Polar Science 2006: Blogs for Boundary Street Public School

Latest Blog Entries

what happened this year

Posted By meganb, Boundary Street Public School on Sun Jan 21 16:07:54 2007

This year on Polar Science, the ice team tested 31 animals making a grand total of 62 animals. This year I learned that the seals in Antarctica are very calm, lazy animals and are actually very friendly. This is because there are no polar bears or predators towards the seals so they don't have to be afraid.

I have learned alot over this time studying polar science and am disappointed to see it come to an end.

Good luck!

week 9 by Laura

Posted By lauram, Boundary Street Public School on Sun Jan 21 15:56:20 2007

week 8 didn't work either.

For the Myoglobin IHC dying they had a problem with the antibody binding to the myoglobin. Something is decreasing there the result of the experiment. They need to go through there steps carefully and find which one is creating the problem.

They found that a possible reason that they were having this problem went back to the fixation drying out the tissue. Theye later found a solution to there problem.

The Oil-Red-O experiment was getting consistant results.....

week 7 by Laura

Posted By lauram, Boundary Street Public School on Sun Jan 21 15:27:11 2007

In week 7 they start to do testing on Weddel Seal muscle tissue and the scientist who wrote the update focused on the differences between mouse tissue and seal tissue.

The first obvious difference was the size of samples, the mouse tissue came in bigger peices because mice have very little fat making the muscle easier to find and handle. The opposite was true with the seals, they had a lot of fat on there body making it harder to get a good sampl of muscle. With the mouse tissue it was more.....

week 6 by Laura

Posted By lauram, Boundary Street Public School on Sun Jan 21 15:04:23 2007

I was right week 5 didn't work.

In the last few weeks they have learned 3 different ways of dying the tissue. Lead APTase to locate vasculature (they deliver oxygen ad take away carbon dioxide), Oil-Red-O to test for intramusclar fat and Immunohistochemistry to look for myoglobin.

Lead APTase and Oil-Red-O are quite a lot alike. First you make an incubation medium. This speeds up the desired reaction. They have to be placed in a fixative toinsure the integrity of the muscle as we put it.....

week 4 by Laura

Posted By lauram, Boundary Street Public School on Sun Jan 21 14:36:17 2007

Sorry, I can't do week 3 it won't open.

Week 4 will consist of many exciting events and one of them is called "Immunohistochemistry". The first step to this process is bringing the samples to room temperature wihich isn't as easy as just taking them out of the freezer and leaving them there for a couple of hours. This would make the samples dry out. To beat this delemma they put the sample in a humidifier. They then incubate in there for about an hour.

I think week 5 won't work either,.....

week 2 by Laura

Posted By lauram, Boundary Street Public School on Sun Jan 21 13:48:51 2007

Preparing for the experiment is just as much work as actually doing it. Using the Cryostat machine they split the tissue into super, super thin peices. Even with the technology we have today, you have to be very careful and accurate.

Some times ice crystals start to form on the tissue from being frozen and that will change the image dramatically under the microscope, breaking up the tissue from the change in size, this is called freeze fracture.

Most peices of tissue could be "snap.....

week 1 by Laura

Posted By lauram, Boundary Street Public School on Sun Jan 21 13:14:38 2007

The Weddel Seal can stay under water for 80 minutes without breathing whereas humans can only stay under for a few minutes at a time. This is what peaked the scientists' interest in the beginning. The reason we (as humans) need air is for our muscles (right down to our heart) if there is no oxygen in our blood our muscles create carbon dioxide.

The question is if the Weddel Seals can do it why can't we?

When we exercise our muscles tear in tiny amounts and we have something called "muscle.....

yes i can scientists in Antartica

Posted By Alex_Sports, Boundary Street Public School on Sun Jan 21 12:11:00 2007

As most of you all know yes i can polar scientists were in Antartica while they were there they had some ruff times and some good times but mostly the good times.

In week one most of the time they were talking about weddel seals and the way they they can do thing that humans dream of like go in ice cold rivers. In week 4 and 5 they talked about immunohistochemistry whick is about weddel seals and how to study muscle stem cells.

By week 7 it was sunny and only -5 so they started to find.....

finish

Posted By DesiM, Boundary Street Public School on Sat Jan 20 03:55:42 2007

i still; cant belive that there making some kind of medisone with it like oh my god

Last Blog

Posted By MichaelR, Boundary Street Public School on Fri Jan 19 10:06:39 2007

The ice team went to antartica because they needed to test seal tissue of all ages of seals. The ice team is sampling seal tissue to figure out how seals calapse their lungs to stay under water so long. They round the seals into a cage and sample them.

The ice team went back to Calorado because their done sampling the seals. The lab team is reseaching the seal tissue so they can figure out how seals stay under water and how they don't get crushed from the pressure.

polar06 science

Posted By JuliaB, Boundary Street Public School on Fri Jan 19 08:41:45 2007

In antarctica the scientist sampeled seal tissue.For halloween they dressed up as penguins it was very funny!They sampled 31 seal tissues.Diane & Susan came to visit my school it was really fun we did exiresizes Diane & Susan.

last blog

Posted By JordanW, Boundary Street Public School on Fri Jan 19 08:39:52 2007

This is the last blog il ever do on this program.

I hope you open up this program again next year.

Il visit the program once and a wile.

this year the ice team was sampeling seal musul tisue.

I dont know how there doing right now but il find out sune enough.

It all comes to a end.

Posted By KyleS, Boundary Street Public School on Fri Jan 19 07:37:26 2007

Now that the ice team is back from Antartica and experiments from the seals and there samples from 31 this year and now its the lab team's turn to do there job to figure out how the seals can hold their breath under the water for 80 minutes. There were a lot of good memories like how the guy fell off the snowmobile he must have been very scared.

Polar was a great opotunity for kids like me because I have learned a lot from polar. I didn't even know that seals could hold there breath for.....

What Happened On Polar 3, a finale.

Posted By janellef, Boundary Street Public School on Thu Jan 18 06:28:37 2007

In my last entry, I just finished talking about what happened in week five, and I didn't get to define what the Oil-Red-O and the Metachromatic's purpose's are. The Oil-Red-O is used to identify intramuscular fat and Metachromatic is used to is used to determine muscle fibre type. In week six the lab team continued to use Oil-Red-O and Metachromatic, and they also told use about Lead ATPase which is something that works similary with Oil-Red-O. In week seven, they began to separate the seal.....

Polar 06 # 2

Posted By emileew, Boundary Street Public School on Thu Jan 18 06:28:02 2007

In my last blog I wrote about Dr.Kanatous's journey. On this blog I am going to write about Dr.Hawke's journey.

In the first week, Dr.Hawke's lab team told us all about everything we could ever know about The Weddel Seal. Everything from the seal's amazing ability to swim deep under water for its food and hold it's breathe for that whole time! They also filled us in on what their reason is to researching the Weddel Seal. Which is so that we can find out how they hold their breath for.....

polar 06 over-last blog

Posted By Siobhan, Boundary Street Public School on Thu Jan 18 06:24:57 2007

I am dissapointed to say polar06 is coming to an end but I learned so much that I want to do it again.I learned about the samples the team took and about the breed of seals they were experimenting on and loads more....

The pictures were helpful to know what they were doing and writing about all the progress they made.i hope this continues again next year!!!

Polar06 conclusion

Posted By brendanO, Boundary Street Public School on Thu Jan 18 06:22:41 2007

The feild season for polar science is finished and the ice team took in samples from 31 specimens. They've had a busy time collecting samples during their trip to antarctica and the lab team has had a busy time analyzing the samples.

There have been some memorable moments during their trip, with snowmobiles tipping over, very high winds, and penguin halloween costumes.

I've learned alot about blood and muscle tissue, and there's still much to do. Great work polar ice team, and good.....

Antarctica to the lab

Posted By Yvonne_J, Boundary Street Public School on Thu Jan 18 06:15:45 2007

Reading about what they have done and what they thought of the trip was amazging.I aways thought that in Antarctica that it was all windy and lots of storms and ice hail but from the pictures of the seals and in the backround its all sunny.

I'am surprized they have sampled

31 animals but I'am even more surprized that there are 61 animals that were sampled in total for the last two season. I still cant believe they had gotton all 31 samples from Antarctica back all safely. I haven't seen a.....

the last one!

Posted By TaraB, Boundary Street Public School on Wed Jan 17 06:00:45 2007

In this hole year of doing polar06 I have learned all about plar bears and seals they have a good life out in antartica.In Octobre im prity shure that they sampled seals or blubber.And when some of the polar06 people came to our school they had us run and we would have to tell them if you thought it was hard or if it was easy.And they showed us picturs of them with seals and they took of there coats and they are used to that whether and when they go back to there homes they will have to get.....

what happend on polar science

Posted By DesiM, Boundary Street Public School on Wed Jan 17 06:00:32 2007

This is so exiting I cant believe that I get to tell you about the seals tisue.Seal tisue is some sort of medison for bone disorter . There are back in the labe in sunny paridis to them because they been in snow for a long time .I would not last a day in the snow. Its just like up here in canada know it is snowey im already freezing to my tippy toes. thats so much about me now back to polar science.do you know that they been up there for along time almost a year I think. .....

Boundary Street Public School Blogs

Recent Blogs