Focus Week 2021

Click HERE to view the mission:

INTRODUCTION:

People are often motivated and inspired by nature to find solutions to problems. We experiment, invent, design, build and create.

We want to know: Why? How? What?

Often, we are inspired by nature.

And, we often use our inventions (technology) and our curiosity to get those answers.




Even animals us technology!

In fact, there is a lot of technology that animals use that inspired us humans! For instance, beavers build dams and other animals use tunnels to travel, or rocks to break open nuts, or sticks to gather food.

We watch birds fly, and wondered how we could too. We watch how plants get energy from the sun, and how they are able to move their leaves to gather more sunlight and we wonder how we too could use the energy from the sun, and adjust our tools as the earth rotates.

What inspires you?

This year's focus week is all about The Great Outdoors and this page is dedicated to all the tech that we can find and use to solve challenges we face, and to answer the questions "Why?" "How?" and "What?".

Some areas to explore are:

*Weather/atmosphere, *Conservation, *Exploration, *Transportation, *Agriculture

On this page, there are just a few links to videos to learn about some of the tech used in these areas. Your mission is to explore and investigate beyond what is on this page, and find other technology that is being used to explore and understand The Great Outdoors. You can report back, and share your sources, and throughout the week, and the weeks to come, your discoveries will be added to the website for others to learn from.

First: Observe a phenomenon or challenge or concern or interesting thing in the Great Outdoors (NOTICE)

Then, ask the questions: Why? How? What? (or even When? or Where?) (WONDER)

Next, Research and Review: find out about what others discovered in their quest for answers, or experiment to find your own answers (SEEK) Review and analyze your answers (REFLECT).

Often, we find in seeking, reviewing and reflecting, we get even more questions to answer, so we can wind up in a loop of asking, finding, analyzing, asking more, finding more, analyzing more...

Last, Present your new knowledge (SHARE)

Here is my example:

I NOTICED that there are a couple of holes in my front yard.

I WONDERED WHAT they were and HOW they got there.

I found a couple different ways to SEEK out answers: ONE, I deducted that the holes were probably a den or part of a tunnel. TWO: I measured them and discovered that they were too large for a mouse, so I guessed they might be big enough for a rat, or maybe a rabbit. The hole was too small to be a groundhog. THREE, I looked online for more information about rats and rabbits. FOUR: I asked my neighbor if they'd seen anything come out of the holes. She told me they have a security camera and she has seen opossums coming from my front yard, and crossing her driveway to get to the yard on the other side of their house.

I haven't finished investigating yet, so I can't share my conclusions. I thought about some technology I could use - maybe getting my own security camera and aiming it on the holes. Or, I could call an expert in opossums and ask them what might be ways I can tell if the holes are from opossums. Since I live on a street with lots of traffic, it might not be safe for an opossum family to live in my front yard, so I could contact people who help to rescue and relocate them to a safer area, like the woods. They would likely use traps and bait. Now I have even more questions... what would be good opossum bait? Has anybody ever put a tracker on an opossum to find out what they eat, where they live? hmmm....