'Joan Procter, Dragon Doctor' - Read and Rise March 2022

We picked up a bunch of books about amazing female scientists from the library last month and have been slowly reading through them and doing extension activities. This is the first of many I will be sharing!

"Joan Procter, Dragon Doctor: The Woman Who Loved Reptiles" by Patricia Valdez and Felicita Sala tells the story of Joan Procter, a woman who was born at the end of the 1800s in England and pursued a career in herpetology - something unheard of for women at the time! Probably her most notable accomplishments are creating the first enclosure for Komodo dragons at the London Zoo and caring for and learning about these amazing creatures. People knew very little about Komodo dragons in the early 1900s and were terrified of them. Joan showed the world that Komodo dragons weren't scary and she even walked around the zoo with one, named Sumbawa, whom she had tamed!

Joan's care and observation of her reptiles led to her being able to tell when they were sick and figure out how to treat them. She also discovered a new species of reptile and had two species named after her - Buhoma proctorae (a snake) and testudo proctorae (a tortoise).

Watch and listen: "Joan Procter, Dragon Doctor: The Woman Who Loved Reptiles" by Patricia Valdez and Felicita Sala

Activity: Herpetologists study reptiles and amphibians. So if you happen to live in an area where wild reptiles and amphibians also live, be a herpetologist and go exploring and observing! Just remember to be safe and not pick up or touch any wild animals if you are not sure what they are. 

You can also explore how frogs survive the winter! Reptiles and amphibians are cold-blooded, which means they cannot regulate their body temperature internally. So how do frogs survive when temperatures fall below freezing? The secret? Certain species of frogs have a high concentration of glucose in their vital organs which prevents those organs from freezing while they hibernate. To explore this concept ourselves, we set out to test what happens when you put water and "glucose" (sugar syrup) in the freezer.

Our first step (which I forgot to take photos of) was to create our version of glucose. We discussed how glucose is a type of sugar and how the white table sugar we use is a mix of fructose and glucose. Freezing sugar crystals won't really show us anything so first we converted our crystals into liquid form! We wanted more sugar than water in our syrup so we used a sugar to water ratio of 2:1. We took this opportunity to discuss the difference between simple mixtures and solutions. When we first poured in the sugar, we could see a mound of moist sugar. As we heated it, first we found that while we couldn't really see the sugar anymore, the mixture was cloudy. Once the sugar completely dissolved, the syrup turned clear!

After that mini science lesson, we continued with our experiment. We poured water into one container up to the line. We did the same thing with the cooled sugar syrup. Then we placed both in the freezer and left them overnight. The next morning we pulled them out and observed. The water was completely solid - and it had expanded a bit! 

The sugar syrup was thicker, but still completely liquid. Our spoon (and Squidgy's finger!) went into the syrup easily.

As you can see, the syrup was still liquid and drippy (don't mind that it's dripping all on the outside of the container! This is what happens when you try to hold the drippy spoon and take a picture at the same time!)