Kathleen Hunt:
>I talked briefly to the high school
>biology teacher there, and he floored me by saying that "no migrants" ever
>come through the area, not even in spring. Now, I've never birded out
>there but it seemed awfully unlikely! So, what birds ARE in that area and
>in the nearby towns, and are there really "no migrants"?

While I can't help you with your specific question I agree it sounds
unlikely that there are no migrants.

But, the reason why I'm responding is that this seems like an excellent
opportunity to teach these young women a science lesson in a way their
teacher probably doesn't expect (heh heh). I imagine he's not much
of a birder, so it seems like they could learn something about the
importance of basing conclusions on competently observed data, and
that progress in science often occurs because an individual has the
courage to challenge preconceived or accepted notions about how the
world works...

Are they going to be working on this through the spring? How
about taking the teacher's statement as a hypothesis and having
these girls take on the task of making observations which might
support or disproven his notion?

If the teacher's notion in widely held, they might also learn
something about how misconceptions take root in society and
about how difficult it is to overcome them.

Of course, they might learn that he's right!



- Don Baccus, Portland OR <donb at rational.com>