Young Naturalist Awards 2001

Natural History, July, 2001

For the American Museum of Natural History's fourth annual Young Naturalist Awards, students in grades 7 through 12 were invited to embark on an expedition that focused on a topic in biology, earth science, or astronomy and to document their observations and analyses of the natural world. The winning entries (selected from nearly a thousand) are summarized below. Full-length versions are available in a catalog published by the Museum's National Center for Science Literacy, Education, and Technology and online at www.amnh.org/nationalcenter/youngnaturalistawards/.

Shaped by Nature and Man: The Geological History of the Palisades, by Max Arno (Hastings High School, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY; Grade 10)

Along the lower Hudson River rises a series of sheer cliffs known as the Palisades--400 feet high and 200 million years old. Max Arno describes their majesty this way: "My eyes trace the ancient sill of lava curving around the land like a gigantic fortress. Glancing down, I can see the jagged wall of rock plunging straight down. I am fascinated by the thought that continental plates once collided and then pulled apart, and huge glaciers swept across the very spot on which I stand." Not only does Max delineate the cracking, compression, grinding, and polishing that formed these "stark vertical cliffs," but he also explores the Palisades' commercial history--how the rocks were quarried to build Manhattan's brownstones and to pave its streets (in the late 1800s, one firm alone took out 12,000 cubic yards of traprock a day).

Tide Pools and the Life Within Them, by Talia Hancock (Aliso Viejo Middle School, Aliso Viejo, CA; Grade 7)

Talia Hancock, who has always lived near the Pacific Ocean, and who visits the seashore most days, is intrigued by the array of creatures living in tide pools. She dedicated four autumn study sessions to pools at Doheny State Beach in southern California, taking care to visit at different times of the day and to focus on different animals. She writes, for example, that chitons are "about half an inch long and use raspy files on their feet to scrape off algae from the rocks to eat. They have eight sections that let them cling to uneven rocks. Chitons usually eat at night, so I wasn't able to observe them eating." Talia plans to further her research by "learning about how to protect tide pools and the endangered animals in them."

Birding Sector 7, by Daniel Hinnebusch (Upper St. Clair High School, Pittsburgh, PA; Grade 11)

"Normal teenagers do not wake up at two in the morning and drive south for half an hour to look for owls," confesses Daniel Hinnebusch, describing an owling expedition. "Normal teenagers have not even heard of the Christmas Bird Count, an international citizen science bird count that takes place within two weeks of the 25th of December." This bird count (his fourth) and owling expedition (his second) took Daniel to seven sites in the Pittsburgh area within fourteen hours. He logged seventy-six miles by car, eleven miles on foot, and thirty-eight species. Daniel concludes that the Christmas Bird Count is important because it "collects a massive amount of data on the abundance of bird species throughout the United States and other parts of the world."

Tardigrades As Environmental Bio-Indicators, by Amber Hohl (Central Lee High School, Donnellson, IA; Grade 12)

In sixth grade, Amber Hohl fell in love with tardigrades, microscopic invertebrates that inhabit mosses and lichens. Since their hosts "sponge up everything the air brings their way--carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, heavy metals, radiation, and dust," Amber wondered if tardigrades did, too. She soon demonstrated that living downwind of the coal-fired James River Power Plant in Springfield, Missouri, adversely affected their population. To her amazement, her interest in tardigrades led to recent summer fieldwork in Greenland, with fifteen tardigradologists from around the world. There, from a radioactive spring, or "hot zone," Amber collected several moss samples; in one, she observed a rare occurrence: tardigrade carnivory. She looks forward to the prospect of making a "contribution to the discovery of scientific truth."

Nesting Habits of the Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica), by Elspeth Iralu (Home School Program, Gallup, NM; Grade 8)

Barn swallows nearly always keep the same mate all their lives and migrate every year back to their nesting places in North America from as far south as Argentina. The more Elspeth Iralu watched two pairs nesting on opposite corners of her front porch in New Mexico last year, the more engrossed she became, especially in examining their nests and learning how she could facilitate the birds' nest building and repair. This past summer, each swallow couple raised three sets of young. Elspeth had the opportunity to observe all kinds of behavior; perhaps the quirkiest occurred when she played The Best of World Music on her family's CD player "just to see the barn swallows `dance.'"

Bog Trotting, by Rebecca Kane (Home School Program, Lee, NH; Grade 8)