Keeping students focused on the joy — and for many, the task — of learning science can be a formidable challenge for teachers.
That’s where the northern leopard frog and the University of Pittsburgh hopped into action last week at Pleasant Hills Middle School in the West Jefferson Hills School District. Seventh-graders, under the tutelage of life sciences teacher Jennifer Kassimer, participated in a Pitt research project focused on climate change.
Corinne Richards-Zawacki, a Pitt professor of biology, initiated a project in which students mold agar, a seaweed-based gelatinous material, into golf-ball-sized frog figures. The agar contains sensors, called iButtons, that measure temperatures while the weight of the frog indicates the moisture levels of the area where the frog is placed.
Funded through a National Science Foundation grant, the study is working to determine the impact of climate change on a fungal infection called chytridiomycosis, which can be fatal to coldblooded amphibians, including leopard frogs.
“This project grew out of a desire to integrate the research we’re doing with climate-change education for middle and high-school students,” said Ms. Richards-Zawacki, who holds a doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology. “The fungus has been found on every continent where amphibians are found. But in our part of North America, you find the pathogen but don’t see amphibian populations crashing from the disease. In Australia, Central America and in the Sierra Nevadas, there have been massive die-offs and even extinctions.”
As it turns out, warmer weather from climate change might hinder the fungus while adversely affecting the leopard frog’s immune system, she said. So its impact on the frog in this region remains uncertain.
“We teach about [climate-change] indicator species, and amphibians are kid-friendly,” Ms. Kassimer said. “Kids think they are cute, as opposed to spiders. It draws them in.”
Her students, she said, are working harder on this project because Pitt is relying on the data they collect.
“I think it’s truly opening up new doors to get people familiar with climate change that is affecting our ecosystem,” she said. “We just don’t have a good way of teaching it to students. This will be a huge, lasting project that can take different routes and involve different species. How Dr. Richards-Zawacki is doing it is very meaningful.”
Proof perhaps is Bella Bertini, 12, who said she is eager to find out what data Pitt gets from her frog’s sensors. “Usually we use textbooks,” she said, “but science goes quickly in all grades because you always have hands-on projects.”
Students recorded the weight and length of their agar frogs and then headed outdoors during class to find a place on the middle-school campus — be it sunny, shady or a mix of both — to place their frogs. They were scheduled to retrieve the frogs the next day so Pitt could download data from the sensors.
“Booyah, I found the best spot ever,” announced Nick Bryan, 12, as he navigated a weed-filled bank overlooking the ballfield backstop. “It’s right at the root of a tree. It’s in the shade, but my frog can climb the tree if there’s a predator.”
Frog figures climbing trees? Let’s say Nick’s imagination was running free.
Keith Meade, 12, found his own well-shaded clump of weeds where he nested his frog. “It won’t take water from the frog,” he said. “The grass will attract water, and the frog will be hydrated.”
Tony Dean, 13, said the project was fun because students could be outside rather than, ironically, “sit in the classroom to learn about nature.”
As a final task, they were told to make a drawing on their data sheets of the spot they’d chosen for their frog. That produced a ribbing for Anthony Terminato, 12.
“That’s a turtle, not a frog,” Tony scolded Anthony. “Why’d you draw a turtle?”
Anthony, laughing, lowered his head and confessed: “I can’t draw a frog.”
David Templeton: dtempleton@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1578.
First Published: September 23, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
