When ocean explorers at sea on an ocean expedition asked for help from students to name a pair of undersea calderas in the Pacific Ocean near the Galapagos spreading zone, school classes from across the nation submitted votes for one of six names suggested by the explorers. Calderas are large underwater craters formed by a volcanic explosion or the collapse of a volcanic cone. The winning name is "Los huellos," (footprints).
Students in classes that selected the winning name now have "name bragging rights." They include students in:
- Ms. Leigh Zinskie's 4th period Earth Science class (6th grade) at Needwood Middle School in Brunswick, Georgia.
- Ms. Mary LeJeune's Earth Science class (8th grade) at Berwick Junior High in Berwick, Louisiana.
- Ms. Anna Butler's 1st period and 6th period Life Science classes (7th grade) at Lakeside Junior High in Orange Park, Florida.
- Ms. Cathy Webb's class at Edmonds Homeschool Resource Center, Edmonds, Washington where Ms. Webb's students reported the craters' outlines and positions resemble footprints.
- Ms. Joy Higgins' classes in College Biology (10th grade and Period 4), and in Anatomy and Physiology (10th grade) at Rockland High School in Rockland, Massachusetts where students thought the calderas looked like footprints as seen left along a beach.
- Ms. Tanya Speyrer's Environmental Science class (11-12 grades) at Bastrop High School in Bastrop, Louisiana. Students there felt that the calderas looked like two footprints and that footprints indicate something has come and something has left--a full cycle, like the life of a volcano.
- Ms. Vicki Soutar's class in Oceanography (11-12 grades) at Oconee County High School in Watkinsville, Georgia. After viewing the sonar image of the calderas, her students felt that the calderas looked like a giant's footprint.
- Mr. John Dello Russo's Environment I class (11th grade) at Greater Lawrence Technical School in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where his students thought the calderas reminded them of the achievements of the first steps, or footprints left behind on the moon and its correlation to the mysteries of our magnificent ocean depths.
- Ms. Carol Bayless' 1st period Earth Science class (8th grade) at Creekland Middle School in Lawrenceville, Georgia.
- Ms. Mina Marsden's, Aquatic Science and Independent Study classes (10-12 grades) at Roosevelt High School in San Antonio, Texas.
Full Contest Result And Description
GalAPAGoS: Result Of Calderas Naming Contest (Microsoft Word.doc, 40Kb)
GalAPAGoS: Result Of Calderas Naming Contest (Adobe Acrobat.pdf, 32Kb)
Related Links:
GalAPAGoS: Where Ridge Meets Hotspot
GalAPAGoS: Where Ridge Meets Hotspot - Dec 5 Log
