Yellowstone, the world's first national park, was established this day in 1872

Yellowstone National Park, established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872, is a national park located primarily in the U.S. state of Wyoming, though it also extends into Montana and Idaho. Yellowstone was the first national park in the world, and is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially Old Faithful Geyser, one of the most popular features in the park. It has many types of ecosystems, but the subalpine forest is dominant.

- Wikipedia

Science Fair Project Information
Title: Model a geyser and determine the effect that depth has on timing of geyser eruption.
Subject: Geology
Grade level: Middle School, Grades 6-8
Academic Level: Ordinary
Project Type: Experimental
Cost: Low
Affiliation: Science Buddies
Description: The mechanism consists of a boiling flask and a plastic container connected vertically by glass tubing. The flask is heated and after the geyser erupts it will reset itself by sucking the cool water from the plastic container, placed above, back into the flask, and the process starts again. Length of glass tubing is changed and the time between eruptions is recorded.
Link: http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Geo_p040.shtml

 

Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, was revealed to the world in 1997

Dolly (1996 – 2003) was a female domestic sheep, and the first mammal to be cloned from an adult somatic cell, using the process of nuclear transfer. She was cloned by Ian Wilmut, Keith Campbell and colleagues at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh in Scotland. She was born on 5 July 1996 and she lived until the age of six. She has been called "the world's most famous sheep" by sources including BBC News and Scientific American. On 14 February 2003, Dolly was euthanised because she had a progressive lung disease and severe arthritis.

- Wikipedia

Science Fair Project Information
Title: Welcome to the fascinatingworld of cloning
Subject: Biotechnology / Genetic Engineering
Grade level: Middle School - Grades 7-9
Academic Level: Ordinary
Project Type: Descriptive
Cost: Low
Awards: 1st place, Canada Wide Virtual Science Fair ($400)
Affiliation: Canada Wide Virtual Science Fair (VSF)
Year: 2007
Description: Main topics: Clonings history, cloning techniques, benefits and negative sides. Biographies of three important scientists who contributed to the field.
Link: http://www.odec.ca/projects/2007/shah7a2/
 

Space Shuttle Columbia was lost, on this day, in 2003

The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster occurred on February 1, 2003, when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, resulting in the death of all seven crew members, shortly before it was scheduled to conclude its 28th mission.

The loss of Columbia was a result of damage sustained during launch when a piece of foam insulation the size of a small briefcase broke off the Space Shuttle external tank (the main propellant tank) under the aerodynamic forces of launch. The debris struck the leading edge of the left wing, damaging the Shuttle's thermal protection system (TPS), which protects it from heat generated with the atmosphere during re-entry. While Columbia was still in orbit, some engineers suspected damage, but NASA managers limited the investigation, on the grounds that little could be done even if problems were found.

- Wikipedia

Science Fair Project Information
Title: Is there life in outer space?
Subject: Space Exploration
Grade level: Middle School - Grades 7-9
Academic Level: Ordinary
Project Type: Descriptive
Cost: Low
Awards: 2nd place, Canada Wide Virtual Science Fair
Affiliation: Canada Wide Virtual Science Fair (VSF)
Year: 2007
Description: Main topics: life in space; the search for life in space; the debate on the existence of extra-terrestrial life; Panspermia (the hypothesis that life exists throughout the Universe, and may be distributed to habitable bodies, in microbial form, by comets, meteoroids, asteroids and planetoids.).

Link: http://www.odec.ca/projects/2007/back7n2/

 

Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female doctor in the United States, graduated on this day in 1849

Elizabeth Blackwell (1821 – 1910), born in Bristol, England, was the first female doctor in the United States. She was the first openly identified woman to graduate from medical school, a pioneer in educating women in medicine in the United States, and was prominent in the emerging women's rights movement.

She attended Geneva Medical College in New York. She was accepted there — supposedly because the faculty put it to a student vote, and the students thought her application was a hoax — and braved the prejudice of some of the professors and students to complete her training and graduated, on 23 January 1849.

- Wikipedia

Science Fair Project Information
Title: The Effect of Age and Gender on Human Blood Pressure
Subject: Medicine / human anatomy
Grade level: Elementary School, Grades 4-6
Academic Level: Ordinary
Project Type: Experimental
Cost: Low
Affiliation: Selah Intermediate School
Year: 2002
Description: Subjects of different age and gender were tested for blood pressure; results tabulated, graphed and compared.
Link: http://www.selah.k12.wa.us/SOAR/SciProj2002/KendraC.html

 

Avi Cohen, best known for playing football for Liverpool, England, was killed today in a motorcycle crash.

Cohen began his playing career with Maccabi Tel Aviv and the Israeli national team, before joining Liverpool for a fee of £200,000 ($450,000) in July 1979, and became the first Israeli to play in England. He struggled to establish himself as a regular at Anfield and was released in November 1981, rejoining Maccabi. On 20 September 1980, Cohen stirred up controversy when he decided to play in Liverpool's away fixture versus Southampton, which fell on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.

Liverpool FC marked the death of Cohen with a period of applause before their Premier League match against Wolves on 29 December 2010.


- Wikipedia

Science Fair Project Information
Title: How to throw a football
Subject: Engineering
Grade level: Middle School - Grades 7-9
Academic Level: Ordinary
Project Type: Experimenta
Cost: Medium
Awards: 2nd place, Canada Wide Virtual Science Fair
Affiliation: Canada Wide Virtual Science Fair (VSF)
Year: 2005
Description: The objectives of this project are to determine the: proper location of the ball prior to cocking the arm, the best place for the quarterback to situate his hand along the laces, the ideal distance between the feet before releasing the ball, wrist flicking motion.
Link: http://www.odec.ca/projects/2005/papi5s0/public_html/

3,000 people were killed by a major eruption of Mount Vesuvius, on this day, in 1631

Mount Vesuvius is best known for its eruption in AD 79 that led to the destruction of the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum that were never rebuilt. The towns' locations were eventually forgotten until their accidental rediscovery in the 18th century.

On December 16, 1631, another major eruption of Mount Vesuvius buried many villages under lava flows, killing around 3,000 people. Torrents of boiling water were also ejected, adding to the devastation.

- Wikipedia

Science Fair Project Information
Title: Understanding Volcanoes
Subject: Earth Sciences
Grade level: Middle School Grades 7-9
Academic Level: Ordinary
Project Type: Descriptive
Cost: Low
Affiliation: Thinkquest
Year: 1998
Description: Main topics: plate tectonics, volcanoes, volcanic database.
Link: http://library.thinkquest.org/17457/

 

Samuel Johnson, best known for his dictionary of the English language, died on this day, 226 years ago.

After nine years of work, Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755; it had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been described as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship." Until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary 150 years later, Johnson's dictionary was viewed as the pre-eminent British dictionary.

- Wikipedia

Science Fair Project Information
Title: Statistical estimation of the the growth of the English language vocabulary over the years.
Subject: Statistics / Lexicography
Grade level: Middle School - Grades 7-9
Academic Level: Ordinary
Project Type: Experimental
Cost: Low
Affiliation: Science Fair Projects and Experiments (juliantrubin.com)
Year: 2010
Description: A statistical estimation of the No. of headwords in a dictionary, the size of your vocabulary and the growth of the English language vocabulary over the years. This is achieved by using the systematic sampling method by counting the number of words on dictionary pages placed at regular intervals from each other, beginning at a random page number.
Link: http://www.juliantrubin.com/encyclopedia/mathematics/dictionary_statistics.html