Tag archives for Hawaii
Posted by The NG Kids Dare to Explore O’ahu contest challenged kids to tell us why they would like to explore Oahu. Four kids ages 9 to 14 were selected as winners to join the Oahu expedition from August 23-29, 2012. The four winners were Ella Beezely, age 10 from Indiana; Liam Kivirist, age 10, from Wisconsin; Anya Hardin, age 12, from Ohio; and Sarah Tharpe, age 14, from Florida. The kids were joined by NG expert and Digital Nomad, Andrew Evans.
The kids visited Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial, explored the nooks and crannies of the Battleship USS Missouri, met a real WW2 hero at the Pacific Aviation Museum, learned to plant taro (and eat poi!), made music at Na Mea KuPono, contributed to restoring the fish ponds with coral with Paepae o He`eia/Friends of He`eia, appeared on a movie set at Kualoa Ranch, explored all of the Polynesia Islands in one day plus were dazzled by “Ha!” at the Polynesian Cultural Center, all in just one week while staying at The Aston Hotel and Resort Waikiki Sunset!!
Group photograph by Dana Deighton. From left: Anya Hardin, Liam Kivirist, Ella Beezley, Sarah Tharpe with Andrew Evans, NG Digital Nomad in back
Fish photograph by Anya Hardin
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to explore Hawaii? Write an essay about why you would like to explore this Hawaiian island and draw a picture of what you think you would see, and you could win a weeklong trip to O’ahu with Andrew Evans, National Geographic’s Digital Nomad.
The correct answer is microbe poop! Scientists thought that the colorful deposits (like the ones in the picture above) found in lava tubes were minerals, but as it turns out, they’re really droppings from microbes living in the tubes.
Gross? Maybe, but the deposits can also be beautiful, according to scientists. Some examples are “a lovely blue-green ooze dripping out of the [cave] ceiling in Hawaii; a vein of what looks like a gold, crunchy mineral in New Mexico; and, in the Azores, amazing pink hexagons,” said Diana Northup, a geomicrobiologist at the University of New Mexico.
Find out more about the mats of microbe poop and how they might provide clues to life on Mars on National Geographic News.
Speaking of evidence, read about a birdnapper that got busted with poop on his shoes in another News Bite.
Photograph courtesy Guy Caniaux
