arbonauts

next generation of arbonauts

Designed for eight students, four with ambulatory disabilities and four without, this project is based on the idea that a wheelchair is not a limit to good field biology. Students will engage in canopy research to learn about herbivory, arthropods, and in particular, small critters called tardigrades (or water bears).

Downloadables

REU Project Right Rail

A video news story on Dr. Meg Lowman’s Waterbears and Wheelchairs program featuring student Rebecca Tripp. This was filmed during the Academy’s first public climb in the East Garden earlier this month.

This canopy-based REU project offers students of all abilities equal opportunity to explore and learn. Students can discover new species, new ecologies and new limits and reach new heights.

Designed for eight students, four with ambulatory disabilities and four without, this project is based on the idea that a wheelchair is not a limit to good field biology. To explore the canopy we climb ropes not trees, and in the lab we use microscopes, computers and minds, which have no limits.

It sounds like a horror movie - billions of miniature, bear-like creatures crawling through the lawns and shrubbery in Raleigh, Charlotte and Durham. Neither drought nor flood nor extreme temperature will kill them. During a heat wave, they curl into a ball and wait for better conditions to "come back to life." They dominate their miniature kingdom of soil, leaf surfaces and water droplets. These invincible, microscopic beasts are... tardigrades

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/12/19/1719503/tardigrades-theyre-truly-everywhere.html#storylink=cpy