Remember those Balloons?

I remember in elementary school, every spring we would release balloons. We would write our name and school address on them, and have this school-wide balloon-releasing fete. It was so awesome, watching all those colored balloons float away, polluting the rivers and streams and trees. Since it was a rural school with lots of trees, most of them probably never even left the school grounds and got stuck in trees to bother local birds. But some made it to other states even, with their postcards, to be mailed back by whoever found them. And they got put up on a map for all the school to see. None of mine ever got found or mailed back. And now they no longer do this, due to concerns for the environment. One less tradition to share with my daughter. (I have, however, managed to find a CD-ROM of Oregon Trail. So, if I can get my old computer running and keep it running until she is old enough to read, we can spend hours trying to kill those pesky squirrels.)

Moving on. Apparently scientists are still creative. Some of this suspected this all along (but hey, we might be prejudiced). Anyway, NASA scientists are working with other scientists around the world to study global warming, particularly in the Jakobshavn Glacier of Greenland. Basically, they want to know where the melting water is going. Their prediction is Baffin Bay, but the high-tech probes that were supposed to confirm this failed. So, instead, they launched a brigade of 90 rubber ducks labeled "with an e-mail address and the words "science experiment" and "reward" written in English, Danish and the native Inuit language." Personally, I think this is awesome, and I hope it works. We'll see where they end up.

I hope they have better luck than I did with my balloons.