Asbury Park Middle School’s 4th consecutive year at the museum in Trenton

In 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 Mr. Wronko brought students’ projects from Asbury Park Middle School and put them on display for Super Science Saturday held at the State Museum in Trenton.

Museum in Trenton

May 4th, 2013 marks the Asbury Park Middle School’s 4th Consecutive Year of having projects at the Museum. This year over 4,000 people came to Super Science Saturday and gave praise to the hard work that the students at Asbury Park Middle School put into creating their projects.

Projects

The following were some of the projects on display:

Battle of Pydna: This project showed how the Macedonian Phalanx was defeated by the Romans.

Battle of Thermopylae: This project showed how a small band of Spartans fought to the bitter end against a huge Persian army.

Battle of Cannae: This project showed how Hannibal, Carthaginian leader, used a military strategy that allowed his small band of troops to surround and annihilate a threatening Roman army.

Cretaceous War Zone: This project allowed students to take prehistoric creatures from the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous period and put them in combat situations to see what creature would survive.

The Cretaceous War Zone promoted students conducting research about the physical aspects of the prehistoric creatures, geography, and forensics.

Fossils: This project allowed students to create their own fossils based on different kinds of prehistoric animals. The students had not only created the fossils but also researched the biological nature of these animals.

Computer Graphics: This project allowed students to use computer tools to design their own dinosaur fossil.

Prehistoric Times Magazine/Dig
Magazine: Student artwork from the Asbury Park Middle School along with the
Cretaceous War Zone were published in the 20th anniversary issue of
Prehistoric Times and another magazine called Dig. These issues were put on display.

Art: There was also artwork of dinosaur drawings and hand made vases on display.

Special thanks go out to the following teachers who had their students work on display:

Ms. Furges

Ms. Crosby

Mr. Quick

Ms. McLaren

Ms. Carbone

Another thanks goes out to Melissa Kelly and David Parris for inviting Asbury Park Middle School back to the State Museum for Super Science Saturday.

Besides the Museum in Trenton,
Mr. Wronko borrowed some images from his brother’s trip to Italy and put them on display for his students in class. What Mr. Wronko showed was his brother’s pictures of the Ash People of Pompeii, Mount Vesuvius, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, and a gladiator arena in Pompeii. In addition to this piece of world history, Mr. Wronko furthered his crypto zoology project by sharing with his class emails he received from a marine biologist Adrian Shine. Adrian Shine spent years searching for the possibility of large creature living in Loch Ness. Even though Shine made a few sonar contacts of unidentified objects in the Loch, he concludes that nothing from the prehistoric times could have survived. The emails between Shine and Wronko could be seen below:

This question is for Mr. Shine:

Hi my name is David Wronko and I am a social studies teacher from the United States. Every year I give my students a crypto zoology project. Of course the Loch Ness Monster is involved. I have shown my students documentaries in which you have been involved with.

I have a question in which you have most likely have gotten a million times already. During your search of Loch Ness in August of 1982, your sonar picked up moving targets that had a good size. My question is can a sturgeon be big enough to produce those types of echoes that your sonar was picking up?

During your search of Loch Morar, did use sonar on that expedition? Was there any indication that a creature of some sort could have been living in Morar?

David Wronko

Dear
Mr Wronko,

Thank
you for your query.

We did do echo-sounding and scanning sonar work at Loch Morar during the 1970s without acquiring strong contacts.

The 1982 contacts in Loch Ness included a range of echo strength, some of which, if animate would be of the sort of strength expected from seals or sturgeon.
Sturgeon, it should be born in mind, would not normally be expected in the mid-water column.

Regards

Adrian
Shine

Adrian
Shine:

Did you ever think about searching other lakes for anything that should not be there? For instance, Lake Champlain in the U.S.?

I went to Lake Champlain about three years ago. I rented a boat and
I thought it might be fun sight seeing looking for the Lake Champlain monster. After a full day on the lake I became very skeptical that there most likely is nothing in the lake. However, something strange happened as I was bringing the boat back to the docks. No boats around, the wind was not blowing, fish started to jump out of the water. It appeared that they were in some sort of panic. Then this huge wake came past my boat in the direction of the fish. No boats, no wind, and I started to wonder what caused that huge wake.

What’s your opinion? Its
ok to tell me that I’m hoping that something was in the water.

David
Wronko

Hello,

Very interesting.

However it may have been a
previous boat wake, boat wakes are amazingly persistent. Then again maybe it
was what you were hoping for.

All the best

Adrian Shine