Bountiful, Beautiful Tundra

Hey from Scammon Bay, y'all!  

After 3 delightful months of running around with family and friends from Arkansas to Florida to India to Tennesee to Missouri, I'm happy to be back in my northern home on the tundra and getting all settled in for a long winter's nap. (Just kidding about the nap. But I am glad to be back.)

Today, we had a very good first day of school. It was wonderful seeing all my students again! My, how they've grown. And since the blustery, rainy weather cleared up enough for a couple of planes to come and go, I'm chalking the day up as a success!

It's been just a little over a year since I flew low above the Western Alaska tundra in a little bush plane and got my first look at this part of God's gorgeous creation. It's fascinating to me because I've always thought of the tundra as a vast, frozen, treeless wasteland. I'm not sure where I first learned that about the tundra but it's only partially correct. It is vast. It is treeless. It is frozen for much of the year. But it is not a wasteland. The tundra that covers a big portion of Alaska is very beautiful and very productive. It provides sustenance to both animals and people. So I want to share some photos taken over the course of the past year. You may be surprised by the beautiful, bountiful tundra!

Salmon Berries (photo taken by J. Sundown)

The salmon berry harvest was a good one! Nothing has been cultivated in anyway. All these plants are wild.

And let me just say, "Picking berries on the squishy tundra is hard work."

Fireweed flowers

Fireweed closeup. My aunt Tootsie, who moved to Alaska in the 1940's before it was a state, told me a story that the fireweed flowers were used by the old-time prospectors to gauge when it was time to come down out of the mountains for the winter. The little blooms at the top fall off first and gradually the lower blooms wither and fall off. When the fireweed is down to it's last row of little blooms it was time to pack up and head down the mountain. 

Tundra flowers

A good wild blueberry season too!

Late summertime tundra (taken from plane)

Edible greens from the tundra

Salmon hanging to dry at fish camp. Most Eskimo families will spend a few weeks at fish camp during the summertime. The men do the fishing and the women clean, cut and dry the fish. 

Wild Blackberries

Wild cranberry (I think)

Mushroom

Fern

Basket woven of tundra grasses

Wintery tundra from the airplane

Aerial of Scammon Bay in January

Ptarmigans do not migrate. They weather the cold winters here.

In addition to plants and food, the tundra is home to many kinds of fur bearing animals such as beaver, bear, lynx and fox that provide warm winter clothing.

( I'm not sure what types of animal furs are in the photos. They are displayed in our school)

The tundra is also a place for lots of fun, work and travel in both winter and summer time!

Snow-goes pulling sleds.

Fishing boats at low tide. (late summer)

So, I hope you've enjoyed a brief tour of my little corner of Western Alaska--the beautiful, bountiful tundra.

 

Mary's Class

Our school year of 2014-15 is almost complete. We only have 5 weeks left! I think we've all got Spring Fever even though it has snowed over a foot during the last week. So I wanted to share with y'all some of the things that we've done in my classroom. My student's call it "Mary's Class" regardless of the subject being taught. I've taught Biology, Health Careers, Introduction to Careers, Health, P.E. and Current Events this year.

We've started a garden using the grow-lights in the lab! Actually we've done this two times. Our first garden died over Christmas vacation.  My students planted beans, squash, appleseeds, radishes, carrots, spinach and cauliflower. We also tried pomegranate and avocadoes but no luck there. One of my students, Kim, took her squash plant home over the holidays and it's still growing. It flowered and so now we're curiously waiting to see if it produces a squash! We really wanted to transplant some things onto the tundra near our school with hopes of having a community garden. But I don't think the soil will be thawed by May 15--that's the last day of school. 

  

In Health Careers we learned CPR. (I have no idea why the font changed to red)

In Biology students learned about cell organelles, their functions and cell reproduction. Below are my students making posters of mitosis.

After we learned about DNA, we made paper origami models of DNA and hung them along the wall.

Then we made candy models of DNA. Students had to build the model and pass a verbal test identifying the parts. Rewards of a job well done--- getting to eat it!

The culmination of our genetics study was extracting DNA from peas! We selected peas in honor of Gregor Mendel the "Father of Genetics".

The white cloud in the center of the liquid is the DNA.

Students explored the microscopic world using our lab microscopes. They looked at printed ink, cloth fibers, hair, bugs, dirt, and prepared slides of various things including paramecium and amoebas.

(It's a requirement to wear orange during microscope lab........................ Just kidding:)

We dissected squid while teleconferencing with the Alaska Sea Life Center in Seward. Believe it or not, this was my first time to dissect a squid too! It's a great adventure exploring the details of God's creation!  

Then my 12th graders invited the 3rd graders into the lab to teach them all about squid and dissecting. They opened the ink sac and wrote their names with the squid ink! Dissecting squid was fun! --a little smelly but great fun anyway.  

This is one of my health classes lining up for lunch. They are telling my sister Candace, "Thank you for the gum." Out here in Scammon Bay, I say we are on "island time" meaning there's a relaxed attitude about start times. Except for lunch time---we are never late for lunch! Funny how we suddenly become punctual.

This my first year of teaching and living in Scammon Bay has been good. There have been lots of challenges for my students and I. We must accept the fact that teaching and communicating across cultures is not easy. We must approach it with respect, patience and forgiveness. I am thankful to my students and their families for hanging in there and giving me a chance. I have learned more from them than I have taught. I am thankful for the Lord's blessings.

March Madness!

We had a school-wide Pep Rally this week to give our Sr. Boys and Girls Basketball Teams a big send-off before they left for Alakanuk to compete in the Regional Tournament. Both our teams were seeded first.  Everyone in Scammon Bay has high hopes that we'll make it to the State Tournament in Anchorage.

We had a poster contest to decorate the gym and show our Scammon Bay spirit! Below are just a few of them. What did the winners get as a prize?  A pack of sugarfree gum!

      

             

Our mascots got the crowd going!

           

   

          

The ball teams competed in all kinds of fun games!  

      

                                      Sack races!

Staring contests.  (She won)

         

Tug O'War between the teams and the staff!  It was a serious WAR!

    

                                   Musical Chairs

    

1,2,3,4 Game--- When the music stopped and the number was called everyone had to do the action assigned to the number. If not, then they were out of the game

1=sit on the floor  2=carry another piggy-back   3=3 person group hug   4=build a 4 person pyramid

The Kindergarten performed a special cheer. 

"Give me an E.      E!  

Give me an A.       A!  

Give me a G.        G!

Give me an L.       L!

Give me an E.       E!

Give me an S.       S!

What's that spell? Eagles!"

        

                                   

Update on this week's games.....

Both our teams made it into the finals!  Many people had planned to ride their snow-goes over Friday afternoon to Alakanuk for the final games but bad weather conditions prevented travel. So our principal Missy opened the school where about 100 people gathered to watch the games via the Internet. And wow was it ever exciting---real nail-biters!

Our girls won in overtime! And our boys won at the buzzer!

Congratulations to the Scammon Bay Eagles!   State Bound!!  Anchorage here we come!