Galapagos Gala

I'm back in my New Jersey classroom and excited to teach my students about the Galapagos Islands and its inhabitants. Gracias to all who participated in my journey. Many of the questions you posted will be addressed in class, and some of the questions are still unanswered and need to be investigated. This is a work-in-progress!

We will begin our classroom adventure in January, culminating with a Galapagos Gala on Tuesday, February 12, 2008. All are invited to attend.

To start our study, we will take a look at oil spills and their effects on wildlife. As many of know, an oil spill threatened the Galapagos Islands in January of 2001. A tanker named Jessica ran aground and spilled up to a quarter million gallons of oil into the ocean near the island of San Cristobal. To bring this issue home, do you remember the 2004 oil spill in the Delaware River? The Athos tanker spilled over 250,000 gallons of oil in the Delaware River in route to a refinery in Paulsboro, NJ. How do these spills impact the environment?

Stay tuned for more details, but in the mean time, Google these two oil spills to get a jump start on the study.