Live Eagle Cam

This was passed along by Mrs. Wilson.  I thought I'd post a link here since the students enjoyed it so much.  Here is a live stream of a bald eagle nest.  Pretty cool if you ask me!

5th Grade Webquest

Indus Valley Webquest

FCCS Representation at the 2nd Annual FCPS History Fair!

Thank you Gabby for demonstrating your awesome for the world to see!

6th Grade Outdoor School

What a great trip; seemed like the kids had fun!

Chilean Mummies Turn into Black Ooze: Here's Why

The famous Chinchorro mummies, which have remained preserved in Chile for more than 7,000 years, are now under threat from increased levels of moisture.

Humid air is allowing bacteria to grow, causing the mummies’ skin “to go black and become gelatinous,” said Ralph Mitchell, a professor emeritus of applied biology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who examined the rotting mummies.

The rapid deterioration began within the past 10 years, and has affected some of the 120 mummies that are housed at the University of Tarapacá’s archeological museum in the northern port city of Arica, the researchers said.

It was unclear why some of these mummies started degrading into black ooze, so Chilean preservationists asked Mitchell and his colleagues to study the microflora, or the bacteria, on the mummies’ bodies.

Tests showed that the bacteria aren’t from ancient organisms. They are simply bacteria that normally live on people’s skin, Mitchell said. He called the bacteria “opportunist” because “as soon as the right temperature and right moisture appeared, they started to use the skin as nutrients.”

Unless the mummies can be kept under the right temperature and humidity conditions, “the native microorganisms are going to chew these guys right up,” Mitchell said.

In their experiments, Mitchell and his team adjusted the air’s humidity levels from dry to damp, looking at how each humidity level affected the skin of the mummies. The researchers did their initial experiments on pig skin, to limit the amount of mummy skin they needed to use.

Skin-crawling experimentHumidity levels in the region of the museum have increased recently, Sepulveda said. Normally, Arica is arid — it is located near the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world (outside of Earth’s polar regions).

Chile’s changing climate may explain why the mummies are disintegrating, said Marcela Sepulveda, a professor of archaeology at the University of Tarapacá. They found that the skin began to fall apart after 21 days at high humidity.

To save the mummies, the museum will need to keep the humidity in the room where the mummies are stored between 40 and 60 percent, the researchers found. Higher humidity could cause more degradation, and lower humidity could damage the mummies’ skin, Mitchell said.

“It hasn't rained in parts of that desert for 400 years,” Mitchell said.

Efforts to preserve the mummies are underway. The museum’s researchers are measuring and adjusting the humidity, temperature and light in the room where the mummies are housed on a daily basis, Sepulveda said.

But in the past 10 years, fog has come in off the Pacific, possibly because of climate change, Mitchell said. And “because there is more moisture around, the mummies have begun to disintegrate,” he said.

Ancient Egyptian Mummy Found With Brain, No Heart

The Chinchorro were a hunter-gatherer group of people who lived along the coast of modern-day Chile and Peru, and they mummified people from all levels of society.

These measures could help preserve the Chinchorro mummies, which are at least 2,000 years older than Egyptian mummies. Radiocarbon dating puts the youngest mummies at 5050 B.C., making them the world’s oldest man-made mummies, Mitchell said. (Some older human remains may have been mummified by natural processes.)


This article was originally found here.

History updates 3/10!

Good morning everyone,

      We're finally getting out of these cold temperatures and enjoying almost spring weather; let's hope it stays!  Fortunately, it should mean the return to a normal schedule.  Therefore, I have planned out the next week and a half.

      

       5th Grade: Students will have their Greece test on Thursday 3/19.  Greece is a giant unit, covering two chapters.  We have also added a lot of supplemental information because it is such a fascinating area of history to learn about.  Students will receive their study guides on Friday the 13th, although both that and the jeopardy can already be found on my website on the Greece page. (MrdotKenny.Blogspot.com)  We will then start studying India, where we will uncover the secrets of Mohenjo-Daro, learn the basic tenets of Hinduism and Buddhism, and learn of a tyrant turned saint on the site of a battlefield.  All great stuff!

      6th Grade: Students will finally have their test on Tuesday 3/17.  We will play jeopardy on the day prior.  Students have had their study guides for quite some time now.  Some students have completed this already, but I would recommend you encourage your students to look over it before the test.  The weather and testing schedule has extended this unit far longer than I would have liked, so it has been spaced out a ton.  Fortunately, however, we have been able to use the strange schedule to work on a mini research project that the students have done quite well on thus far.  I can't wait to see everyone's finished product.  So, test on Tuesday and then we are on to China!  I am also so excited to be joining them on Thursday for outdoor school.  It is my favorite memory of 6th grade.  Make sure they pack a lunch!

Have a wonderful day everyone; your students are a joy and blessing to me, so thank you for sharing them!  Have those kiddos study!

5th Grade Study Guide

6th Grade Study Guide

5th Grade Jeopardy 

6th Grade Jeopardy