EEC 413 Science Investigation Journals

The Man Over the Magic City

Today I got to see a major Birmingham landmark; the Vulcan statue. If you don't know him by that name, he is the big statue guy standing way up on the top of Red Mountain who you can see from all over Birmingham pointing up to the sky.

I went to Vulcan park during the middle of the day when no one else was around, so I was able to take my time and really look at everything. I had never been before and was very excited to have the whole place to myself to explore!

I always wondered what was so exciting about some guy named Vulcan that he got to have a statue of himself way up there for everyone to look at. I found out that Vulcan is actually a name from Roman mythology. He was the god of fire and forge. (That means he made things out of metal like a blacksmith.)

As I read all of the signs around Vulcan Park I figured out that they decided to put a statue of the Roman god of fire and forge in Birmingham because of Birmingham's history of making steel and iron. He is a symbol that represents Birmingham's industrial history. If you look in my photo gallery you can see a picture of me next to a really neat statue of different layers of rocks. I decided to do a little research about why Birmingham became such a big producer of steel and the process of making steel. Click here to explore and learn about how steel is made.  You can also Click here to learn some fun facts about rocks!

Dog Days

Whew what an exciting day! I got to see a part of Birmingham I've never experienced before, meet new people and race down the street faster than ice cream melts in the August sun! We went to the dog park and I got to race with the fastest dog in town. Bless my biscuits was he ever fast, but I guess I should slow down and start at the beginning.

Today I was lucky enough to go to the dog park in Glen Iris with my handsome collie friend Sugar.While we were there he showed me there is a lot more planning you have to do when going to the dog park than I ever would have thought. There is special protocol, or rules you should follow, when you meet a new dog and their owner. For example, it is not polite to just run up to a dog you don't know. You should wait and allow them to approach you and smell you first because that is how dogs say hello. It is like their way of shaking hands. I also saw

how it is important to share when you are at the dog park. Sharing a ball is an easy way to make new friends at the dog park just like when you share toys on your playground.

While we were at the park we saw many dogs of different sizes and breeds. Some were very large and lazy. Some were smaller and bounced up and down a lot, but none could ran as fast as my friend Sugar. He was running laps around everyone and no one could keep up. His favorite thing to do is run. On our walk home I wanted to know why he liked running so much. I was curious as to how it felt to go so fast, so I tried it out! I fastened myself onto his collar nice and tight and held on for dear life. He ran the length of a 50 foot fence in 5 seconds flat! You can see it in the video below if you don't believe me. 

After racing with Sugar I wanted to know just how fast I went. Can you help me do the math? He ran 50 feet in 5 seconds. If there are 5,280 feet in one mile, how fast did he run? Don't forget to convert your seconds into minutes and then hours! I did some research and a horse can run an average of 40 miles per hour. A cheetah can run up to 70 miles per hour! That's pretty fast, but they can only do it for a very short period of time before they get tired and slow down. I wonder if a dog could outrun a cheetah over a longer distance. What do you think?

A Day in the Garden

Well it looks like the last of the summer tomatoes are about done and ready to make room for the fall garden plants. I just love the switch to the crisp fall time filled with festivals, all the shades of orange you can imagine and not to mention all the good food! Today I got to see my friend's small backyard garden and learn all about the benefits of growing your own vegetables! 

She has a small 3 foot by 5 foot plot by her back fence where she had all kinds of goodies growing this summer. She had yellow squash, zuccinni, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, dill, chives and even basil! There are only a few tomatoes and peppers left now though. The season is over for the other vegetables. The tomatoes and peppers are still producing because their plants can keep making more vegetables through the really hot August weather, unlike the other plants which died.

While we were out looking at the garden I asked my friend why she didn't just buy her vegetables at the store like most people do, and she said she does during the winter and when it's something she can't grow herself, but there are some things like tomatoes and squash and peppers that are cheaper, easy and healthier to grow yourself. Also, she said, it's a lot more fun and gives you an excuse to play in the dirt! 

A lot of the veggies we buy in the store that are frozen or canned have a lot of sugar and salt added to them so that they aren't as good for you as a fresh garden vegetable. 

There are lots of delicious recipes my friend likes to make with her fresh veggies. She uses her tomatoes like the ones we saw in sauces, on sandwiches and even her own salsa! (If you look in my photo gallery you can see some pictures of the yummy salsa)

There are a lot of great ways to keep track of the healthy food you eat. One of my friend's favorite ways is using an app called My Fitness Pal. She likes that it is right there on her phone so she can record what she had to eat just as soon as she has eaten it. Also it's free and very easy to use! There are some more fun apps for your phone that talk about eating healthy food that are free and easy to use like Max's Plate and Awesome Eats. You should check them out!

Flat Granny Goes Nuts!

Goodness gracious what a day! Today I found myself down in south Alabama on a pecan farm learning all about how much work goes into such a little nut! It was a beautiful sunny day and hot enough to fry an egg outside when I took the tour around the 100 acre pecan farm in Lillian, AL. I was showed all over and got a behind the scenes look at what it takes to get those tasty little nuts ready for Christmas pies.

I got to see the long lines of irrigation running through the fields to keep the young trees well watered during summer droughts. I also saw some of the tractors they use to keep the orchards, that's what they call fields of trees, all neat and tidy. They use the tractors to mow the grass and pick up any tree limbs that fall as well as spray the trees for fungus and insects. If you look closely in the background of one of the pictures I put in my photo gallery you can see the farmer on his tractor spreading fertilizer under the trees! (I asked but they wouldn't let me drive for safety reasons.)

After driving through the fields I was shown the harvesting equipment in the barn. They have a "shaker" which they attach to the trunk of the tree and it shakes the tree so that the pecans fall onto the ground. Then they pull a harvester behind the tractor which is a lot like a giant vacuum that picks up all of the fallen pecans. After all of the pecans have been picked up they are run through a cleaner which gets rid of the bad nuts and sends the good nuts down a conveyor belt where people look through each nut by hand and make sure no bad pecans have gotten through. Once they are sure all of the nuts are good they box them up in really big boxes and take them off to be sold to someone who will sell them to bigger companies who turn the pecans into delicious treats for all of us to eat!

Boy it sure is a lot more work than I ever thought just to get a little old pecan, but I sure am glad someone does it so I can bake delicious pecan pies! During my tour I got to hear a lot of interesting facts about pecans, like did you know there are over 1000 different varieties of pecan trees? Also the United States produces over 80% of the world's pecans; and they are mostly from the southeast! But you know, the most interesting fact I think I learned today is that one adult squirrel eats about 43 pounds of pecans in a year. In just one year! That got me thinking, the farmer told me one acre (about 28 trees) of grown trees produces about 1500 pounds of nuts a year.That's quite a few pecans, but I know there is more than one squirrel living nearby nibbling on those nuts... If there is a family of 5 squirrels each eating 43 pounds of nuts, what percentage of that acre of pecans are they eating that I'm not! Can you help me do the math?