Haudenosaunee Camp: Science Musuem

Adventure Van here, and I'm here with a blog about a 3 day Iroquois camp at the Buffalo Museum of Science! I'll go and describe it in more detail below, but the camp was basically about Haudenosaunee culture, including food and sports! The Buffalo Museum of Science has plenty of camps like these, for things from making robotic arms to car classes, but I'll just be talking about what I went to.

Day 1, we went and learned how to say some Mohawk words for hello and my name is. We also went and looked at separate types of clothing for the different tribes. After, we had lunch (Must have lunch) and went and make a Strawberry Drink (Strawberry juice, water, and maple syrup) and a corn and bean soup that tasted great!

Day 2, we learned about bead work and basket weaving. Also, we had learned about maple popcorn, and how important maple syrup was for the Iroquois culture and survival. We had lunch, (Again) and went outside and played a game of lacrosse, after being told what it meant and what the requirements were. (Women weren't allowed to touch a wooden lacrosse stick, because they'd drain it's powers.)

Day 3, we made REAL BREAD. I'm not kidding, it's name is really REAL BREAD. It's a blue cornmeal, mixed with flour and beans, mixed with boiling water until it clumps, and then made into patties and put into a pot of boiling water for a minute. It's quite good, actually, and mixing it with milk instead of water makes a good mush. We also went to a park and looked thru the trees, and were explained the religious and material purpose of each type of tree.

That's a 4 paragraph blog, and this is Adventure Van, signing out.

Mouse Dissection

Heya, It's Adventure Van here with a quick blog about a Mouse Dissection class I took. I don't really know how to describe it, and, of course, it felt slightly uncomfortable cutting up a mouse, (And it's kinda gross having preserving fluid squirt at you. From a dead, cut open mouse.) But it's cool to see the way animals work, and the way that the world has molded them. We found a unused organ that was used a long time ago but not any more, and it was awesome to see the way everything works inside of any living being.

Adventure Van, out.

Quick Post:

Anne of Green Gables: Book Report

Hey guys, it's Adventure Van here with a blog post about Anne of Green Gables, written by L.M. Montgomery, which is a book that's become a large part of American culture. Following the story of a young child named Anne, who slowly gets used to living in the house owned by her foster parents, Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, in Canada. Anne starts the book of as a 11 year old girl who's been adopted by mistake, and slowly 'grows up' during the course of the book, both mentally and psychically. The book itself is set up in a short story like style, with each chapter (excluding the ending ones) being able to be told separately, each one expanding Anne's personality and those around her. She deals with separate occasions, from being first brought to the Gables to lessons in lying and liars to separate friends, all the way to the heart wrenching end. It's a nice book, and it's definitely re-readable.

This is Adventure Van, signing out.

War Dogs: Book Report

Hey guys, it's Adventure Van here with an updated and better blog post! This one's about War Dogs, a book by Rebecca Frankel about the role dogs play in War. As the bit on the front cover says, it's going to have 'TALES OF CANINE HEROISM, HISTORY, AND LOVE". I picked it up because I loved dogs, and because it had some information I could use for my Science Project, which was AWE-SOME!

Some facts I learned:

• Dogs, while never being used in battle per-say, accompanied Attila the Hun to guard his camps,  and the Romans used them as alarm bells for there garrisons.
• In the Vietnam war, dogs were so successful at thwarting ambush attempts that the Vietcong had bounties double their handlers' amount placed on them.
• Cairo was the top dog for a short period of time, as the dog who helped a Navy SEAL team take down Osama bin Laden.
• War Dogs have been known to break ribs through full padded suits, and don't often 'bite' an opponent.
• Dogs can tell if a tomato can that's been sitting in a puddle for a week is a bomb and can save entire crews from explosions.
• Not every dog, even those with extensive training, can be a military dog. It doesn't matter how well you do at simulations if you can't do the real thing.
• In combat situations, the dog will die to protect you, and you should do your best to die to protect your dog.
• Dogs are better then humans. Period. You don't need a book to tell you that.
• A heavy wind can make it almost impossible to track someone with a dog.
• George Washington, during the Revolutionary War, returned a dog to General William Howe, who was fighting for the British.
• General Custer got a large following of dogs in his travels, all the ones who followed him into the battle of Little Bighorn were slain. 
• Dogs for Defense became an official U.S. army branch at WW2, starting with 200 dogs as sentries. The most effective branch was the Scout Dogs, however, detecting enemies from 1,000 yards away.
•  In Sicily a dog called Chips was one of the first dogs to be brought to the front lines, and captured an Italian Machine Gunners nest, surviving the bullet wounds, including one to the face. An article said, soon after, 'Chips was ready to bite Hitler' and was rewarded the Silver Star and Purple Heart.
• A mantra/instruction of all Dog Handlers is "Where I go, my dog goes. Where my dog goes, I go."
• Dogs are trained as furiously as humans in camps, and some dogs do drop out, as well as some humans.

I loved it's concentration on details, and the hand to hand experience the author had with actual units. It is a very in depth book, which will take up a lot of your brains processing. And I will admit, I cried some. I love all dogs, so it wasn't to hard to include War Dogs under my belt. You should definitely take a look at it, so here's the link. Adventure Van, out!