Plastic

Is a Problem
Archaeologists rejoice over trash, especially heaps of it (referred to as middens). These artifacts from the past are a treasure trove of information about how an ancient (or not so ancient) culture lived and what the people valued.

My students have grown to have certain expectations about our class. They love science, and I love holidays. So naturally, their expectations for Earth Day were high. The hub-bub of anticipation began days beforehand. “What are we doing for Earth Day?” asked more than one eager student. The pressure was too much. I wasn’t sure what to do. Something with worms?

The children were excited about collecting trash, and I followed their lead. Anyone who wished donned a latex glove (Michael Jackson-style to conserve gloves and avoid waste). During recess, armed with a big bag,


our Earth Squad collected trash. We weren’t able to get it all, but they made a valiant effort.






Since science is our game, we took that trash back to the classroom for analysis. “You’re going to dig through the trash?” asked one incredulous student. Yes, I am. “I’ll get some gloves!” offered another, already on the way to the cabinet.

How could we classify this trash? "Shape." "Color." "What it's used for." "What it's made of." "Whether it’s recyclable." We decided to go with material because the type of material indicates recyclability. As we sorted, the evidence was building. Our playground is mostly littered with plastic. Plastic lids, plastic bags, plastic bottles, . . . the ubiquitous straw cover (You know—that clear plastic wrapper designed to seal all the bacterial badness away from your straw for the duration of its juicebox ride . . . until you break the straw free, leaving its plastic wormy skin to flutter to the ground, forlorn and forgotten. These are the bane of Mrs. D’s educator existence.)

We also found a colorful collection of plastic barrettes. "That’s because some girls at this school wear lots of barrettes and then they’re outside at recess jumping around and they slip off." Trash gives us clues about how people live.

The children pointed out that our trash bag and gloves also contributed plastic to the stash of trash. Yes, very true, but on occasion, I’ve spied some particularly unsavory bits of trash on the playground and believe me, gloves are in order.

The problem is plastic doesn't rot. This was especially evident in the Amazon Rainforest. The people who live along the Amazon River have developed a habit of throwing trash out the windows of their floating houses or over the sides of their floating school buses . . . This is all fine and good when the trash is food stuff or even paper--the vast river ecosystem will literally gobble it up. But now boatloads of soda bottles and other plastic wares are offloaded into the villages along the river . . . and people are still in the habit of throwing their trash into the river. Without recycling programs, there aren't many other good options. We're exporting our pollution problem.

I think future archaeologists will just be sad when they see our trash, maybe because of what it says about how we live and what we value (or don't) or maybe because they will have to catalog piles upon piles of plastic.

Hmm. Worms eat paper . . . .




What We're Reading:
Earth Day--Hooray! by Stuart Murphy
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

Birds . . . and worms

Worms and birds. It's funny how topics flow into one another if you let them: geology leads to dirt, dirt leads to worms, and worms lead to birds . . . or maybe I've just got worms on the brain.

This is one of my favorite zoology activities. The children act as birds, hunting worms (3-inch pieces of colored yarn). (Note: Here, it is good to have crafty friends--at least one--whom you can call at nine o'clock at night to ask if they have yarns of the very specific colors you need so that you do not have to alter your recording form which was created three computers ago and somehow ceases to exist in the digital world). Prior to the lesson, Franny and I hopped around outside, distributing worms in the grass.




How many worms do YOU see?





"Today we get to put on our bird hats and hunt for worms." Hands immediately went to heads for the donning of imaginary bird hats.
"Ooo! I look like a chicken!" announced a third grader with happy surprise, as if she had just looked in the mirror and found herself to be a chicken. I should carry a tape recorder.

Given our recent foray into the wonderful world of worms (and the new-found fad of digging for worms during recess--and then proudly presenting them to unsuspecting teachers who have not gone to great lengths to cultivate this love for the non-boned), I felt the need to caution my birds not to bring back any live ones. "The worms we are hunting for are pieces of yarn." "I hope none of them are green . . . otherwise, they'll be camouflaged in the grass," quietly mused a second grader. These children are maddeningly clever sometimes, ruining all the fun of a big, dramatic reveal.

Outside, each Cooperative Science Group ran a sort of relay race, sending their front "bird" out to capture a worm and bring it back to "the nest." Boisterous, noisy, running fun for all.








Really, how often does science suggest running?








When "time" was called, our birds were back to "the lab" for analysis of their birdy booty. How many worms did your birds bring back to the nest? How many worms of each color did you find? My scientists were way ahead of me, already busy sorting and classifying . . .










and graphing. (A person could start to feel a little unnecessary.)








Next, we gathered together to share our findings. What color worms were out there? "Blue." "Red." "Yellow, brown" "Green," said a bird from one group. "Nuh, uh. There weren't any green ones out there," argued another.
But there were. One group had found one green worm.
Each group presented their tallies and graphs,
as we created a class tally.
The real fun (if you get your jollies the way I do) comes when I reveal to the children that for each color, we carefully counted and distributed the same number of worms (20 of each) in the grass. Why did our birds find more of some colors than others? Again, the children are way ahead of me. "That's because the green ones blended into the grass. They were camouflaged." Again with the maddeningly clever.

So I pushed further. "Look at the worms our birds found. If this pattern continues, what could we expect the worm population to look like in a year?" A rich discussion of camouflage, adaptation, predators, and prey ensued. All 20 of the blue worms had been found and eaten by birds. They were not very well-adapted for their green environment. Blue worms are now extinct. When we combined the worms that Mrs. D. was able to find in a quick scan with the worms the rest of the birds found, all but one red worm was captured. "That's not enough to reproduce. That one would need a mate. They'll die out, too." Combined with Mrs. D's collection, two yellow worms survived--enough to maybe reproduce, but seriously endangered. Five browns lived another day, and eighteen green worms survived to produce more green worms. We decided that in another year, most of the worms would be green. If the environment changed, and a patch of grass died out, brown worms would be most likely to survive. Green worms would then be more easily found and eaten.

We then looked beyond our mock worms to other creatures with camouflage. Hunters and the men and women in the military wear camouflage either to protect themselves or help them be more stealthy in sneaking up on prey. Animals that live in the grasslands are often tan in order to blend in with the grasses. Polar bears and other Arctic dwellers wear white to match their snowy surroundings. Nocturnal animals are often dark. Our Monarch chrysalises are green, helping them get lost in the leaves. Our fuzzy-wuzzy brown caterpillar wrapped himself in real leaves when he made his cocoon. The shrimp we found in the pond at Armand Bayou were clear, and if I were a Saran Wrap "worm" I might be very successful at hiding in the water--perhaps less so in the sunny grass where my shiny shimmer might be a dead give-away. Brightly colored critters, those that are easily noticed, usually have some other means of protection. They might be venomous or mimic another venomous creature. We got so involved in thinking and discussing, we were late for dismissal.

What color worm would you rather be?



What We're Reading:
What Color is Camouflage? by Carolyn Otto
Flute's Journey by Lynne Cherry
An Egg is Quiet by Dianna Hutts Aston
Antarctic Antics: A Book of Penguin Poems by Judy Sierra
First the Egg by Laura Vaccaro Seeger


Regurgitate

It's been a whole hour since I ate.
Why is my dinner always late?
While you and Mom procrastinate,
I might become a featherweight.
You know what I'd appreciate?
Cough it up, Dad! Regurgitate!

--Judy Sierra, Antarctic Antics

Can YOU do it?

Of course you can!
This week (April 20-26)
is TV Turnoff Week,
and you CAN do it!



Yes, you really can . . .
Turn off the TV (AND all those video and computer games!), and find the joy in doing things that don't involve a screen. It's just a week. All those shows and games will still be there at the end of the week, but, in the meantime, you will have discovered many other fun ways to spend your time.

Let's start a list:

1. Take a walk
2. Read a book
3. Find more books at the library
4. Turn on music and dance
   --Or go out to Discovery Green Wednesday at 6pm
5. Discover letterboxing with your family
6. Climb a tree
7. Play a board game
8. Visit your neighborhood park
9. Fly a kite
10. Go roller skating
11. Ride your bike
12. Join the Hip2BFit Fun Club (for children)
13. Sit in the woods and look and listen
14. Find an interesting leaf and draw it
15. Write a letter to a relative or friend who lives far away (an actual letter, not an e-mail)
16. Visit the post office to mail it
17. Go to a performance (FREE performances at Miller Outdoor Theatre and Discovery Green)
18. Use sidewalk chalk to draw a pavement mural
19. Find a dark place to look at the stars
20. Get out a cookbook and test a new recipe
21. Get crafty
    --Teach your family how to do paste paper or origami
    --Ask someone to teach you how to knit or crochet
22. Plant a garden or just a few seeds
23. Play hopscotch or hide & seek
24. Dig in the dirt
25. Mix up a bubble solution and explore
26. Write a story or a poem
27. Check out the Young Writers Workshop in the Park at Discovery Green
28. Ask an older relative what life was like when s/he was your age
29. Build with Legos
30. Make icecream
31. Visit a museum
    --Children's Museum: free Thursdays 5-8pm
    --Contemporary Arts Museum: free
    --Center for Contemporary Craft: free
    --Health Museum: free Thursdays 2-5pm
    --Houston Center for Photography: free
    --Houston Museum of Natural Science: free Tuesdays 2-8pm
    --The Orange Show
    --The Menil Collection: free
    --The Museum of Fine Arts: free Thursdays
    --Rice University Art Gallery: free
    --Weather Museum: free Thursdays 12-4pm
    

If you choose to accept this challenge and commit to a full week without TV (AND without video/computer games), enter your name in the comment section and tell us about the wonderful activities you are enjoying this week instead of watching a screen. I'll add your ideas to our growing list. (If you're turning off your screens for the week, we want to hear from you--even if you're not in Room 28.)

Now, as much as I love that you're reading the blog . . . I feel it is my duty to tell you to turn off this screen too and get out there and have some non-screen fun! All the blog fun will still be here when you get back at the end of the week.

What We’re Reading:
Aunt Chip and the Great Triple Creek Dam Affair by Patricia Polacco
Library Lil by Susanne Williams
The Library by Sarah Stewart

Yes, I really do have a book for everything.

Toshiba "Head Dome" image courtesy of Daily Mail

This Magic Moment

They grow up so fast . . . .








The caterpillars are rooming with me this weekend. Needless to say, the cats are quite curious about caterpillars, and I am committed to averting critter catastrophe. So caterpillars, barricaded in the bathroom--cats, everywhere else.

Well, our biggest, fattest caterpillar that hadn't yet experienced the change crawled up to the roof this morning. The bathroom was dark, and I guess he thought he was alone in there, with no one watching--because when I got home from a very rainy walk/run this afternoon, I peeked in (just on a whim) . . . Caught in the act! With the vulnerable green tip of the chrysalis just poking out, there he was, doing the Saturday Night Fever!

Eager to capture this elusive Baby's First Steps moment on film, I rushed to get my camera.

Weirdness beyond belief! So different and so new . . . ♪♪

A Watched Pot

Never Boils

Of course that's not true, but for those of us with our eyes on the insect world, it sometimes feels that way. Like watching paint dry (except FAR more exciting), we have been watching caterpillars, desperately hoping to catch one at the moment it becomes a chrysalis.

Change happens slowly and then all of a sudden, it's over. Yesterday afternoon, the signs were all there. While we attempted to illustrate them, the caterpillars were focused on getting high (literally—trying to climb as high as possible), dragging behind them embarrassing toiletpaper-stuck-to-shoe trails of silk.


As soon as we returned them to their tent, they crawled up to the roof. This morning, we arrived to find that three fat ones had hung themselves—butt attached to the ceiling, head down—in the shape of a "J." Mrs. D. spent a good bit of the morning with half her head and a hand lens in the bug tent (it was cute—I wish I had a photo for you). She watched as they wiggled and squirmed, dancing the Transformation Twist! A strange cross between upside-down crunches and a herky-jerky inverted bellydance, it hurts my abdominal muscles just to watch. The next step is that their skin splits open as they shimmy out of it, revealing a shiny new chrysalis! Somehow, this is the moment we always miss.


Ms. A and I spent lunch with our eyes riveted to caterpillar J's, determined to catch them in the act. No skin-splitting shimmy. "Maybe we could rig up some sort of bell system with the caterpillar so that when the skin starts to break open, a bell rings?" mused Mrs. D. "I'm serious," she insisted.



After dismissal, we checked them one more time. "Wait--which one were we waiting for?" Mrs. D. asked. Incredulous, I looked in, and, lo and behold, we missed it again! Five gorgeous green and gilded chrysalises dangling from the roof!
"What I want to know really badly now is how do the caterpillars breathe inside that chrysalis?"--S.M., 1st grade
“What I want to know is how those gold dots get on there and WHY.”—Ms. A


With all the critters in our classroom, Monarchs are not the only ones doing the Metamorphosis Mambo.
"In my Mystery Bug container something new is in there. Probably the old bug went through a transformation into a new bug."--M.M., 2nd grade
Our Mystery Oatmeal Bugs (which everyone has easily identified as mealworms--sadly, this particular lesson was not effectively mysterious this year) have transformed themselves into pupas.

Now those, we've managed to catch in the act. While Mrs. D and I were playing and preparing for worm fun, she opened up the mealworm container to make sure these newly purchased creepy crawlies were still alive. "Oh, come look! Hurry! Hurry! This one's changing right now!" Sure enough.
We've got pupating happening all over the place! Ms. A finally got tired of asking and suggesting and just brought in a silkworm and left it. "Your kids will enjoy watching it!" she promised as she scurried away without it.

Something's in the air in here because as soon as he arrived, he started doing a dynamite little disco dance (or picture one of the zombies at the end of the Thriller video), bobbing back and forth, weaving his cocoon.
Of course, most of this, too, happened while we weren’t looking. We arrived in the morning to find the handiwork of this all-night knitter. (Millions of these little creepy critters' cocoons are boiled down every year to make use of the silk fibers.)

The things that must go on in our darkened classroom when I turn out the lights and go home! Lately, I’ve begun to fantasize that a mirror ball and ABBA music are involved. Caterpillars rip off their skin in a shocking shimmy-shake. And apparently worms, usually underground and unseen, come out to dance!

I’ve got my own worm experiment going—because I was curious. I layered sand and dirt (“like an icecream sandwich,” say the children), topped by chunks of apple, in two containers, and added six worms to one of them.

I naively expected to return the next day to find that the worms had carved tunnels through the layers, mixing sand and soil . . . but change happens slowly.It was several days before we noticed they had tunneled down through sand into a lower layer of dirt at opposite corners. (The children have hypothesized that these separate entrances are for feuding family members.) Our worms were becoming adventurous--prompted, I'm sure, by the raucous caterpillars' bad example.

It turns out worms are not particularly fond of apple chunks. They do, however, enjoy apples sliced into long, shoestring-potato chef-julienned worm treats.
Yes, those will do quite nicely. Apparently, all the best worm eateries are serving them that way. Notice that the apple slices have been dragged to the corners of the bin? We never see them doing this! Are you beginning to understand my visions of "Dancing Queen" worms shuffling apple slices across their dark and dirty dance floor?

We have spent so much time with critters that I received this unique birthday wish from a first grader, "Dear Ms. S., Happy Birthday! Hope you find many bugs!" Awe . . . . . . .

Changes

I'm a little mealworm,
Short and wiggly.
Here's my
antenna,
Cute and jiggly.

Now I am a pupa,
Squat and white.
How did this happen?
I'm a sight.

Now I am a beetle.
What is
this?
I really hate
Metamorphosis.

—John Scieszka, Science Verse

What We're Reading:
Science Verse by John Scieszka
Insectlopedia by Douglas Florian
Animal Poems by John Hollander, Ed.
Beast Feast by Douglas Florian
The Girl Who Loved Caterpillars by Jean Merrill
Jack’s Garden by Henry Cole
The Magic School Bus Meets the Rot Squad

Back to the Drawing Board

Something is amiss when illustrations of earthworms, caterpillars, and our mystery oatmeal bugs look suspiciously like a highly unusual case of inter-species identical triplets!





In recent days, we have spent a lot of time on scientific illustrations. Scientists use drawings to think about what they are studying and to communicate their observations to others. Without a visual arts class in our school, many children haven't received the drawing training and practice necessary for effective communication. We have "stick figure" caterpillars that are not distinctly different from worms. As far as communication goes, this amounts to a mumble.

I have been accused (by my own mother) of being unkind, expecting too much of the children, but I think this is just the right age to begin training the hand and eye for detailed illustration. Learning to look is a big part of creating accurate illustrations. Drawing something, recording its lines and forms on paper, requires careful observation. An infinite cycle—careful observation improves one's drawings and detailed drawing demands careful observation. So despite accusations of meanness, we were back at the drawing board.

We began again by brainstorming a list of criteria that define an effective scientific illustration:

Realistic
Sometimes bigger than life so you can see the parts
Detailed
—shows every part of the body
—accurately shows where the parts are in relationship to each other
Includes labels for the parts
Might have some enlarged sections in small windows on the page (to show more details or a different view)

Soon, we were busy examining and illustrating our classroom critters.




When you get close to something and slow down enough to really pay attention, you start to wonder.




This morning, I gave a lesson to first graders on the parts of a leaf--a wonderful opportunity to reinforce scientific illustration! To create my illustration, we used a hand lens to carefully examine a sprig of mint from our garden. "What do you notice?" Gradually, the children noticed more: the toothed leaf margin, the tiny buds at the base of each petiole, the tiny hairs on the midrib, the purplish color of the stem near every node . . . Finally one child pointed out the veins, explaining that they were very much like our own veins and hypothesizing that they bring water to the leaves.
"How do you think we could test to see if that's true?" "Put it in some water." "Hmm. But how will we be able to see what's happening?" "Oh, I know! We could put some color in the water! Maybe red." "Why would you choose red?" "Red is my favorite color." Of course, but this is a bright first grader. So I pushed, "What if I wanted to use green?" "The veins are already green and that would camouflage with the leaf." Ah, ha!