Last spring, my fifth-grade son, Brandon, announced that his research question for the Science Fair was whether plants were affected by cigarette smoke. I reminded him that no one in the house smoked, and that his asthma was triggered by concentrations of smoke, but he was undaunted. "We'll just keep them outside in something that we can close up and put a burning cigarette in it!" How could I argue with this budding researcher?

    Soon, Brandon's Science Fair project became a family project. I helped him purchase supplies and think through his research methodology. Middle brother, Ryan, rigged up a device that would "smoke" a cigarette using the plastic squeeze bottle Dad uses for tennis tournaments, a soda straw and tape. We all experimented with ways to contain the smoke and settled on deep recycling buckets covered with plastic wrap that was tightly taped.

    Unfortunately, no matter how tightly we taped the wrap on the bucket, a good deal of smoke emerged from the hole made by the cigarette, and Brandon began sneezing and coughing. Therefore, the job of "smoking" the plants became Mother's evening chore.
 
   Brandon continued to observe and measure the plants in the control bucket and the one filled with smoke. As the weeks went on, however, I sensed his enthusiasm waning. He was fairly interested in the fact that the plants exposed to smoke were growing more vigorously than those in a clean environment, but when I called the Botany Department to ask for possible reasons for this phenomena, my son went off to watch the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on TV
The weeks went on and the Fair drew near. The plants exposed to the smoke eventually began. to get off color and wither. I spent four hours helping Brandon put press-on-lettering on his presentation boards and attach his photos. Brandon won first place at the Science Fair. Dad had to buy a new sports bottle.

    When I taught fifth grade, Tricia's father was so wrapped up in her egg hatching project that he came home from work every day to check to see if the chickens had hatched. On the day of the blessed event, he ran into class breathless announcing, "They hatched, they hatched! Tricia turned a bright shade of red, shrugged her shoulders and said that that was nice.

    Unfortunately, children in my class from less privileged homes had no such support. Forced to produce a project, they often had to make do with an ordinary experiment like growing a sprouting potato in a dark closet. They were always embarrassed to display their sickly potato and cardboard box poster lettered in crayon next to the three-foot volcano constructed by another child's father.

    Susan Shadid, at Steuben School, Kankakee, has organized an interesting variation on the Science Fair. Parents and others are invited to come at 6:30 p.m., May 2, with the children to view student projects in the corridors, class projects in the rooms, adult projects from the community in the gym, and large equipment from rescue teams, the fire department, etc. on the playground.

    Fifth grade teacher, Sharon Lash, at Washington School, Champaign, has her students do mini-science projects in class and at home throughout the year, insisting that they write them up in a scientific method.

    What are your feelings about Science Fairs? Do you have any suggestions about better ideas that encourage children to perform scientific research? -MO

Jack answers: These are great questions! I'll try to answer them for you:

    Earthworms lay their eggs in a cocoon which opens up when the eggs turn into little worms. The cocoons are in a tunnel the parent has made in the ground.

    Earthworms come out of their tunnel when it gets full of water and they can't breathe. So you often see them right after a rain crawling across the concrete sidewalks, black tops, etc. Many of them get killed by being stepped on, being run over by cars, or by drying up when they can't find their way back into their tunnels. They need to stay moist in order to breathe through their skin.

    Earthworms don't get hurt when they crawl across the concrete. Their brains are so tiny that they have very little sensation of pain.

    Earthworms take in oxygen and give off carbon dioxide through each segment in their body. They don't have lungs connected to noses like mammals, reptiles, ant amphibians do. They need to stay in a moist place, but they don't have gills lilts a fish does to get the oxygen out of the water and put the carbon dioxide back into the water.

    If you want to keep earth worms, you should get a lot of dead leaves and put them in a jar with a little water, so the leaves are wet but there is no puddle of water. The worms will stay between the leaves and breathe ok. They may even eat some of the dead leaves. JE

Jack answered Mr. Satchwell's question upon his return:

    I'm sorry we didn't pick up the question about skip zones when it first appeared. We must have some kind of a "skip zone" between the two FrEdMail computers here, for they are supposed to share all QUEST board items daily, and I was checking only Board I until Michele Olsen found it while I was away at a conference. Your question is interesting to me, because I was a skip zone specialist back in 1943-46.

    Radio broadcasts not only transmit directly to the receivers within a range of distance which varies with power and frequency, they can also bounce off of the ionosphere (ionized upper atmosphere) and come back to earth some long distance away.

    High frequencies, like those used for FM transmission, are called "line of sight," for they don't bend very much around the earth or even mountains. The lower frequencies like 500 kilohertz bend better but won't go directly to a radio receiver more than 50-100 miles away, depending on the power of the station. That is because the curvature of the earth blocks them, and they can't go through the earth.

    However, under appropriate conditions in the ionosphere some frequencies can be reflected, and thus travel around the earth as they bounce up and down from the ionosphere to the earth and back again. The shorter radio waves can only bounce off the ionosphere at a low angle, something like skipping a stone off the water. At a high angle they go through the ionosphere. Shortwave radio stations can be heard at night from all over the world because the ionosphere is usually good for reflecting them at night.

    A skip zone is a region around a radio station too far away for direct transmission and too close to receive a reflection from the ionosphere. In that region the station can't be picked up. For example, in 1946, I was on the Island of Maui when the ionosphere was an unusually good reflector of FM radio stations. That was because the sun spots were very numerous that year and the ionosphere was very highly ionized. I could hear California FM stations on Maui. They reflected off the ionosphere. In California, however, they were blocked by mountains or the earth's curvature, and could only be heard in the immediate vicinity of the station.

    The skip zone was probably a very large circle with a small circle of direct transmission near the station cut out of the middle.

    Dr. Berger says that the project is only at the laboratory stage. He describes his work as being at step one when he must reach step ten for it to be successful. He- said that he and Dr. Fahey are working on adding chemicals to make the papers digestible and nutritious. They already do that to corn stalks and wheat straw. So far, tests on U of I cows indicate that a similar process can be successful with newspapers.

    Larry Berger described one research method he used to test newspaper digestibility recently. He mixed 30 different formulas, treated paper samples with them, and sewed them into porous Dacron bags. Then he placed them in the stomachs of cows to see which mixtures were the most digestible. He is working on the results and will begin feeding trials on a large scale in June.

    We knew that kids would want to know how Larry places the newspapers in cows' stomach and that they would like to know if cows like the taste of newspaper, so we asked him to add to our article. Dr. Berger wrote the following:

    "The cows have a window-like opening placed into their stomachs. This window is opened to put the bags of newspapers in and then closed while the bacteria in the stomach of the cow digest the newsprint. We can remove the bags after different periods of time to see which treatment allows the most rapid digestion.  Cows will eat 20 to 30% of their diet as newsprint. The newsprint is normally digested very slowly in their stomachs. We are hoping to increase the speed of newsprint digestion so that the cows can eat even more. A large cow could easily eat S to 20 pounds of newsprint per day."

    Dr. Berger said that his research has attracted quite a bit of interest. For instance, the telephone company would like to recycle misprinted phone book pages. Larry says that he would actually prefer to feed cows phone book newsprint, because the company can control what goes into the dyes used on the pages. (The slick, glossy pages of newspaper advertisement supplements can actually be toxic to cattle.)

STARTING THE SYSTEM
[Before you use the system for the first time, make sure it is set up correctly. You shouldn't have to do this again unless someone else changes the settings. Follow the communications software directions to set it up as follows:

• modem type (whatever you have)
• 1200 baud
• full duplex
• data format: 8 N 1 (8 data bits, no
 parity, 1 stop bit)]

CALLING FrEdMail

    Be sure your modem is plugged in to the phone line.

    Load your terminal or communications software. (Talk Is Cheap, Apple Talk, Smartmodem, MacTerrn, or whatever you have.)

    Follow the software directions to dial the phone number for the nearest "board" (computer with a FrEdMail system active). Type ATDP (attention, dial pulses) if you have a pulse type phone or ATDT (attention, dial tones) if you have a touch tone phone, followed immediately by all the numbers you need to reach the 'board." KKK111 (Kennedy School, Kankakee)  (18159330760),UIUCED (12173332246), UBICED2 (12172443368) (For local calls, omit the 1st 4 digits. Notice that you do not place spaces between the numbers--just like when you dial.)

    There will be a short pause while your modem gets a dial tone, dials the number, and the "board's" modem rings. A high pitched whistle or carrier may be heard and some other noise when the whistle stops. Some programs,, like MacTerm, simply display the words "ring, ring" and "connect" rather than making noise. At any rate, if you get the message "no carrier", hang up and try again in a bit. That usually means that the line is busy.

    Once you connect with the "board," press return one or more times to signal the "board" you are ready to talk. You will receive a welcome message:
EXAMPLE:
atdt244-3368
CONNECT 2400<return>
CMS 12.7
WELCOME TO:
 COMPUTER MAIL SYSTEM CMS -
FREDMAIL
  UIUCED

300/1200/2400 BAUD

CLINTON STAPLETON, SYSOP
TYPE NEW TO SET UP A USER ACCOUNT. TYPE GUEST TO BROWSE AROUND.
OR TYPE YOUR USERNAME TO LOGIN.

    The computer will ask you to identify yourself by entering your user name. This is usually a combination of the first letter of your first name and your last name. Type in your user name.

    (If you are a really new user, however, you should type "NEW". The "board" will ask you some questions about your interests and then assign you a username.)

    When the ''board" prompts, "Password," type your password. (Your typing will be replaced by asterisks, to protect your password from onlookers.]
USERNAME: MOLSEN<return>
PASSWORD: *****<return>
LOGGING CALLER #1261 ON APR 19, 1991,
8:39 AM...
ON LINE: MOLSEN: OLSEN, MICHELE

    You will then be told the number of new messages the computer finds for you.

You have 1 new messages waiting

    You will be told the time, date, and how many minutes you have left to work (e.g., 45 minutes). If you are interrupted and the time runs out, the computer will cut you off, thus losing your work.

    Next, you will see the Main command menu: [Main cmd: ABCEFGHKMNOPSTU?]_ Each letter is a choice you have. The dash at the end means type a letter. To see more about this menu, type a "?" followed by return. Normal use may be limited to B and E, depending on whether you want to read (or type) message(s), put on a bulletin board (B) for many authorized users to see or use the more personal electronic mail (E).

You may wish to check your personal messages fuss. These will be found in
the electronic mail (EMAIL).

 READING EMAIL:

    After typing E and return, there will be a pause, and a message will say, "Loading EMail." After about 20 seconds, you will be told again how many messages you have. This number may include some
old messages if you have not deleted them.

Loading EMAIL16844K left in
EMAIL
You have l messages
[EMAIL:BHKRSTUQ?] R<return>

    Then you will see the EMail Menu: [EMAIL: BHKRSTUQ?]_ To read your mail, type R and return; to type a message, choose T. if there is one. If T is missing, you need to talk to the sysop (system operator) about up-grading your status. (Or you can leave him/her a message when you sign off.)

    If you have a text-file message stored on a disk or diskette in your computer that you want to send as an attached file, type U for "up-load" and return.

    K turns off the prompts to speed operations for a "knowledgeable user," which might mean you'll get lost.

RETURN Scans From Msg. 999 or Type New Message # To Begin Search: <return>

    If you don't know the number of the message at which you want the search to begin, hit return to start searching from the "board's" record of your first message.

    There will be a pause while the computer you have contacted searches the file of mail looking for your signon (your abbreviated name). Now, after a list of old message numbers, you will see the number of the first message found for you, followed by your signon, the signon of the person who sent it, a colon, the subject heading of the message, the date it was sent, followed by the menu lRSDQ?]_

    You can now choose to read, skip, or delete the message or quit reading this message, which takes you back to the EMail menu. (Since the letters in the menus change their meaning from level to level, it is not considered cheating to type "?" and return to see what they mean.)

    If you choose R. the message will be displayed on the screen. Last message read: 12200 RETURN Scans From Msg: 12200, or Type New Message # to Begin Search: 12200<return~ 12293:JEASLEY: Student Questions 04/15/91 (RSDQ?) R<return~ Msg. 12293: To: MOLSEN From: JEASLEY Sent: 4/15/91 4:35 PM Subj: Student Questions

    Michele, I am getting concerned that very few teachers have sent in their science questions for this semester. Perhaps you remember that we received more than 30 questions during the last week of school last June and it was difficult to hurry and answer them?--Jack

    If you see the word "(more...)," hit return when you are ready to read another screen of the message.

    After you have read one message, you get a new memo for disposing of that message: lMs& 999 ADKQR?]_ Here R means reply to the message, not read. A means read again.

    If you want to save the message on a disk(ette) in your computer, then, you'll have to command your communications software (perhaps using pulldown menus) to prepare for copying what comes in on the screen.

    Then you can choose A to read the same message again. When you have copied all you want, tell your software to end the file on your disk(ette).

    The question mark reminds you of the code, and if you hit return alone, it asks if you want to [REPLY?: YN]_ If you choose Y to reply, you are asked to type a 1 followed by a return to reply to the sender. Next, hitting return will keep the same message header, or you can change it.

    In typing a message, (after an R or T on the EMail Menu,) watch carefully at the beginning of each line, for typing fast there often causes the computer to miss a letter. You cannot back up past the beginning of the line you are on, but if you make a note of errors by line number you can go back later to edit them. You can leave blank lines between paragraphs if you like, but three returns will signal the end of your message. Then you will see the Email Message Edit menu: [EDIT: ACDEFHIKLSU?]_

    A permits you to add another line. Choosing D lets you delete a particular line if you know the line number. Choosing E lets you edit a line if you type its number. /find/replace/ means that you can get the computer to replace what you type between the first two slashes with what you type between the last two slashes. You can check the whole line over after it's done, and then hit return or edit again. Otherwise you could opt to retype the whole line.

    Choosing S sends your message, i.e., the computer you are communicating with stores it in its memory, to await a time around midnight when it will transfer it to another computer along the path toward its destination. It returns you to the EMail menu, when it's finished.

[Msg 12293: ADFKQR?] R<return> Reply To: JEASLEY Returns Type 1...3 to Reply to Sender Return --->To JEASLEY Subj: Student Questions Subj: <return> Subj: Student Questions Type Msg (100 lines, 80 Chrs) Type 3 RETURNS when done: 1:I think that teachers have been very busy with April testing. 2:Perhaps we could write something in the newsletter to rimind them. Michelecreturn> 3:creturn> 4: <returns [Edit Msg.12696: ACDEFHIKLSU?] E<return>

Edit Line 2<return>

Retype line or /find/replace/ 2:Perhaps we could write something in the newsletter to rimind them. Michele 2:/rimind/remind/ 2:Perhaps we could write something in the newsletter to remind them. Michele 2:

[Edit Msg.i2796: ACDEFHIKLSU?] S<return> Msg.12796...Sent!

(When you originate a message, rather than reply to one you have received, the computer may not know where the person is you a" sending it to. If so, it will ask you to give a proper address.)

USING THE BULLETIN BOARD

    (One note: The number of new messages the Bulletin Board says it has for you can be confusing. Computers don't speak our language, yet.)

    The code for the subject heading for the QUEST board is intended to permit any teacher in any school with access to this board to scan all the messages from number 1 on, and see what the questions and answers are about, from what school they came and from what grade and teacher. Thus anyone with access to QUEST could skip over the answers to questions that are not interesting and read or copy onto a disk(ette) those which are interesting.

[EMAIL:BHKRSTUQ?] B<return>
Which Board
(? for List): _ G<return~
Loading QUEST: 48 Msgs: 57-113
You have 2 new messages
38 minutes left.
[QUEST:BEHKRSTUQ?] S<return~
Last message read: 111
RETURN Scans From Msg.111, or
Type New Message# To Begin
Sea rch: Return
111: QUEST JEASLEY:skip zone
lit: QUEST BHALL:QTEK WORMS
HALL
113: QUEST JEASLEY:ATEK
WORMS HALL
16843K left in QUEST
[QUEST: 48 Msgs: 57-113]

You have 2 new messages
38 minutes Left

    QTEK means a question from Taft Elementary school, kindergarten. ATE2 is an answer for someone at Taft grade 2. HALL means Ms. Hall's class. If snow is what the question or answer is about, the whole heading, of an answer put together might read ATEK Snow HALL. In practice there are variations, and sometimes it is difficult to get long subjects and long teachers' names into the limited space provided. Because the QUEST board isn't always working well, there may also be test messages on it.

[QUEST: BEHKRSTUQ ? ] Rcretu ran
Last message read: 111
RETURN Scans From Msg.lll or
Type New Message # TO Begin
Search: 112<return~
112:QUEST BHALL:
QTEK WORMS HALL
04/12/91 [112]
[RSDQ?] R<return>
Msg. 1 12
To: &QUEST@UIUCED
From:
&QUEST@KKK111 %ILLINOIS
Path: KKKlll!BHALL
Sent: 04/12:91 7:34 AM
Rcvd: 04/12/91 1:08 AM
Subj: QTEK WORMS HALL

DO WORMS LAY EGGS/ DO WORMS GET HURT WHEN THEY CRAWL ACROSS CONCRETE? WORMS HAVE NO NOSE. HOW DO THEY BREATHE?

You should be aware that messages on the Quest board are read by many people. If you have a personal message for someone, you should use the E command rather than B for a bulletin board. Only the person you address can access a message sent on EMail. When you are finished with messages, Q gets you out of the place you are, and another Q will usually get you to the

Main Command menu, where G(oodbye) signs you out. One more return usually gets you past the invitation to send a message to the sysop, and then you can turn off or quit your communications software.

[Msg.112: ADFKQR?] Return>
16843K left in QUEST
[Q UEST:48 Msgs: 57 to 1131
You have 1 new messages
37 Minutes Left
[QUEST:BEHKRSTUQ?] Return>
Time Now: April 19, 1991, 8:33
AM
37 Minutes Left
[Main Cmd:
ABCEFGHKMNOPSTU?] Gcreturn>
Comments for Sysop? (Y/N/R=
Return) N<return>
L e a v i n g
College of Education UICU
FrEdMail
I Hope You Enjoyed Yourself

Disconnecting the modem from the phone line should be done automatically by your communications software.

Now, you can use your usual printing program to print on paper any messages you saved onto a disk(ette).-JE

 Director Jack Easley
 Editor Michele Olsen