Dr. Creel Science

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[drcreelscience]

Self Support Kayak Trip down the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River

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Grand Canyon of the Colorado River

Kayaker - Caroline Moon; Photographer - Brad McMillan

[drcreelscience]

Silverback 2015

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Middle line of Oceania on a Sunday in the Ultrafuge

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Vortex on Cain Creek

[drcreelscience]

2014-2015 Fall and Winter Review

Highlights include going fast on the Chattooga, ladies day on the Green, ALF on the Tellico, Tallulah laps, Green Race watchin’, Cain and N. Chick, and other fun-filled trips with my friends. I also hibernated and did lots of hot yoga - it’s important to keep warm to prepare for the spring charge :)

Super excited to be in a pretty new Nomad 8.5 in the color Astral from Dagger!

Photos taken by Katie and Zach Dean, Brad McMillan, and Adam Miles

[drcreelscience]

Splatting big waves (and people) on the upper Gauley River in the Dagger Axiom

[drcreelscience]

Water is the Greenest Grass

[drcreelscience]

7 Things Not to Do on the Silverback Race of the Green River Games

Forget to train.  Even though I thought I was prepared, after I ran and biked on the trails a few weeks before the race, I realized that this event was really going to suck. Run and bike the trails as much as you can!! Not the trails in your back yard. The Green River Gorge trails. There is no comparison.

Get dehydrated.  A few of my longer runs and rides before the race left me dehydrated. I thought I had been dehydrated before... it was nothing like this. It was extremely difficult to come back from.  I had several instances of vomiting and a persisting light headed feeling... people had all sorts of ideas for what was wrong with me:)

Rely on the boys. Never call someone a "safety boater" - he will inevitably swim.  And when someone says to watch "my sweet mountain biking skills" - get out of the way, that dude is about to eat it.

Get hungry. I had to figure out the best eating schedule for me. I found that eating small bits every 30 minutes helped keep the charge alive and the cramps at bay.

Get discouraged.  It took me a really long time to finish that race. I finished 2nd of the 3 females.. but I started in the back of the girls. It is a long event - pace yourself and have fun! 

Have a crappy bike.  Thanks to The Hub and Pisgah Tavern for the bike rental.  The Carbon Santa Cruz made the bike portion super fun. It's 8 miles of technical riding - know your bike and know how to ride it! (And know how to walk it uphill- thanks to Astral Brewers, the cross terrain was easy). 

Run on the "running section" unless you want to win. Many people in that race walked a good chunk of run. I elected to run ALL... of the downhills. Who are we trying to fool, we are in it for the boating, not for the running! So unless you are winning, like Erin Savage, Joe Scarborough, or J. Ditty, it's ok to walk some... or all... of the 8 mile running portion :) .

8 miles of Class V whitewater kayaking, 8+ miles of rugged mountain biking, 8+ miles of steep trail running.... 3200+ feet of elevation gain... Extreme humidity and insects... Smelly people dry heaving and plundering through the woods.  

So much fun! :)

[drcreelscience]

Science bling bling from Target

[drcreelscience]

No One Sees the Same Rainbow

No one sees the same rainbow.  

Your eyeballs see the light that is refracted through a water droplet. Red moves more slowly. Violet moves more quickly. Each water droplet makes the entire assortment of the visible color spectrum.  Now, wouldn’t you like to kayak through a rainbow? How would you like to boof through an arc of happiness, sunshine, and water? Well, maybe you have, but you probably wouldn’t know it. Unless your friend saw you do it!

As a teacher, I constantly ask my students to become uncomfortable. I want them to struggle through an assignment or lab. I want them to find success through their effort.  Good teachers implement assignments that allow for curiosity and uncertainty. I led three different lab experiences this past week. The depth of understanding was truly wonderful to observe. Kids were making observations and conducting experiments. Understanding the eye through dissection.  Bending light with prisms. Learning how rainbows work.

However, there were failures.  I made mistakes.  The students made mistakes.  At the end of the week, I felt mentally and physically drained from the effort of bringing the best possible science education to my students.

Saturday rolled around. I awoke to a rainy beautiful fogginess outside. Kayaking weather.  There are few things better than a misty green creek with a little bit of rain. But I didn’t want to go kayaking. Something was off. 

Kayaking can be quite stressful sometimes.  I am at the caliber now where I sometimes enjoy running difficult whitewater. I can feel the fire build where I really just want to forget my worries and be here now in the splashy goodness of a rapid. Like a dream where you just bounce happily through a whitewater cornucopia of rainbows, sunshine, soft rocks, and fluffy waves. Not get out of my boat. Run it all.

However, I work. I give my all to my kids. I devote my time, my thoughts, my creativity, and my passion to my students. I feel lucky to be able to work with this type of joy and fulfillment.  However, sometimes, but not all of the time, I feel like there is little left on the weekends to give to the river. This was one of these weekends.

I pushed myself out of my own comfort zone last weekend. I felt the same uncertainty and curiosity that I demand of my students. I ran a few rapids that I usually walk. I was imagining lines on rapids I have never ran. I was starting to feel the fire again. 

While driving up to the river this weekend, I started to get nervous.  I started to feel uneasy about those rapids I usually walk and those rapids I never run. I started to imagine failure. The stress made me not want to go kayaking.  So instead, I took away the stress, but still went kayaking! I made the call to walk around these rapids that make me nervous, even though I know I have the skills to complete them successfully. I just wanted to have fun.

This call was rewarded by watching my friend Chris Baer (whereisbaer.com) boof through a rainbow that he never would have known was there.  While he was concentrating on hitting his line, I saw his perfect boof stroke placed in the middle of an arc of effervescent misty color. This wonderful refraction of light was only seen by me. In the light of the green, the Green, I felt a wave of happiness, fulfillment, and peace with the complexity behind one simple choice. To walk? Or to charge? Either way, you will be happy, and maybe one day you will boof through a rainbow!

[drcreelscience]

The Ocoee River is full of class III fun. I recently bought a Dagger Ultrafuge - the perfect slicey playboat for me. I fell in love with kayaking this Valentine's weekend... again. Stern squirts and enders galor. I could this all DAY! Shannon would have loved it.  Oh... and the people I paddled with are pretty cool, too!

[drcreelscience]

Ode to Gene, My Giardia An attempt to cohabitate peacefully with a protist

Oh, Gene, my Giardiasis. You really love my intestines. You have 2 nuclei and 4 flagella. It’s like a party in my tummy, let me tell ya.

Every bowel movement is like biology class. I have to wonder how long this will last. I am learning about what you like and what you hate, and I pray to God that you don’t find a mate. Please don’t procreate. Or replicate.

Gene, hot yoga was never really your thing. You dislike oxygen and make the bathroom scary. But, there is one thing that you hate the most…

DAIRY.

And I have to wonder… is it because… you used to live… in the colon…

OF A COW?

Oh, Gene, my Giardiasis. You really love my intestines. You have 2 nuclei and 4 flagella. It’s like a party in my tummy, let me tell ya.

But time goes on, and what from I can see, is that, Gene, you are the only protist for me!

[hammerforscale]

Do you know what totally blows my mind?

That plate tectonics didn’t become accepted as a model/theory until the late 1960’s.

It’s such a fantastic concept, with a breathtaking elegance.

But until the 1960’s it was dismissed as nonsense. Now that is amazing.

[drcreelscience]

Agreed !!!

[visitheworld]

The place where two continents meet, Slfra Crack in Þingvellir National Park, Iceland (by Dig The Well).

[drcreelscience]

more iceland

[infinitestardust]

Oreo plate tectonics.

[drcreelscience]

Future edible lab

[drcreelscience]

Google Earth Introduction to Plate Tectonics

My 8th Grade Earth Science class started our new unit on Plate Tectonics today. Evidence of the movement of plates can be found just by looking at Google Earth. I used guided discussion and technology to help students see the big picture of our upcoming study.

We started all the way zoomed out on Google Earth. A student recorded our brainstorming on the board for the rest if the class to record in their interactive notebooks. I asked the kids to find any evidence of a changing surface. Answers included the puzzle-like fit of the continents and the seam-like formation running through the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

From there, I shared a few facts about the Mid-Atlantic Ridge: - It is the longest mountain range in the world - It extends above sea level in Iceland. You can actually go diving between 2 plates there. http://vimeo.com/56291196 - The plates here are separating at about 1 inch a year.

The last fact got the kids thinking about how plates might cycle since they are moving. I transitioned to the Ring of Fire, showing the subduction zones lining the Pacific Ocean. We identified volcanic island arcs and deep ocean trenches. The kids made the connection between plate tectonics, earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis. We identified the Himalayas and made inferences about how they might have been formed.

In addition to the standards on plate tectonics, we talked about the Earth as a system and the impact of natural disaster on human life.

I gave them some time to pick places they would like to visit. In conclusion, this lesson was a fun and interesting way to introduce the content. I plan to come back to some of these places as the students deepen their understanding.

Moving on to the evidence for continental drift:)