How the 1918 flu prepares for 21st Century, in a comic book

We’ve mentioned previously how important history is for understanding the science of pandemics and how people respond (good and bad examples). The folks around Seattle Washington have used history in an unusual format to present the need for preparedness and how to begin getting prepared. The comic or “graphic novel” format doesn’t trivialize the problem or the audience. Instead, it can help by removing the reader a step from the grim necessity (as a comic and as a historical dramatization) and by presenting the essence of preparation graphically, followed by resources for further study.

The comics are available now in pdf file format in the following languages. The Avian Flu Diary brought this to attention, http://afludiary.blogspot.com/2008/07/seattle-king-county-no-ordinary-flu.html

To promote pandemic flu preparedness, Public Health – Seattle & King County has developed a 12-page comic book on pandemic flu. Targeting readers of all ages, this story tells the tale of a family’s experience of the 1918 influenza pandemic. It also explains the threat of pandemic flu today, illustrates what to expect during a pandemic (such as school closures), and offers tips to help households prepare.

“No Ordinary Flu” comic book in Adobe PDF format

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Site Search Tags: graphic+novel, comics, history, pandemic, influenza, H5N1, Washington, 1918, Spanish+flu, English, Amharic, Arabic+al+arabiya, Bosnian+bosanski+jezik, Khmer, Chinese+Traditional, French, Farsi+Persian, Hmong+Hmoob, Korean, Laotian, Oromo, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Somali, Spanish, TagalogTigrigna, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, King+Countypublic health

More teacher resources (science, math, engineering)

The Native Access to Engineering Programme in Canada has long invested in supporting primary and secondary teachers. They have a bi-weekly newsletter which brings suggestions for science, math, and engineering resources. They also run an annual conference.

Teacher Magazine tossed this question into the TLN Forum If you were writing a mini-memoir of your teaching life, what would your six words be? Your memoir might be funny, inspirational, profound, mundane, deeply true. Want to play? Mull it over, doodle with pen and napkin or your favorite digital tool, and post your memoir for all of us to read.

Here are a few of their favourites -

They asked. I listened. We learned.

- Every day is a new adventure. -

Exercised the muscle of the mind.

- Please, don’t ask me for more!

- Daily empowering students who learn differently.

- Teacher, warrior, fighting for the future.

- We learned by doing, always curious.

- Untied shoelaces, missing front teeth – elementary!

- Learning as much as I teach.

- Active noisy classroom means brains working.

Since it’s summer, we throw the challenge out to you. Bonus points for those that reference with science, math and / or teaching indigenous students.

Send them to dawn@nativeaccess.com, and we’ll include our favourites in August 18 newsletter.

DreamCatching 2009
University of Manitoba
May 3-6, 2009

We are pleased to announce that the 6th edition of DreamCatching Hands-on Workshops in Math and Science for Teachers of Aboriginal Students, will be held in Winnipeg, MB next May.

The web site, http://www.dream-catching.com, will be updated shortly and registration will be available starting in August.

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Next issue The next issue of the MPES newsletter is due out in two weeks. If you have any information you’d like to share with colleagues please email it to dawn @ nativeaccess DOT com.

Nae mailing list Nae @ nativeaccess DOT com http://nativeaccess.com/mailman/listinfo/nae_nativeaccess.com

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Site Search Tags: IKTeK, SciTEK, indigenous+knowledge, engineering, teachers, SME, NAEP, Canada

Alaska bluets not dragons or flowers but damsels

Steve over at whatdoino grabbed a great photo

• Bugs, Boleta, Barbecue, and a Tacky Green Russula

of the ladybugs I mentioned earlier

• More bug projects

Along with the ladybug, he posted a photo of what most of us would call a dragonfly or maybe a darningneedle or damselfly.

It is a bluet, but not the flower.

I found this out because in July 2005 I photographed a midnight visitor in Bethel.

This stunner looks like it is made of turquoise and jet by a Pueblo artist.

Of course, I had to find out what kind of dragonfly it was or whether it was a darningneedle (and was there a difference between darning needles, damselflies, and dragonflies?). Turns out to be a bluet. I think it is a taiga bluet.

I had no idea that Alaska had that many related insects. Nor that our state insect isn’t the mosquito but the 4-spotted skimmer, a dragonfly.

• Dragonflies of Alaska by John Hudson and Robert H. Armstrong is the local reference, Todd Communications, 203 W. 15th Ave. Suite 102, Anchorage, AK 99510, for $12.95. ISBN:1-57833-302-4 available at TitleWave

• http://www.turtlepuddle.org/alaskan/dragonflies.html “Dragonflies of Alaska” is a website with great photos (not related to the book)

• Digital Dragonflies with photos by family. This site is related to the book, A Dazzle of Dragonflies which one really needs in a natural history library. They also explain how to get those dazzling photos (flatbed scanner).
  by Forrest L. Mitchell and James L. Lasswell
  # Hardcover: 224 pages
  # Publisher: Texas A&M University Press (April 30, 2005)
  # Language: English
  # ISBN-10: 1585444596
  # ISBN-13: 978-1585444595
  # Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.8 x 0.8 inches
  http://www.dragonflies.org/catalog.htm

• Field Key to Adult Alaska Dragonflies Dennis Paulson Slater Museum of Natural History University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA 98416 Revised Feb. 2004

• “Alaska’s Dragons” with a good photo of the 4-spotted http://www.wildlifenews.alaska.gov/

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Site Search Tags: bluets, bugs, insects, damselfly, dragonfly, photography, Kuskokwim, Bethel, tundra, taiga, whatdoino-steve

More rural Alaska solid waste health resources

Lynn Zender posted a series of valuable resources on solid waste management and dumpsite health risk studies in rural Alaska as a comment here on the other site Biocultural Sciences. Because comments from there don’t get noted here, I’m making a post to bring these resources to your attention.

• Adverse birth outcomes associated with open dumpsites in Alaska Native Villages

Lynn mentions SWAN

• “Solid Waste Alaska Network, Solid Waste Management (SWM) for Alaska Native Villages.” http://www.ccthita-swan.org/main/index.cfm

I thought I had referred folks to SWAN which is a highly useful discussion site and resource. My apologies because it is very well done. The site is sponsored by CCTHITA (Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska)

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Site Search Tags: solid+waste, dumps, trash, 13C4.wordpress.com, Zender, SWMP, Biocultural+Sciences, analytical+anthropology, SWAN, AmeriCorps, IGAP

Most popular in 2007, 2008 YKWP (boring post)

[This is a housekeeping entry.]

I suspect many readers visit for specific posts and others are using feed readers for posts and comments. While the blog format is very flexible for information and discussion it’s technical restrictions are a little challenging for me to keep folks up to date on revisions and to highlight other posts of possible interest.

Index or Contents posts like this one [such as the alphabetical listing or the reverse chronological listing] will be cross-indexed on the Table of Contents page. Because it is a regular post, feed readers will be notified.

“Popular posts” is one such tool provided by WordPress.com. I doubt that it is very accurate for actual readers but the relative rankings provide an alternative way to find items of interest. I wish there was a way to get the full set of data they collect, especially for the referrers (see http://cerebraloddjobs.edublogs.org/2006/09/30/referrers-in-edublogs/), to see what it is that people are looking for. This would help to revise information or add new information [so would reader comments and queries]. Unfortunately,WP.com don’t have a consistent way to present this data to blog administrators (asking for daily referrers gives a very different set of information than getting the weekly or yearly referrers. Same data but the presentation to the human at this end is patchy.) Notice how the titles are truncated, for example.

The ranking for 2007 is given first and then for 2008 (up to July 12)

More historical resources, Mr Peter Nick of Russian Mission

Nastasia (Nastasia’s Window to Rural Living – http://yupikteacherinprogress.blogspot.com/), one of the Tundra Teachers, writes from Russian Mission.

Her grandfather Ap’a Peter “Papasneak” Nick just turned 90 years old.

He remembers how the Great Pandemic of 1918-1919 affected him and those around him.

When his health started declining he told me how his mom died when he was around two due to the flu epidemic. He would look down and put his hand in a sweeping motion in front of him and say, “I can still see it when they put her in the mud. My auntie Qiatguq- the first Qiatguq behind me, and behind her my other three aunties.” He said that his aunt that took him in died shortly after his mom, then he was adopted by the couple he calls his parents – Peter and Nastasia Nick. I once asked him what was his mom’s name, he did not recall only knowing her as mom. His biological father was not in the picture, being a Caucasian miner by the name of George Fredricks who later moved to Sleetmute. By the time he was a teenager both his adoptive parents died and he lived with his uncle and cousins.

• My Grandfather Peter – http://yupikteacherinprogress.blogspot.com/2008/07/my-grandfather-peter.html [there's a video of him and his family, which unfortunately my computer can't view]

I hope we get to hear more from him and from others. There is an urgent need to understand how people cope with disasters. In Canada, there has been a special call for nonagenarians to work with epidemiologists.

Read the entry here [...] British Columbian? Over 98? Please call
Yesterday Helen Branswell reported on a British Columbia project to interview people who recall the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-19.

Oral histories aren’t just recordings. When asked by prepared interviewers, people’s experiences are invaluable for those yet to come. [see your local archivist or state museum for more information. I have a number of resources I send out to the SciTEK teachers but none posted on-line at the moment.]

I also hope Nastasia continues writing.

Previous posts–

• What he knew in 1918 could save millions of lives today
  http://ykalaska.wordpress.com/2006/07/09/what-he-knew-in-1918-could-save-millions-of-lives-today/
• Jesse Lee Home, Alaska and the pandemic of 1919
  http://ykalaska.wordpress.com/2008/02/23/jesse-lee-home-alaska-and-the-pandemic-of-1919/
• Alaska History reading list
• Alaska and Eskimo data in 1920 British report
• Alaska history books
• Cangerlaagpiit (Epidemics) historical lessons
• Excerpts hearings on Alaska influenza devastation
• Flu history and research database
• Influenza in Alaska 1919 Hearings
• Letters from 1918 SW Alaska British Columbia
• More historical pandemic resources (Michigan archives)
• More historical resources (Brevig Mission)
• New historic pandemic resources available
• The National Archives: Influenza Epidemic of 1918
• Timeline of Human Flu Pandemics
• More history to follow up
• Historical analyses help plan for future pandemics

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Site Search Tags: Russian+Mission, nonagenarian, 1918, Spanish+flu, pandemic, oral+history, epidemiology, Yup’ik, Yukon, Tundra+Teachers, schoolchildren, science+projects, SciTEK, heritage

Tundra swallows take out the honey bucket

After 15 good years, the Dog Who Smiles (Tewa terrier, from Española to Bethel) developed kidney disease. Among her contributions to innumerable neighbor kids, alpaca camp, her cat, and myself, she left just as the swallows were arriving. For the first time I could put up a bird box, jerryrigged but evidently acceptable.

The box is placed on the north side of the house to keep it from getting too hot. There is a hinge so I can clean the box after the birds leave, about the 2nd or 3rd week in July (keeps pests and parasites down for next year.) I still don’t know why the birds start so many nests in different boxes and why so many birds try to build in the same box. It’s also hard to tell who the parents are supposed to be as there seems to be more than one pair involved with this box. I recorded the sounds from the box and the approaching adults, but it is tedious to edit so will provide a link later.

The mud swallows come later than these swallows which are among the earliest birds to arrive and they therefore leave about 2 weeks later. I once had the mud swallows build in a hole in the west wall of the house, but only that once.

For some reason, I and others around town have noticed fewer birds, big and little, than in years past. It’s not just because people build on the tundra or fill in the ponds or drive too fast on the dirt roads. Maybe it is just this colder spring.

Sanitation is important to birds and other animals like us. Click on these images to see the larger versions.

This bird is carrying out the fecal sack from the nest. I used the binoculars one time to watch as one adult arrived. The adult inside the box deftly turned and neatly defecated the anuk bag so the arriving adult could take it away.

Fecal bag. When I have been watching, the birds will take the sack out of sight behind the neighbors, towards the tundra pond (“naturally constructed wetlands system”)

Fecal splat. The usual kind of bird dropping.

part of the Toilets and trash in the Last Frontier (Alaska) (Pool) at Flickr

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Site Search Tags: swallows, birdnest, WatSan, honey+bucket, migration, science+project, housekeeping, tundra

More bug projects

Just heard this project. I wish I heard it last week when I saw a ladybug, maybe in Bethel or it could have been in Anchorage. The bug was somewhat oblong, as I recall, and dark brownish-red, maybe with some black spots. The ladybug/ladybird did not have the color and shape of the (once) familiar red ones back east. I didn’t think to get a picture.

But I found this about Alaska’s ladybugs, including an anatomy diagram. The color is more like what I recall (not the bright red of the eastern ladybugs).
The species ladybug eyespot (fig. 1) eats aphids in Alaska that do significant damage to flowers and vegetables. http://www.alaska.edu/opa/eInfo/index.xml?StoryID=118

2008-07-21 Steve took a picture, here at whatdoino, Bugs, Boleta, Barbecue, and a Tacky Green Russula

[see previous bug projects,
• Students, bug your teachers, please
• Science project — insects

Lost Ladybug Project Turns Kids Into Scientists

All Things Considered, July 5, 2008
Calling all kids! Cornell University wants you to find and photograph ladybugs. John Losey, a professor of entomology at Cornell University, hopes children will help document ladybug populations around the
country. Some native species are dwindling, while exotics are on the rise. To participate in the project, go to the Lost Ladybug Project Web site or send an e-mail to ladybug @ cornell . edu

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Site Search Tags: bugs, insects, ladybugs, Cornell.edu, science+project, whatdoino-steve

Water clean enough for its specific use, not to flush away

I’ve argued for a long time based on water quality that we should turn the issue of sanitation on its head [turn the head on its head, so to speak]– forget about a flush sewer system but instead examine how to get and maintain water which is clean enough for what we need it for. Why waste scarce and precious and energy-intensive drinking water to remove urine and feces when we need clean water for cooking, drinking, and washing hands? It may be that a piped system is best for a community or household, but let’s prove it.

http://sanitationupdates.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/latrines-trounce-toilets/

Newswise ­

While Americans may consider flush-and-forget-it indoor plumbing to be the pinnacle of sanitary science, the lowly latrine could be a far better solution for many parts of the developing world, say researchers at Michigan Technological University.

…University’s Sustainable Futures Institute analyzed worldwide barriers to sanitation. … a scarcity of clean drinking water is not as big an issue as one might expect.

In fact, installing water-guzzling appliances such as toilets can actually promote unsanitary conditions when the effluent is discharged untreated into once-clean rivers and streams. A properly built latrine, on the other hand, keeps sewage safely separate from drinking water.

“Our challenge has been to look at what interventions make the most difference,” Watkins said. Their findings show that small changes can be more important in preserving health than big engineering projects, a fact that Watkins, an engineer, relates with some consternation. “As engineers, we like to build stuff. But handwashing is really important, too,” he said. “Even a simple thing like not dipping your hand into the water pot can make a big difference.”

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Site Search Tags: watsan, water, toilets, dry+sanitation, sustainable,
, sanitationupdates.wordpress.com
YKAlaska, Grassroots Science, Bumsted

Updates to previous posts

from Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society

“Science in the News” is produced daily by Sigma Xi as a service for its members and the public. It highlights science and technology news stories appearing in the mainstream media. The accompanying Web links provide access to the full text of the articles on the Web sites of the individual media outlets from which they are taken. For more about the service, visit American Scientist Online.

If you experience any problems with the URLs (page not found, page expired, etc.), we suggest you proceed to the Science in the News section of American Scientist Online, which mirrors the daily e-mail update.

June 30, 2008

Arctic Could See First Ice-Free Summer This Year
from ABC News

The distinct possibility that the North Pole could be free of sea ice — for the first time in recorded history — may become a cold reality this summer.

The Arctic’s thick, resilient multiyear sea ice (frozen sea surface), which usually accumulates and lasts through the annual melting season, has started to give way to thinner, vulnerable first-year ice.

Satellite data gathered by the … National Snow and Ice Data Center showed that young sea ice, which is no more than about 60 inches deep and much more susceptible to melting away, now makes up only 72 percent of the Arctic ice sheet. Using that estimate, scientists at the center see a 50 percent chance that ice at the highest point in the Arctic will melt by the summer’s end.
http://snipurl.com/2qgra
see previous Where is… Bethel ice pack

1. Where is… transport hub of the world « Grassroots Science
2. How low can it go? Arctic meltdown « Grassroots Science
3. Animated Arctic ice retreat for 2007: watch the melt rushing by « Grassroots Science
4. Arctic ice pack difficult to “heal” massive Beaufort fractures « Grassroots Science

Sea of Trash
from the New York Times Magazine

Off Gore Point, where tide rips collide, the rolling swells rear up and steepen into whitecaps. Quiet with concentration, Chris Pallister decelerates from 15 knots to 8, strains to peer through a windshield blurry with spray, tightens his grip on the wheel and, like a skier negotiating moguls, coaxes his home-built boat … through the chaos of waves.

… A 55-year-old lawyer with a … private law practice in Anchorage, Pallister spends most of his time directing a nonprofit group called the Gulf of Alaska Keeper, or GoAK (pronounced GO-ay-kay).

… In practice, the group has, since Pallister and a few like-minded buddies founded it in 2005, done little else besides clean trash from beaches. All along Alaska’s outer coast, Chris Pallister will tell you, there are shores strewn with marine debris, as man-made flotsam and jetsam is officially known. Most of that debris is plastic, and much of it crosses the Gulf of Alaska or even the Pacific Ocean to arrive there.
http://snipurl.com/2nmjt
see previous Where is… duckie invasion

Arctic Volcanoes Found Active at Unprecedented Depths
from National Geographic News

Buried under thick ice and frigid water, volcanic explosions are shaking the Arctic Ocean floor at depths previously thought impossible, according to a new study.

Using robot-operated submarines, researchers have found deposits of glassy rock—evidence of eruptions—scattered over more than 5 square miles of the seabed.

Explosive volcanic eruptions were not thought to be possible at depths below the critical pressure for steam formation, or 2 miles. The deposits, however, were found at seafloor depths greater than 2.5 miles.
http://snipurl.com/2qgu2