piratehunny877

=Boston Harbor Island Project =

Project
In this project that we assembled after our field trip to the Boston Harbor Islands, we had a list of vocabulary words that were required in an essay, song, or any creative work we'd like, narrating a story of how a glacier, drumlin, etc. formed. Here's mine, it's supposed to be a student who went to the same field trip but a hundred years into the future, when Global Warming would have advanced greatly and changed our lives drastically. She/He is talking about an island I made up called "S Island" that has many myths surrounding it's existence, and in the end reveals how perturbed they are because Global Warming has prevented them from ever solving these mysteries. I hope you enjoy!

= S Island = October 28th, 2011

One fateful day, a colossal glacier had returned from Canada into the North Atlantic Ocean, and left an island. Some people say it just fell from the sky, scientists say it looked like a question mark, and my neighbor says it was actually recently planted there by the government to use it as a tourist attraction. No one really knows the story of S Island, but there sure is a lot of hubbub about it.

On the glacier theory, the glacier deposited its till approximately thirteen miles from the East coast of the U.S., forming a curious type of island with a hill steeper on one end than the other: a drowned drumlin, just as big as the glacier. Some question its peculiar distance; why is it thirteen? A coincidence, or something more?

S island could just be another island out there, but one weird thing is that it displays almost all types of land formations, it's quite a sight alright. Not only that but the crackpot stories that go along with them!

It's got an appealing beach on its east side, with oddly colored sediment. It's supposed to be the original tan you're used to seeing, but you can spot smooth, thanks to abrasion, green, red, dark purple, orange, and other colored rocks. It is rumored that pirates came long ago with glamorous jewels, shining in the bright sun. They came to S Island for rest and bragged on and on about their jewels, while a fair Hill God watched over them. When the Hill God asked for some jewels, the pirates immediately refused, which outraged the Hill God, who promptly turned them and their little jewels into rock. Those rocks were worn down like sand paper, impacted and cracked by powerful erosion of waves, and made the pretty sand. Who said it was impossible? Well, my science teacher might've said something about it just being regular till and regular abrasion and such...

Another cool thing about S Island is its bluff, the Striped Bluff. This bluff is famous for its deep, tell-tale rills that carve gullies at its base that were eroded by the rainwater that visits the island often. Sort of like if you draw a continuous line on styrofoam that gets darker and deeper, that's what the bluff looks like. It is said that apparently a huge storm had come and made clouds so thick that it made a long river in the sky. This river ran right over S Island, and it had a runoff, that impacted the bluff so much it made the strange “carvings”... Cool, right? Except my science teacher did in fact say it was just erosion by water, nothing too fancy...

Lastly, the S Island features the Windy Spit. It's a spit that formed from the pretty sand at the beach due to longshore drift, which means it was pushed by waves over the years to the other side of the island. The windy part of its name is pretty obvious, when you stand on the tip of the spit you are guaranteed to catch a cold without a windbreaker. Plus, your face might be smooth away from the wind erosion, with all the loess spitting on your face. The story that scares me is that some say that's the whole point, that the creepy witch of the island cackles to make the wind blow and waits for your face to slip off and cook it in her cauldron to eat later! My science teacher says that I've got quite an imagination, but some things are a bit impossible...

I really love S Island, and I wish I could go and debunk these myths for myself. My science teacher explained that it was their when she was little, but due to quick rising sea levels, it's sinking more than a drowned drumlin should. It's almost completely covered with water, therefore not accessible. The hill is gone and the amazing sand and the spit... it's a humiliating little lump now. So I guess no one will ever know about S Island and all its coveted glory... Nor will we ever know about Hawaii, Bangladesh, Japan or any island or coast line... I didn't have the opportunity people did fifty years ago, when we still could've saved the Earth from global warming.

My Experience at the Boston Harbor Islands
Going to the Boston Harbor Islands was a magnificent event for my class and; full of learning experiences and a more interactive perspective on subjects we had learned about in class. On this field trip I had learned further about drumlins, what they are like and how they form. Georges Island, being a drumlin itself, showed the exact form of a drumlin, which is basically a hill that is steeper on one end than the other. Being on a drumlin could be like a regular walk on the gentle slope, but from my experience being on the steep slope was no walk in the park! There was scratchy vegetation, rough cobbles all over, and gooey clay which suctioned your boots to no end! Lastly, you could see a lot of evidence as to how Georges Island formed on the steeper end. You can observe the striations glaciers made as they scraped on that side of the island, forming the bluff. Also you would notice the different types of rock on each side, smooth sand and boulders indicate how much erosion went on there. Observation of real life objects in Science can really illustrate things that occurred thousands of years ago, that's what this wonderful field trip really provided for me. I hope you go to Georges Island or any island in the Boston Harbor and really experience this for you self!