket to try to get more of the light bulbs in the ceiling light to turn on. At that point I could feel the hairs on my face standing on end and started getting an apprehensive feeling that we were generating too much of a charge. So I suggested we stop.

We let the charge die down, but Johann’s enthusiasm for our static experiment hadn’t. He didn’t want to stop. So Eric did one more run on everything. When the charge got to be as high as before, he stopped again. The whole room felt electrified. Then I noticed the air smelled so clean like a magnified post thunderstorm sky in the mountains. The last time I’d smelled that smell was years ago when we had used an ionizer in our livingroom that didn’t shut off when it was supposed to. Bedtime had passed over an hour before, but that didn’t matter. Johann’s skepticism had been replaced with scientific wonder. I don’t think any of us will look at the white blanket quite the same again.

He has been doing a series of these quick weekly videos highlighting endangered species and the science we talk about that he thinks are especially interesting or cool in a video podcast format he calls Johann’s Science Week. We are negotiating his own, tightly monitored, blog when I resurrect heupel.com as a family portal.

Well, it may be a stretch to call it misunderstood, but…

Brown morph red-footed boobie,
originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Tammy and I recently gave Johann his own Flickr account. He’s been wanting one for a while and now that he is taking pictures regularly with me, there was a new reason to consider it. At the same time we are encouraging his use of Flickr as an opportunity to learn, as we do in most things. One thing is that I have taken to making a detective/research game out of each of his requests to add someone as a contact. (almost all are from my own contacts so I am familiar with their work). For Flickr member Aleutian Fox I gave Johann 9 short answer questions about the Aleutian Islands which ranged from fairly easy (What European Nation first settled and claimed the islands) to reasonably hard (how were the islands formed). Encouraging him to continue to use books and cite sources, he also had to use only books for the answers and provide me a list of the books. Once he answered all the questions he could add Aleutian Fox as his contact.

I took off to my evening class after giving him the list and the plan that he and Tammy would visit the library tomorrow. By the time I got home from class he had only two questions left, and he was working on those! Within another 15 minutes he had them all done. All of the answers had come from books in our own private library, three of my books (The Sea Floor, Whales, Whaling and the Ocean Ecosystem, and An Introduction to the World’s Oceans) and two of his own (How People Live and Our Country’s Presidents). So much for going to the town library.

GANSO PATOLA, originally uploaded by sparkyfaisca.

The next Flickr Challenge was Sparky Faisca. I wanted Johann to grab 5 pictures from his stream that represent 5 different orders within the class Aves and provide the complete classification for each (Sparky provides common name and species). Pretty easy, except Johann discovered a problem. Sparky has some wonderful images of a Northern Gannet. He listed the scientific name as Sula bassana, and one of Johann’s books, Smithsonian Institution: Animal, had it as Morus bassana. Johann pointed this genus confusion out to me, so I showed him how to use the ITIS website to verify the current classification. Problem solved!

Ooops! ITIS reports both as being confirmed valid species names. There seems to be a bit of confusion or misunderstanding there…

Ok. The Gannets and Boobies together make up the Sulidae. I remember that much from my trip to Belize… Why? Because for organized conservation in Belize it all began with the boobies. Sula is the genus of the boobies such as the Red-footed boobie Sula sula while Morus is the genus of the Gannets such as the Australasian gannet Morus serrator, and Papasula is the genus for Abbot’s boobie Papasula abbotti which appears to be much older branch than the Sula and may be intermediate to the gannet and boobie genus’. So why is the Northern Gannet in both Morus and Sula at ITIS? For that matter why is the Abbot’s Boobie in both Papasula and Sula?

Northern Gannet in Flight ©Jim Heupel

Johann suggested that the Northern Gannet, being a true gannet, must be in genus Morus with the other true gannets. I had to concur. Just before bed Johann sent me the following classification for the Northern Gannet:

Classification for Norther Gannet

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Ciconiiformes

Family

Sulidae

Genus

Morus

Species

Morus bassanus(Linnaeus, 1758)

And just to be complete… here is the classification for the Red-footed boobie I captured in Belize…

Classification for Red-footed Boobie

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Ciconiiformes

Family

Sulidae

Genus

Sula

Species

Sula sula(Linnaeus, 1766)

Life Photo Meme,

(Update: Dad just sent us a photo of a Northern Gannet in flight from his trip to Iceland. Three shots of Sulidae!! Thanks Dad!!)

Johann’s Great White Egret
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

At the same spot I managed to catch the egret in mid mummichog flip…

Gulp!
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Classification

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Ciconiiformes

Family

Ardeidae

Genus

Ardea

Species

Ardea alba

Life Photo Meme

Flying Fish
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

We decided to let Johann start using the old Canon Rebel to use with supervision. He went out to Avery Point with it on Friday and got some butters and then this afternoon we passed by some prime marshes where he and I shot some egrets, herons and a kingfisher. As we neared the hardware store there is a small old factory on the river, we got out to shoot ducks there when this osprey screamed low over head. I was already loaded with the 400 and a 1.4x and no time to change. Johann was so jazzed about the whole thing. Now he wants a flickr account and access to the Lightroom software.

Interestingly, I saw something I hadn’t seen with ospreys before as two other ospreys buzzed this one a couple of times as it looked for a suitable perch to eat. They were all juveniles and from that behavior I would assume they were probably nest mates. I have seen nest mates sharing and pushing each other over food brought by a parent. Maybe this is the continuation of that behavior.

Tammy and Johann accompanied me to the CT scanner and the orderly asked Johann if he wanted to push me back… Oi! My 8 year old son pushing me a 1/4 mile through the hallways! Johann had a blast and handled it brilliantly. I think he was speeding a bit, but he managed to navigate a few tight spaces and didn’t dump me down the stairs so no complaints. He does love to help, and he has been feeling pretty helpless regarding my condition so I really appreciate that orderly. Of course I think I’ll pass on his suggestion to give Johann the keys to the car!

The ER doc said urology would see me the next day as a stand by patient on his consult request (he called one of the urology docs at home) so off we went once more the next morning for a stand by.

Good news?

Yep, after another 5 hours at the hospital, and two more bureaucratic SNAFU ‘s, I’m scheduled for surgery tomorrow. Hopefully it will be the only surgery needed (last time round, it took two to get the job done).

As we sift the gravel out of the dirt in the garden, we come across worms now. Last year there were no worms. Johann was concerned about the worms being taken from their homes, so we began what we affectionately refer to as the Worm Rescue and Relocation Program. Whenever we find a worm, we give it to Johann to put in another part of the garden. This ritual took on a new twist last week when Johann was running with a dowel he was pretending was a spear. He was a prehistoric human hunting for food.

I asked him who he was. Was he Johann the Barbarian today? Yes, Mommy!!! Eric explained that the Romans used that term to refer to anyone who wasn’t Roman and stood up against the regime. That just gave Johann even more purpose. Now he was Johann the Barbarian, Rescuer and Protector of all oppressed earth worms everywhere! We suddenly became the Romans and Johann had to save the earth worms from us.

Hours later he was the new Lone Ranger, riding his stick horse around the house. We came full circle when it was time to make tortillas again a few days later. Johann the Kid got away with 3 tortillas before dinner. But he shared with his sidekick, Daring Daddy, so that was OK. There was one time they ate so many that there was barely enough left for dinner!