Mary Anne Pella-Donnelly
About
Expeditions:
Greenland Seabird Ecology
Occupation:
Teacher
Organization:
Chico Junior High School
Mary Anne Pella-Donnelly teaches science at Chico Junior High School in Chico, California where her classes are activity-rich, lab-oriented, and focused on critical thinking skills. Ms. Pella-Donnelly has taught science, math, computer science, and health for 20 years and strives to help students get excited about science, their environment and community involvement. Ms. Pella-Donnelly serves on the Chico Unified District Curriculum Council, is a presenter at the California League of Middle Schools Conference, and is involved in the California Science Project. She enjoys playing indoor soccer, running, and volunteers as a “sport's mom” for her two teenagers still at home.
Mary Anne Pella-Donnelly's Content
| Title | Type |
Last Updated |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Animal Monitoring Introduction | Lesson | 22 December 2011 | |
| Little Auk Survival Challenge | Lesson | 26 November 2011 | |
| Calorimetry Lab | Lesson | 7 October 2011 | |
| An Arctic expedition | Article | 28 January 2011 | |
| Little Auks in California!? A research/education collaborative model | Presentation | 28 January 2011 |
| Title | Forum | Posted |
|---|---|---|
|
noise |
Antarctic Undersea ROV | November 19, 2007 - 10:09am |
|
How many birds did we see again? |
Greenland Seabird Ecology | September 24, 2007 - 6:12pm |
|
Was it hard being in the cold so long |
Greenland Seabird Ecology | September 24, 2007 - 6:09pm |
|
Did i have fun,too? |
Greenland Seabird Ecology | September 24, 2007 - 5:51pm |
|
Surprises |
Arctic Tundra Dynamics | June 21, 2007 - 2:31pm |
|
weather |
Greenland Ice Studies | May 17, 2007 - 5:51am |
Hello Lydia,
I am glad you are interested in the Little auk. It is not a penguin, although it does look like one. It is a member of the alcid family, which are sea birds, too. I have forwarded your email to the lead scientist on the Greenland Seabird Study, so I hope she will be able to...{read more}
Hello,
Everything was different, and I don't know if I ever adjusted in the time I was there. The strangest part was never having it get dark. It was very easy to lose track of time, and not really know if it was afternoon, evening or the middle of the night. If we were up in the...{read more}
Hello,
Every day, Jerome Fort recorded the weather conditions. He tried to do so at 8 am and 8 pm daily. Sometimes we were too busy to do so. From what I remember the coldest temperature might have been 11 or 12 degrees F. It commonly was 25-35 degrees F., however.
mrs. P-D...{read more}
Hi,
Yes, the birds frantically tried to escape. A few times a bird was able to wiggle their foot free, but most often they were stuck. We had to grab them by the chest, holding their wings down so they wouldn't fight too hard, and work to free the foot. Every once in a while, they kept...{read more}
Hi,
We were the only people at this area at all. No one else has studied this colony of Little auks except for Ann Harding's team. There are some other teams of scientists studying the same bird on the island of Spitsbergen in Norway. It is not a well studied bird, since it is hard to...{read more}
Hi Michelle,
I'm glad to know you are concerned about the birds. I am afraid that when we took their blood we did hurt them a little. Banding them and having a piece of metal and threepieces of plastic stuck to their legs probably wasn't too much fun. The few that had TDR 's glued to...{read more}
Hi,
It was in the 20's and 30's most often. A few times I got to my tent to find it covered with frost, so I know it was below freezing. But, unless we were up at the colony, we were able to get out of the cold, either in the cabin or in our tents.
Thanks for asking.
Mrs....{read more}
Hey Justice,
It was mostly cold. A few days when the sun was out, and the wind was calm, we were able to take off our coats and only have long sleeved shirts and sweaters on. It was never short sleeved weather, nor was it shorts weather. It was unbelievable that it could...{read more}
Hi,
I am so glad to kow everyone is safe. What a shock to be back with people after so long with only a few around. I look forward to hearing stories of birds and all of your adventures.
You are all very special to me, and the memories of laughing with all of you...{read more}
Often times we did resight them. The ones with only leg bands were not looked at closely, however. But the birds that had their chests painted were always watched and we tried to recapture them. Our success rate was often about 30%. That number does not seem very high, but that was really...{read more}