Frog Home Page

Picture by Ryan

The Minnesota New Country School Frog Project

Students from The Minnesota New Country School have been involved in a scientific study to find the cause of deformed frogs they found in the fall of 1995. This site has been created not only to show you what students from our school found but to encourage you to make you own discoveries in a pond near you.

The National Frog Survey

Index The Discovery

New! Frog
Survey The group of students who made the initial discovery were part of a Nature Studies class during the first week of August, 1995. Since MNCS is a year-round school, it was not unusual to find our students in the field when most students are on summer vacation. The discovery occurred on an intended hike through the Ney Woods, which is part of a Wildlife Game Refuge near Henderson, MN. As the group hiked along a private field road on the Don Ney farm, they noticed many frogs hopping about. As kids are prone to do, the students began catching frogs for fun. At one point, students accused each other of injuring the frogs because their legs were "weird." However, it wasn't long before they realized that this was not an injury problem - it was a developmental problem!
Immediately, students pulled out notebooks and began collecting data about the frogs they were catching. Fully 50% of the frogs caught that day had deformities of their hind legs. Many had one leg which was underdeveloped and webbed together, preventing normal function. One frog captured that day had only one hind leg, while another had two feet on one leg and a bony protrusion from the spine.
Following their return to school, students developed a list of questions to pursue. Frogs were photographed with a QuickTake camera to put on the Internet. Phone calls were made regarding types of farm chemicals used in the area. Cindy Reinitz, the teacher, made a series of phone calls which would eventually lead her to Judy Helgen, a research scientist at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. To learn more about MPCA involvement in the project, check out our section titled "In the Spotlight."

Frog FAQ

Media

In the spotlight

Current work

Members

E-mail

Check out Hip Herps review of our site.

Check out WebActive
and their review of our
site.

Index		The Discovery
New! Frog Survey	The group of students who made the initial discovery were part of a Nature Studies class during the first week of August, 1995. Since MNCS is a year-round school, it was not unusual to find our students in the field when most students are on summer vacation. The discovery occurred on an intended hike through the Ney Woods, which is part of a Wildlife Game Refuge near Henderson, MN. As the group hiked along a private field road on the Don Ney farm, they noticed many frogs hopping about. As kids are prone to do, the students began catching frogs for fun. At one point, students accused each other of injuring the frogs because their legs were "weird." However, it wasn't long before they realized that this was not an injury problem - it was a developmental problem! Immediately, students pulled out notebooks and began collecting data about the frogs they were catching. Fully 50% of the frogs caught that day had deformities of their hind legs. Many had one leg which was underdeveloped and webbed together, preventing normal function. One frog captured that day had only one hind leg, while another had two feet on one leg and a bony protrusion from the spine. Following their return to school, students developed a list of questions to pursue. Frogs were photographed with a QuickTake camera to put on the Internet. Phone calls were made regarding types of farm chemicals used in the area. Cindy Reinitz, the teacher, made a series of phone calls which would eventually lead her to Judy Helgen, a research scientist at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. To learn more about MPCA involvement in the project, check out our section titled "In the Spotlight."
Frog FAQ
Media
In the spotlight
Current work
Members
E-mail


Check out Hip Herps review of our site.

Check out WebActive and their review of our site.

Students from the frog project won first place in the Anheuser-Busch Theme Parks, A Pledge and a Promise Environmental Awards. We won first place in the 6-8 grade category. Students traveled to Sea World for the awarding of the prize.

This page put together by; Updated 7-25-96

Ryan by Dave Krupinski

Contact the webmaster at (link disabled)

This page put together by;	Updated 7-25-96
Ryan	by Dave Krupinski