Weird Science
Puzzle
Hi my name is Popliteal Patty. Sometimes my dad calls me sweet knees, but you can call me Patty. I’m in school, and my job is to work hard, but every now and then I like to see what I can do to save the world. Sometimes there is no good a foot. Either Darth Vector or Dr. Evil is up to no good. I have a classmate who is really super. We call him Fly. Together with the help of our teacher Mr. Question Mark, we will use our knowledge to help the world. Heavens to Microscope! It looks like there has been trouble. Mr. Question Mark says that it is at the following latitude and longitude: 29 degree’s 57’ 13” north and 90 degrees 04’ 33” west. Can you help us? If you can go to the website Google earth you can find out where this trouble is? You might need your parents to help download the program. Hey wait a minute! Who is better at computers you or them? Anyway see if you can zero in on the coordinates, perhaps you can help us?
CLUE 2!!
Well Fly and I are at the site given to us by our teacher Mr. Question Mark. Boy is it Dark and scary. Even my patella is shaking. Hey what was that swimming by. It looks like a Zoea! I think I’m going to freak. Ok Ok. Fly says it’s megalops, not that much better. I remember studying about them in my Marine Biology Class. That’s good news, since they are not creatures made by Darth Vector our sworn enemy. But wait something is wrong! What’s a megalops doing way in here? Something has disturbed this ecosystem big time.
But what could it be?
Hint go to http://www.oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/kits/estuaries/estuaries07_adaptations.html
CLUE 3!!
Well the last time we left Fly and Popliteal Patty, they were in a very wet place. Have you been able to use Google earth to find out where they are? It looks like they are in an estuary. An estuary is the wide part of a river where it nears the sea; the salt and fresh water mix. I hope you found them. Let’s see how their adventure unfolds……
Patty. “Hey I wonder what that guy in the boat is doing?”
Fly “I don’t know, maybe we can ask him what happened here.”
The two carefully approached a black boat with orange trim. At the steering wheel sat an old sea captain named Captain Nick. He had been a star athlete in high school, with a good nose for basketball and football. Now he has a good nose for salt. He had hoped to go into Forensics and Criminal Justice but fell asleep at a Thanksgiving and ended up a turkey.
Patty: “Excuse me sir, what’s your Name?”
Captain Nick: “My full name is Captain Nasalis Nick, but you can call me Capt’ Nick”
Fly: “What happened here?”
Captain Nick: “We had a huge hurricane hit. It messed up the whole ecosystem”
Patty: “An ecosystem has a living and non living part, which part was messed up?”
Fly: “From the looks of things here in this estuary, I would say EVERYTING”
Patty: “In an ecosystem everything is connected, if you mess up one thing all the organisms are affected. The whole food web is affected”
Captain Nick: “Hey what’s an estuary? And a food web is that like getting food from the World Wide Web?”
Fly: No Captain, a food web isn’t a way to get fast food from the internet, but you can find out about a food web by going to the link at the bottom of the Science page. Click on it and then Click on Ecosystems.”
Question what is a Megalops?, and if it dies will Captain Nick turn Crabby?
Check back later for the next clue!