Growing, growing, gone!

One of our annual winter traditions is to force an amaryllis bulb. (We do this by tricking it into thinking it has already experienced winter and spring has arrived.) Sometimes we go so far as to name the bulb ("Amaryllis Ann" or "Bulby," for example). We mark each stalk with a piece of colored masking tape, and each day, we measure and chart the growth of the stalk on a color-coded lengthening line graph. What we've noticed is flowers wilt. "It died!" They also bend towards the light. Over the Thanksgiving break, I also inadvertently experimented with water deprivation. Note to self: plants need water. The short orange line at the top is the proof. The "orange" stalk was going strong until I absentmindedly withheld water. The stalk shriveled and fell over, without blooming. The "blue" stalk gave us a couple of gorgeous flowers, but as all flowers eventually do, they wilted. We have high hopes for our newest "purple" stalk! It has already grown 7 centimeters in just 3 days.

12/19/08 Update: We're heading home for the holidays, and the amaryllis stalk is now 38 1/2 centimeters tall. I have assured the children I will be more vigilant about water this time!

12/24/08 Update: 44 centimeters
I promise I'm keeping track of the water!

12/29/08 Update: 48 centimeters

12/31/08 It's starting to bloom!

1/2/09 53 centimeters

1/3/09 55 centimeters

Do not open until Christmas

Shhh . . . . little elves are busy creating holiday projects in room 28. The children have asked me not to post details until after December 25. Check back later to learn about our special holiday secrets!

Santa shorts

Just yesterday, we were brainstorming December holidays for seasonal research topics: St. Nicholas Day, Dia de la Virgen de Guadalupe, St. Lucia Day, Las Posadas, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve, sometimes Diwali and Eid . . . One child suggested winter as a December holiday. Thus began our discussion of Winter Solstice and the increasing hours of darkness we experience leading up to the solstice. “Is there a place where they have darkness for the whole day?” “What happens at the other end of the Earth?” Well, it’s summer there right now (technically, spring). “Do they celebrate Christmas in a different month?” That’s how I found myself explaining that Santa wears shorts when he visits Australia. “He keeps a pair in his sleigh, and then when he gets to Australia, he changes into his Santa shorts. Sometimes he wears a pair with little reindeer on them, sometimes ones with holly on them.” After a little more discussion of the solstice and the seasons and the tilt of the Earth, a third grader raised her hand. With a twinkle in her eye, she asked, “Which shorts does he wear most often—the ones with the little reindeer or the ones with the holly?” Hmmm.

Our Christmas Eve snow four years ago, combined with their limited life experience and all the “white Christmas” hype in movies, songs, and greeting cards, has my students convinced that it snows on Christmas. I quite confidently told the children that it rarely snows in Houston, that in all my thirty-three years of living in Houston it had only snowed three times. Of course, what should happen the very next day?

Clearly, Ms. S. can’t be trusted.

Sometimes a learning opportunity quite literally falls from the sky. Tossing aside lesson plans to take advantage of such opportunities is one of the joys of teaching. Back in September, as Ike bore down on the Gulf Coast, this meant dropping everything to plot its advancing longitude and latitude and read The Magic School Bus Inside a Hurricane. Today, it means we make 6-pointed snowflakes, experiment with crystals, look at crystals under the microscope, and read Snowflake Bentley, the story of a farmer-scientist whose passion for photographing individual snowflakes began when he was a child
—and it means admitting I was wrong.

What We’re Reading:

The Gift from Saint Nicholas by Dorothea Lachner
Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin

XXVIII from Las piedras del cielo (Skystones)

The square in the crystal falls back in its symmetry:

those who open the doors of the earth

will find in the darkness, intact and complete,

the light of that system's transparency.

The salt cube, the triangular

fingers of quartz: the diamond's

linear water: the maze

in the sapphire and its gothic magnificence:

the multiplication of rectangles

in the nut of the amethyst:

all wait for us under the ground:

a whole buried geometry:

the salt's school: the decorum of fire.

—Pablo Neruda

Meanwhile, back at the lab

Science is never silent in Room 28. Today, our young paleontologists were “back in the lab” with their bones, noisily discussing which part of the animal their group had collected from the dig site.

They began by removing any remaining matrix from the bones.

Some groups soon learned that cleaning must be done carefully or your carefully collected fossils may be damaged. “We lost a tooth!”

Next, the children applied their knowledge of the human skeleton to put our mystery Humpty Dumpty together again.

♪ Head, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . shoulders, ♪

♪ knees, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and toes ♪

As with all funded research, our paleontologists were also required to write a report on their findings. The group with the jaw was able to determine that our mystery animal is a carnivore. The group with the phalanges suspects that our mystery animal must be smaller than a human, “maybe the size of a cat.” This group also hypothesizes that perhaps the animal uses the claw they found to attack its prey.

To learn more, read Dr. Bakker's discussion of how scientists use animal bones to draw conclusions about how they lived.

The secret

"The secret of good teaching is to regard the child's intelligence as a fertile field in which seeds may be sown, to grow under the heat of flaming imagination. Our aim is not only to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his innermost core."

--Dr. Maria Montessori, To Educate the Human Potential

Yes! Far more than the acronym avalanche (NCLB, TAKS, AYP, CBA data, RTI, EVAAS, ASPIRE, GEEG, to name a few) that threatens to bury education, that's what teaching is about . . . cultivating a child's natural sense of wonder. The Houston Museum of Natural Science is full of just such secrets--those objects and exhibits that elicit the "Oh, wow!" feeling of awe and reverence for the natural world. I feel it every time I visit the Hall of Gems and Minerals. We are lucky to have a world class collection, beautifully displayed and lit, but what's amazing to me is the minerals themselves--that these beautiful crystals are in their natural, uncut state is just awesome. (I much prefer those to the giant malachite vase or the new Gem Vault that has displaced one of my favorite parts of the Mineral Hall--the fluorescent rocks! Yes, the gems are glittery and fancy but I am far more amazed and impressed by the rest of it. Bring back the fluorescent rocks!)

It's even more fun to visit the museum with my students. Not only do they feel the "Oh, wow!" but they say it--again and again. "Oh, wow! There's a giant cube of pyrite! Did it really form like that in nature?" "Oh, wow! I could fit my whole body inside that geode!" "Oh, wow! Look at that crinoid--they've got the whole thing!" "Oh, wow! That ammonite is huge!" "Oh, wow! That's a whole petrified tree!" "Look! There's dimetrodon and xenacanthus!"

To prepare for our visit to the Dinosaur Mummy: CSI exhibit, we watched some videos of Dr. Bakker discussing brachylophosaurus anatomy, what makes Leonardo an important fossil, why this fossil is making history, how dino mummies are formed, and how the very heavy Leonardo fossil was moved from the museum's off-site storage to the exhibit hall. We were treated to a wonderfully detailed tour of the exhibit by David Temple, HMNS Associate Curator of Paleontology. David's enthusiasm for dinosaurs is contagious, and the children were fascinated and full of great questions. I love that the exhibit is hands-on, with actual fossilized skin to touch ("Oh, wow!"), casts of skin and teeth and triceratops horns, and a sand pit in which young paleontologists can dig for bones. As we left the exhibit (our first stop for the morning), I overheard one of my students comment, "Wow! That was the best field trip ever!" Talk about 'enthused to his inmost core'! We hadn't even eaten lunch yet.

Inspired by Dr. Bakker's drawing lesson and his recent blog about the importance of drawing in thinking about dinosaur anatomy, we brought paper and cardboard "clipboards" to do a little of our own sketching in the Paleontology Hall--quick and dirty sketches, because there is never enough time to see all that we want to at the museum. We barely scratch the surface!

Our final stop for the day was the basement for "Crash Course." It is a well-kept secret (too well kept, in my opinion) that the museum offers science lab classes downstairs in the education wing. Carolyn Leap led the children through a series of hands-on activities on the physics of collisions. After exploring the movement of a marble inside a moving (and then suddenly stopped) box and clappers hitting one another, the children were ready to experiment with cars and passengers. Each group first constructed a ramp, down which they rolled a car with a clay passenger . . . into a barrier at the bottom of the ramp. As you might guess, the passenger kept going when the car stopped.

Bad news for our clay passengers. Next, the children attached the passenger to the car with a "seat belt."











We soon discovered that wire seatbelts are a bad idea. "Oh, wow! Look what happened to our passenger!" Nerds of a feather flock together, and not only is the science museum filled with those "Oh, wow!" objects, it is also full of just the right kind of nerds--smart, goofy, and passionate about what they do. I am lucky to include among my friends several who work at the science museum. (This year, there was a bit of competition for our museum visit: "How come you're not bringing your kids to my class?" Oops!) Franny clued me in to the on-line video clips, which I was able to share with the children. While science labs are usually only available Tuesday through Thursday, Carolyn offered to do two extra sessions of "Crash Course" on Friday because the regular sessions were filled. Dave took the time to guide us through the Dino Mummy exhibit, sharing little-known facts and fascinating stories.

I think there is a second secret to good teaching, one that Maria Montessori doesn't mention. Good teachers have a team of friends and family who are sucked in by the undertow of one classroom project or another. You may find yourself volunteering to spend hours judging Science Fair projects or an unairconditioned August afternoon painting a classroom wall.

Over the years, I have coaxed friends to visit our classroom to share stories of their research adventures--a geologist friend shared photos from his research trip to Antarctica and another showed pictures and artifacts from his anthropology work in Paraguay. I have been presented with cotton still on the branch from friends who stopped on the side of the highway to collect it--"We thought you might want to show this to your students" (and I do!). I have received a phone call from a neighbor, explaining, "I have a little Rosetta Stone paperweight I want to get rid of. Is that something you'd want?" (Yes, that's perfect for my History of Writing Trunk!)

I have an assistant who, just as I was thinking, 'Darn! I forgot to buy cinnamon for tomorrow!' called from the grocery store to say, "I'm getting flowers for the Open House. Is there anything else you need?" When I said to a colleague (half-jokingly) at lunchtime, "Pack your bathing suit 'cause we're going to the Bahamas for a marine ecology program!" she was registered for the program by the end of the same day. Another colleague braved three weeks of summer on a boat on the Amazon River with me.

My father has constructed a wooden housing for a "black light" to view our own class collection of fluorescent rocks--painted bright purple? ("It's an OSHA color.")--and wooden holders for crayon boxes that too easily fall apart otherwise. I have a mother who, upon hearing of my roadkill bone-plucking insanity, bragged proudly to friends and colleagues of her daughter's exploits (during which a nanny dutifully shepherded her two charges across the street and away from Crazy Hat Lady, using her arm to protectively shield both from my weirdness, and worriedly glanced back repeatedly to be sure there weren't any sudden moves from the cootified pliers). Not long after that, I received an e-mail entitled "Possum Sighting" from one of my mother's friends: "Should you need more bones, put on your gloves and hurry over to Woodhead, diagonally across the street from Lanier MS (the SE corner). Another corpse awaits! I was on my bike, not equipped to scoop it up. I admire your dedication to science!" Yes folks, I am now receiving e-mail alerts about roadkill!

"Do you collect those BoxTops for Education?"
"Are you still saving styrofoam take-out boxes?"
"Aren't you collecting these conference badge tags?"
"We're clearing off our bookshelf, and I set aside a tub of non-fiction children's books I thought you might want for your classroom."
"Is Fluffy available for travel? We're going to Greece."

Everyone gets into the act!

What We're Reading:
Mary Anning, Fossil Hunter by Sally M. Walker
Boy, Were We Wrong About the Dinosaurs! by Kathleen Kudlinski
Did Dinosaurs Have Feathers? by Kathleen Zoehfeld
Dinosaur Tracks by Kathleen Zoehfeld
Dinomummy by Dr. Phillip Lars Manning
Bill Nye the Science Guy’s Great Big Dinosaur Dig
When Dinosaurs Came with Everything by Elise Broach
Prehistoric Monsters! by Dr. Robert Bakker
Bone Poems by Jeff Moss

Digging is fun

About a month ago, I happened upon a team of spontaneous diggers on the playground. The next day, a first grader wrote in his journal, "I like to dig on the playground to dig for rocks. My hole is deep but no rocks yet. I will try to find some one day. But it is fun if I find one or not. Digging is fun."

So I knew this would be a hit, but it was better than I ever dreamed! Huge thanks to Dr. Bakker, David Temple, Chris Flis, and the outstanding HMNS volunteers for sharing their passion and expertise and for giving me the inspiration to try this.

To set the stage, we watched some short videos of prospecting and digging in the field. (Be sure to visit http://12days.hmns.org/ and click on the dino skeleton.) Our Cooperative Science Groups were then transformed into dig teams of vertebrate paleontologists, scanning the ground for clues to the past. Fortunately for our young scientists, yesterday's erosion (geology on fast forward) had exposed some interesting "fossil" finds.

"Wow! I think this might be a jaw!" "This one looks like a really long bone that goes from here to here," one child told me, pointing to show me two spots where bone peeked from the ground. This could indicate more hiding beneath the surface!

Each site was given a name, chosen by the diggers of course. My favorite was MDFR28 (Many Diggers for Room 28)--inspired, I think, by a real site named K2 (for Kathy Zoehfeld, one of our favorite science authors as well as paleontology dig team volunteer). Flufftania (named for Fluffy, our traveling hare) was a close second.

Armed with mini-shovels, the children began to carefully excavate the land surrounding their "fossil" finds.

As they got close to bone, they switched to other paleontology tools of choice, including a pointy pick, a brush, and a straw.

While not every aspect of our dig model was accurate, the thrill of discovery was real. "Oooo, there are teeth here! It's another part of the jaw!" "Oh! There's bone over here, too!" "Do we get to take these home?" It sounded just like a real dig pit! As they worked, diggers used their knowledge of the human skeleton to identify the bones they uncovered. One group proudly explained to a classroom visitor, "We think these are phalanges--you know, those tiny finger bones--or maybe toe bones. We found twenty little bones!"

Before removing anything from the ground, our paleontologists carefully traced each bone on clear plastic to map its location in relation to the others.

The length of each bone was recorded in our paleontologists' field notebooks.

They used a compass to measure and record the direction of each bone.

Our young scientists were then ready to carefully remove the bones and place them in labeled, numbered ziplock bags.

Finally, our paleontologists sifted through the dirt, determined not to miss any tiny clues to the past.

Phalanges found!

Another classroom visitor sidled up to me and quietly said, "You need to take these children on a real fossil dig." Yep, I'm on it!

Many teachers are compulsive collectors. "Don't throw that away! I might be able to use it for something!" (I know I'm not the only one because I've seen more than one teacher car, teacher closet, and in one case, an entire shed.) I have been collecting a few things, knowing that someday they would find their classroom calling and, like scientific Cinderellas, transform themselves into something great. Today was that day! Opossum bones (which I confess I collected from roadkill on the sidewalk---disinfected for days in hydrogen peroxide, I promise!!!) became hidden "fossil" bones. Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers debris became geology screens for sifting dig site sand. Gelato scoops were the perfect scale for tiny shovels. Laminate leftovers were just right for site maps. Straws poached from restaurants and movie theaters are already authentic paleo-tools (no transformation required). Savers vindicated!

What We're Reading:
If You Are a Fossil Hunter by Byrd Baylor
Bone Poems by Jeff Moss

Sand and cinnamon

$3.22 buys 50 pounds of sand and loads of messy fun!

Each cooperative science team began with a box of sand sprinkled with a layer of cinnamon (modeling a patch of mountainous earth). The team then modeled geological processes of wind and water erosion.

Winds scoured the land.

Next, it began to rain--lightly and then a downpour.

Finally, a river formed and cut its way through the mountain.

Over time, erosion changed the surface of our patches of earth (and our classroom smelled fabulous!). Erosion also revealed some exciting surprises, hidden under the surface of the soil! (Tomorrow, young paleontologists will investigate.) The Sun, the Wind, and the Rain by Lisa Westberg Peters was a great conclusion to our lesson.

Scorpions & spiders & snakes! Oh, my!

You should have seen the look on the face of one of our third grade boys when I revealed that Fluffy and I had spent part of the summer digging up Dimetrodon! It was as if previously he had been only mildly aware of my existence, but now I had suddenly popped into focus, live and in full color! "Wow! Did you find one of the spines?"

I almost backed out. I asked myself, "What could I have been thinking when I signed up to spend six days outside in 105 degree shadeless heat with cacti whose spines threaten to get stuck in my butt, not to mention the scorpions, tarantulas, and rattlesnakes? Why did I think that was a good idea?"

I had signed up for the Houston Museum of Natural Science Paleontology Field School for Educators back in March . . . when the weather was cool and the oven-like heat of summer didn't cross my mind. I had only thought longingly of all the fossils I could bring back to the classroom. When June arrived and I packed my "Amazon hat" and a long sleeve shirt to protect from full days in the sun, I reassured myself that it was only six days. "I can survive heat and sweat for six days," I told myself.

The truth is . . . I loved it! AND I willingly agreed to stay an extra four days. There's something very peaceful and meditative about surrendering to the slow thinking that accompanies that kind of heat and just sitting and digging. There's also the excitement of discovery. Usually it's the guy next to you . . . or the guy who just moved into the very spot where you dug fruitlessly all day yesterday, but sometimes you find something really cool all on your own. (Read more about the team's work in Seymour and hear about what they found on their most recent visit.)

It wasn't until I began to share with the children the slide show I developed that I realized just how much I'd really learned. To place Dimetrodon in context (NOT a dinosaur), we began with a review of the Clock of Eras and the Timeline of Life. (Dimetrodon was the first land predator, walking the Earth in the Permian period, at the end of the Paleozoic Era--way before dinosaurs.) I thought we'd breeze through the whole slide show in one lesson, and I had a few other things up my sleeve to fill the rest of the afternoon. Boy was I wrong! We managed to get through only 15 of the 53 slides. The children were fascinated and full of questions! Some of them I could answer, but for many of them my response was, "Wow! That's a great question. Let's write that down in the Great Questions book, and we'll ask a paleontologist."

The Great Questions book has been a brilliant addition to our learning this year. We now record all those wonderful questions to which I respond, "Wow! I don't know, but that's a great question. Why don't you do some research and find out." Instead of forgetting about those wonderful questions and moving on with our curious lives, we revisit them in our weekly Class Meeting and choose someone to investigate each question.

What We're Reading:
"Dimetrodon's Sail" from Bone Poems by Jeff Moss

Great Questions:

"How do paleontologists know how old fossils are?"

"Did Dimetrodons ever eat other Dimetrodons?"

"Did Dimetrodons live into the Mesozoic Era? What caused them to go extinct?"

"What is the evidence (sp: evidints) that Diadectes was an amphibian? Did its young begin life in the water? Is there fossil proof of that?"

"How do paleontologists tell the difference between Dimetrodon bones and Edaphosaurus bones?"

"Are they guessing Leonardo's a boy?"

"Can hair be fossilized?"