Ask a Science Teacher with Jill Jensen

CATHY WURZER: This is Minnesota Now here on MPR news. I'm Cathy Wurzer. You've probably heard that NASA's hoping to send humans back to the moon, and a launch next week is the next big step in that mission. That's one of the top science stories out there.

Here to talk about that, plus spiders and fossils and a whole bunch more, is Jill Jensen. She's the president of the Minnesota Science Teachers Association and a seventh grade life science teacher at Scott Highlands Middle School in Apple Valley. Welcome to the program, Jill. How are you?

JILL JENSEN: Hi. I'm great. Thanks for having me.

CATHY WURZER: I'm glad you're with us. Thank you. Well, you know, it seems that NASA's focus the past few years has been largely on Mars. So why are we now thinking about the moon again?

JILL JENSEN: Yeah, so this is actually a really exciting launch. It is the first step of actually a pathway to Mars. And it's going to be testing out one of their largest rockets. They're also going to be going further into space than they've gone before.

It's a rocket that is designed to have a huge capacity, so being able to carry much more weight than some previous missions, and a return to earth that's actually designed to be faster than it has been in the past.

And so that's why this first launch is actually going to be without humans. So they have some mannequins set to go into orbit with some sensors on them to test out all of the systems. And it also will be a test of their heat shields to make sure that everything returns to earth safely.

CATHY WURZER: So will this capsule or vehicle be going to the moon, or just orbiting?

JILL JENSEN: So this particular one is going to orbit the moon. And it's actually going to do what they call a retrograde orbit, which means it's going to go the opposite direction than the moon is going, and it will use some of that to gain some momentum to make it back to Earth.

And then the next launch, which would be Artemis 2, will have people, but they also won't be landing on the moon. They'll just be also doing more of a scouting mission to look for their landing places. And then eventually, the next one will have people on it, and then for landing.

CATHY WURZER: OK, we're going to change gears here. Let's talk about technology news. I have an Apple watch. Wearable technology kind of became famous because of the Apple watches. But I know there are new technologies being developed that can actually have some major health benefits. Is that right?

JILL JENSEN: Yeah. So there was a really interesting article about advanced robotic clothing. The way I look at it is we are in that field at the first stage. If you imagine back to your very first cell phone, and all of the changes that have happened since then, we're at, like, stage one of advanced robotic clothing right now.

Up till now, we've had a lot of kind of fun robotic clothing, things like light up dresses and musical gloves. But we're really on the cusp of some new changes. Pants that have some sensors in them that can help promote blood flow, maternity clothes that can track heartbeats. So I think moving forward, we're going to see a lot of new stages and a lot of new technology come from that.

CATHY WURZER: The pants that stimulate blood flow, I can imagine could be great for people who have maybe peripheral artery disease, something like that.

JILL JENSEN: Yeah, or any elderly people with just circulation issues. It might have lots of benefits coming forward.

CATHY WURZER: What about this story about new fossils in Utah? I love anything dealing with fossils.

JILL JENSEN: Yeah. Me, too. I think fossils are always super interesting because it's just these clues into our past that are kind of unknown, and it makes you curious about how did the world used to work.

So they found what looks like about 88 footprints that belonged to both adults and children in the Great Salt Lake Desert. And their guess is they're about 12,000 years old. And they kind of found them by happenstance.

They were driving along, and one of the people in the truck was telling his friend about some other footprints he found in New Mexico. And the friend was asking, oh, what did they look like? And looking out the window, he's like, they kind of look like that.

And they ended up stopping the truck and looking closer, and they ended up actually finding out that these indeed were some footprints. So they believe that this area at one point was a pretty big wetland, and as people walked through, the water and sand kind of filled up their footprints and then preserved their shape.

And what I also found interesting was to me, this was also a connection to, kind of along the same time, there was a group of people at a restaurant on a patio in China and looked down and found a fossilized footprint of a sauropod. And they brought in some experts and confirmed that as well. So there's a lot of clues to our past kind of hiding in plain sight.

CATHY WURZER: I love that. And because you're a life science teacher, I think we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about bugs. So what's this new discovery about spiders and sleep?

JILL JENSEN: Yeah, so there was a scientist who had a collection of jumping spiders. So jumping spiders are actually probably one of the more common spiders that you can find. They're super small, and they do jump quite a bit. I see them outside on my garden and on my patio quite often.

And she had been collecting some for a different experiment to actually see if spiders have arachnophobia, if they can tell and be afraid of other spiders. But she happened to notice as they were sitting in their containers that they had actions that looked as if they were dreaming. So kind of some leg twitches, and it was sitting still up until that point.

So that led her to getting a night vision camera and setting up a filming opportunity for her to document this further. And it seems as if, based on her footage, that they are indeed mimicking some REM pattern sleeps.

What I find fascinating about that story is-- well, a couple of things. One, that this is one of the first instances of this kind of level of animal going through REM sleep. But what I find more interesting is that this was not her original study.

That she had these spiders set up for a whole different purpose, but by just watching carefully and noticing these other behaviors, that led her down this complete other path. And to me, that is the beauty of science, that sometimes unexpected findings just become apparent or present themselves.

CATHY WURZER: So the potential that spiders can have dreams, as we do.

JILL JENSEN: Yeah, right. Now, it gets a little tricky to prove, of course, because to actually prove it, you'd want to monitor their brain activity, which, as you can imagine, for a spider is going to be pretty difficult to do.

CATHY WURZER: Right. Exactly. But I like the possibility.

JILL JENSEN: Yes.

CATHY WURZER: Say, before you go, it's been fun to talk with you. But before you go, of course, you're getting ready to start a new school year. What's the emphasis early in the school year for your students? What'll you be teaching?

JILL JENSEN: So at the beginning of the year, we do a lot of just introduction to science and kind of getting them used to that idea of science and that there's not a straight path of science, kind of like in that spider story, and getting them excited about discovering things.

I also try to get them outside. We've got a prairie that I just installed in our school yard, and we'll be looking for some pollinators and kind of monitoring. We're going to do a couple of citizen science projects this year as well to get kids actively involved in collecting and sharing data.

CATHY WURZER: Oh, that sounds like fun.

JILL JENSEN: Yeah.

CATHY WURZER: I can tell that you also are excited about what you do.

JILL JENSEN: Yeah. It's a great job.

CATHY WURZER: I hope you have a great start to the school year, and it was fun talking to you. I'd like to have you back, if that's OK.

JILL JENSEN: I would love to be back.

CATHY WURZER: Perfect. All right. Well, Jill, thank you so much, and I wish you all the best for the new school year.

JILL JENSEN: Thank you.