Project Exploration Blog

This year's All Girls Expedition team!

Project Exploration’s All Girls Expedition team just returned from an amazing week in the world’s first national park, Yellowstone! A scrapbook and pictures will be online soon, but in the meantime, let’s congratulate these nine amazing women for their non-stop enthusiasm and hard work:

• Angelic B., Perspectives Charter School – Calumet Campus, 10^th grade
• Alejandra C., Perspectives Charter School – Rodney D. Joslin Campus, 10^th grade
• Michelle D., ACE Technical Charter High School, 12^th grade
• Winorr M., Perspectives Charter School – Calumet Campus, 11^th grade
• Mercedes M., Graduate of Young Women’s Leadership Charter School
• Ta’Kia P., Young Women’s Leadership Charter School, 12^th grade
• Ariel T., Perspectives Charter School – Rodney D. Joslin Campus, 11^th grade
• Xochitl V., Perspectives Charter School – Rodney D. Joslin Campus, 11^th grade
• Genesis V., Perspectives Charter School – Rodney D. Joslin Campus, 11^th grade

Ta'Kia, Angelic, and Michelle work with scientist, Kevin, to track a collared coyote.

In the first week of the program here in Chicago, we learned that Yellowstone sits on an active supervolcano and has all the ingredients for over 10,000 hydrothermal features, like Old Faithful Geyser. We learned all about the wildlife that we might see and how to track coyotes. In addition, each team member became an expert on two organisms (plants and animals) in the park. You can read about the send-off event where the girls presented on Science Chicago’s blog.

Yellowstone was full of geologic wonders and amazing wildlife! We spotted two black bears, one with a first-year cub, and a grizzly bear foraging for berries! Whether it was a bald eagle in the far distance, a river otter lunching on cutthroat trout, or bighorn sheep carefully treading on rocky hills, the All Girls Expedition team kept their eyes open for anything moving. While hiking around Nymph Lake to measure pH and temperature of hot springs, the team members found and held a small garter snake!

Ariel cradles the small garter snake we found at Nymph Lake!

When we stopped at Sheepeater Cliff to observe 500,000 year old basalt columns, we were treated to a chipmunk serenade and two yellow-bellied marmots running around between the large igneous rocks. Almost everyone saw their plant and animal of expertise. Unfortunately, we did not see any wolves or red foxes this year. But that’s why these team members will have to return to Yellowstone in the future! As we say, once an All Girls Expedition team member, always an All Girls Expedition team member!