Missouri Prairie Wildlife

Hi Everybody,

Here are your questions that you had about some of the animals that might have used Two Mile Prairie in the past. You all asked our expert some really good questions today.  These answer some of your questions about animals that we will have to answer in the next few weeks!

Question: How many prairie chickens are there and were there?

There used to be hundreds of thousands of prairie chickens in Missouri.  Now they will soon be extirpated or gone in our state.  There are fewer than 500 prairie chickens left in Missouri.  They are found in small, isolated populations.  Greater prairie chickens (Tympanuchus cupido) are found in prairies and grasslands.  They definitely like native prairies, but if you manage your non-native grasslands for them, they will also live there.  The prairie chicken really needs large areas of grassland that is full of different types of plants.

Click here to go to the Missouri Department of Conservation’s website and learn more about the Greater Prairie Chicken.

Sources:

http://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/greater-prairie-chicken

Question: How long have bison been around?

“How long” or “how old” questions are really hard to answer.  Scientists are always finding new fossils or information that changes how old they think something like an animal species might be.

Bison (Bos bison) is a species that has been around for a long time. Humans hunted species of bison that are now extinct. There are several kinds of bison that used to be found in North America, some lived on the plains and some in the woods.  Bison migrated across the land bridge between North America and Asia sometime around 500,000 years ago. 

Only a single, small herd of bison live in Missouri.  There are about 100 animals living at Prairie State Park in Barton County.  Any other bison in Missouri are living on private ranches.  There are around 200,000 bison live on preserves and ranches.  

Click here to go to the Missouri Department of Conservation website to learn more about bison in Missouri.

Sources:

http://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/american-bison

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/american-bison/

http://library.sandiegozoo.org/factsheets/bison/bison.htm

Are you interested in making your own animal trail guide?  Click this link to find a sample Animal Trail Guide that you can copy and fill out.

Lava Lamps

Hi Everybody,

I have had many questions pop up in the Science Box.  I wanted to start off with something fun. 

You all made volcanoes in class and had many questions about how volcanoes work.  Now someone has asked about a close friend of the volcano, the lava lamp.  I know that I have spent plenty of time watching the “bubbles” in a lava lamp rise and fall.  Can you tell me why that happens?  Make your predictions now!

Question 1:

In a lava lamp, is it actually lava? What do they make lava lamps out of?

No, but it does look like lava!  The stuff inside a lava lamp is a waxy mixture that is surrounded by a colored watery liquid.

Question 2:

How do they make the lava lamps different colors?

The water liquid in the lamp is what is colored.  Then when light shines through the lamp, it makes the waxy substance (lava) inside the lamp look like a similar color.

So what makes a lava lamp work? Lava lamps work because the cool wax at the bottom of the lamp is more dense than the liquid surrounding it.  When the light is turned on, the light bulb warms the wax.  When the wax is warm, it is less dense than the liquid.  Bubbles of warm wax float to the top of the lamp. 

What happens when the wax floats to the top? 

Why does the wax float back down to the bottom of the lamp?

Watch this video to see the lava lamp in action and learn more about how the lava lamp.

Red Blood

Hello Everybody,

Today we are going to explore something that everybody has probably asked.

Question:

Why is blood red?

Blood is made up of many different things.  It might look simple, but everything in blood is very important to your health!  There are four major ingredients to blood: platelets, red blood cells, white blood cells, and plasma. 

If you get a cut, platelets help you stop bleeding.  Red and white blood cells have different jobs.  Red blood cells carry oxygen everywhere in your body. White blood cells fight infections. Plasma carries other stuff like nutrients and proteins everywhere in your body.

The red blood cells are red because they have hemoglobin.  Hemoglobin is a chemical that carries the oxygen in blood around the body.  Sometimes people say that blood is blue in the body when it does not have oxygen.  It is actually still red, but sometimes looks blue through skin.

Thanks, 

Ms. G