February Seeds

It is February at last and right on cue a seed catalog has appeared in my mailbox at school.  It is filled with color and possibilities.  It sits on my desk suggesting that if would be much more fun to imagine spring gardens and ponder which seeds to start now for our planter boxes rather than to do the dull grading that has piled up on the other side of the desk. 

This is the time of year that always seems so full of promise….nothing much is showing yet outside yet – but you can just feel that things are going to start popping into bloom very soon. 

This week I also came across a wonderful NPR story about a library in Colorado that is getting everyone ready for spring and finding a new role for public libraries in the community as well-the story explains how it works -  if you have a library card you can also check out a packet of seeds!    And then you grow the plants from your packet and harvest the seeds from the best of the vegetables or fruits that you grow in the summer and return those to the library so that other people can check them out and plant them the next year.   

The director of the library says "while a library may seem like an odd location for a project like this, seeds and plants should be open to everyone. That makes a public library the perfect home for a seed collection. The American Library Association says there are at least a dozen similar programs throughout the country."

How to Save a Public Library:  Make it a Seed Bank

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/02/02/170846948/how-to-save-a-public-library-make-it-a-seed-bank

All this reminded me of the projects we did in the public schools in West Hawaii, on the island of Hawaii to try to collect and grow the seeds of some of the most endangered Hawaiian plants.    We collected a number of seeds from endangered plants and then grew them in our school garden.  Some, such as the wiliwili tree seeds  we kept growing for a couple of years in pots to protect them from the invasive introduced gall wasps.   

Here is a short movie that we made with Mrs. Pinnow's class at Waikoloa Elementary School about one of our seed projects.   We made this movie about 8 years ago!

The native Hawaiian dry land forest is one of the most endangered habitats on the plant because it exists exactly in the same location as most of the resort development.  The land is so valuable for development that most of it was developed before there was enough protest at the destruction of the native forest to result in any reserves or protected areas.    The dryland forest plants are also vulnerable to fire and the trees are easily damaged or destroyed by introduced species such as rats and goats that are now found all through out the islands.   There are so many different and unique dry land forest trees and plants such as the wiliwili, the mamane and the uhiuhi that could disappear in our life time if people don't act quickly to save seeds and to re-plant more trees.  

When we moved from the island five years ago we donated the wiliwili trees to the Waikoloa Dryland Forest Initiative as they were hoping to be able to start to re-plant native trees back into an area that had been set aside.   In thinking about all this again I did a quick search and found their website and was so happy to read their most recent post from January 2013….

"Help us get started on our 2013 planting at Waikoloa Dry Forest! On Saturday January 19th we will be planting native trees and shrubs in a brand new site. This year we have big plans to plant four acres with over 1200 plants! We are very excited to open up new weed free zones and re-plant our native dry forest species. On the 19th we will be planting ‘ohe makai, wiliwili, ‘a ‘ali‘i, ‘akia and more."

Waikoloa Dryland Forest Initiative 

http://waikoloadryforest.org/

Fortunately, there are many dedicated folks working hard to conserve biodiversity of the dryland forest and to save all these and many more endemic plants - here are some more links to some of the other native plant projects on the island of Hawaii ….

Amy Greenwell Ethnobotanical Gardens

http://www.bishopmuseum.org/greenwell/

Waimea Nature Park - Ulu La'au

http://www.waimeaoutdoorcircle.org/htm/park.htm

The story that is written in our DNA and the Human Genographic project

The Grade 4 students recently read a book called The Code which describes how genes code for a living thing's characteristics and those genes come from its parents.

We have been discussing the differences between the characteristics that we inherit in our genes and the characteristics that we acquire during the course of our life time.  This is such an exciting time to be learning about genetics and the human genome because there is new research being reported every week from some area of this field.
The amount of information that we have about the human genome and the history of the human species has exploded in the last few years.  Thanks to the information provided by analysis of the variations in our DNA we have a new window into our deep history and how humans moved across the planet from our African origins.  There is a National Geographic sponsored project called the Genographic project that is collecting small samples of DNA from people who take a cheek swab and send in their sample for genetic analysis.  The data that is generated is helping with basic research and the funds that people pay to find out more information about their ancestral migration patterns is used to conserve and revitalize indigenous cultures around the world.  They already have DNA samples from more than 500,000 people and it is increasing all the time.

Here is the link for more information on the  National Geographic Genographic Project

Here is an news story from a few years ago that describes the project

Recently, US journalist Paul Salopek started out on what will become a 21,000 mile journey that will pass along some of the major migration routes taken by human beings over the course of the last 50,00-70,000 years as they migrated from Africa across the adjacent continents and then across the whole Earth.

What do you Pack for a Seven Year Walk?  - Paul Salopek in Ethiopia in early January as he is about to embark on the walk that will take him all the way to the tip of South America.

Why do this?  "The short version is I'm interested in narrative, I'm interested in storytelling,"

Here is the route he plans to take ending in South America seven years from now

Here are the links to these stories:
BBC Story on Paul Salopek

NPR interview with Paul Salopek

And here is a link to Paul Salopek's blog so you can follow his journey - it is going to be a good story.

January Weather

I admit that January is my least favorite month.   At least any January when I am living in the northern hemisphere above the 45 degree parallel.  It is cold and it is dark.

The view from the lower school science room on a recent morning after a light snow fall

But, lately there has been much discussion about the weather in grade 3 science and close monitoring of the temperature each morning because we have been getting a series of snow storms!
One of the causes of this recent set of cold weather is due to Sudden Stratospheric Warming (say that fast three times).

Here is a recent BBC weather report discussing the event

The Grade 3 Meteorologists braving the snowy weather to get the morning readings

Then, just as we were getting used to the idea of stomping to school every day in our snow boots - the weather changed completely again - as it will do in London.

And of course - it will change again - the latest predictions are for warm, wet and WINDY weather for the next few days.  Never a dull moment ....

Latest from BBC- London Weather

How did our preschool garden grow? (K1 gardening)

Growth in Plants

In the middle of the summer, when I first started to plan the gardening unit for preschool science this year it occurred to me that lessons which focused on sprouting seeds didn't make much sense in the fall.

There are so few plants that you would think of sprouting in September or October in the northern hemisphere - especially this far north.  So, just as we are starting school and would like to start new growing projects the weather is turning against us and getting colder and darker every week. As this was going to be a project that went through the whole school year I knew that early spring would be a much better time to study seeds and to sprout and grow plants from seeds. 

That got me thinking that there is more than one way to grow a plant - ie. vegetative propagation -so I bought the Royal Horticultural Society's guide to Propagation Techniques and read a little bit about growing new plants from already existing plants

One of the first things that I learned is that this type of growth is possible because we are using the plant's ability to produce new organs from adventitious* cells. 

 * (Isn't that a wonderful word - adventitious - it sounds as though deep in their cells the plants are the true explorers in our world - and in a way they are - by having the ability to grow new buds and shoots from a pruned branch or stem they are creating a completely new plant from the original plant- that certainly is very adventurous !)

Thinking about growing new plants from the cuttings and stems of already existing plants also reminded me of the Redwood tree circles that you find in Santa Cruz CA - where I went to college.  And in looking up the botanical meaning adventitious on the internet I found the following definition 

"Adventitious buds are often formed after the stem is wounded or pruned. The adventitious buds help to replace lost branches. Adventitious buds and shoots also may develop on mature tree trunks when a shaded trunk is exposed to bright sunlight because surrounding trees are cut down. Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) trees often develop many adventitious buds on their lower trunks. If the main trunk dies, a new one often sprouts from one of the adventitious buds."

Here is a short clip of a redwood tree circle:

For our preschool classes I wanted to focus during the first few months of school on this kind of vegetative growth because this was something that we could do with common houseplants and root vegetables during the fall and winter months.  Once the plants got growing they would make a nice living addition to the classroom or a new plant that students could take home with them.

 I created a series of lesson plans based on a few simple questions -

• How can we make new plants from old ones?

• What parts of a plant might be used to grow a new plant?

• What do plants need to grow?

If you work with young children - or have some young children in your family - here are some ideas for some projects that you can do with them at any time of year to learn about and observe some common ways that plants grow.  I have made a series of short slide shows to give you an idea of how we did each short project.

Idea 1.  Try growing new plants from Roots

For one lesson we investigated what parts of some common root vegetables would grow - we cut beets and carrots into slices and then observed how they grew….

If you look closely at the very end of the slideshow you can see the new stems and leaves growing from the tops of the beet and carrot.  You can use any common root vegetables - I think it works best if  still have their green tops and leaves on them but I know people who have done it with carrots that have no tops left at all.  

Idea 2. Try growing new plants from Bulbs

We also looked at bulbs - some were flowering bulbs such as hyanciths but we also did come very close observations of garlic bulbs.

I would like to do more lessons with onions and garlic in the future - what a great project to have growing in a a classroom window.  They can then be harvested and you have some great materials for some cooking activities as well.

Idea 3. Trying growing new plants from Stems

Finally, for a classic example of vegitative growth - consider taking some cuttings from some plants that you probably already have around the house or in your garden.  We took cuttings from some common herbs such as peppermint and from some house plants but here is a good starter list to choose from:

Swedish Ivy (Plectracnthus australis)

Coleus (Coleus blumei)

ANY members of the mint family Lamiaceae

English Ivy – (Hedera helix)

Wandering Jew- (Zebrina pendula or Tradescantia fluminensis)

Pothos (Pothos aureus, Rhaphidophora aurea, or Scindapsus aureus)

We tried taking cuttings just below the nodes on the stems and we treated some with rooting hormones and left some alone.   If appears to me that there was no difference and in fact the stems that were not treated with any hormone looked to be growing faster in some instances.   So, try it out for your self - it would be a good investigation to try with older students who could make careful measurements over several weeks to track the root growth.  

Coming full circle - to pumpkins again!

You may be wondering - if you read the very first post on this blog - what happened in the pumpkin patch which we planted at the beginning of the school year for our preschool gardening unit?

Well all the pumpkin and squash plants grew  and several flowered- and a few even put out small pumpkins - before it got too cold and dark.   Here is a short slideshow of the pumpkin patch over the last three month.  And now that we have the raised beds filled with soil we are thinking about putting on some cold frames to allow us to grow more plants through out the winter.   But, no matter what we do in the late winter we will be all ready for sprouting and planting pumpkin seeds.  Then we can plant the new young plants out in the raised beds in the spring.  That is the proper time to start plants from seeds!

Measuring the Weather

Each week two students in each of the Grade 3 classes start the morning by going out to the courtyard in front of their classroom and collecting the weather data for the class.  These meteorologists are building up an essential data base for us.   Because London has such dynamic weather and so many micro-climates there is no local weather station that is close enough to us for accurate data on our neighborhood.
At the end of last week, I interviewed the students that are collecting the weather data to give you an idea of how we collect each kind of measurement.

An Encounter and An Invitation

Because we live close to two parks in London, (one small and one large) we often hear the strange calls, cries and barks of foxes at night, especially in the fall and spring.   But, we rarely see them.

One morning last week on my way to school I met a red fox (Vulpes vulpes).   He was trotting down the sidewalk – looking a little nervous and uncertain – but with enough confidence to have passed several buildings by the time he got to me.   I stood frozen in place while he looked quickly around and with a quick jump landed in the small cement courtyard surrounding an apartment building where I stood. He scanned his surroundings quickly and then trotted around the side of the building and jumped over a hedge and was out of sight into the back gardens behind the building.  A man was walking along the alleyway beside the building as this happened, he didn't see the fox.   He looked at me curiously as I was standing staring at a cement square that was now empty of anything save a hedge.  I looked at him and smiled and said "A fox".   He glanced towards the direction the fox had gone and nodded, smiled back and said "Fox". 

 I always feel such a jolt of surprise and joy when I see a wild creature in the city.  

I think that is one reason that I continue to keep several different kinds of animals in the science room.   In general, I have mixed feelings about having animals in elementary classrooms. It is so hard to give them a decent quality of life.  But, in our urban environment this is one of the few opportunities most children have to regularly encounter and observe animals.  When I first arrived at the school the science room already had several animals including corn snakes, a pond turtle and a tarantula.  Those are all still here (being long lived species) and have been joined by a number of animals that needed a home.  It started with a container of snail eggs that were left on my desk the first December.  Part of our first Christmas in London involved tending to new-hatched snails.   They turned out to be the large African snails and several are still resident in the science room.  Those were followed by more turtles that needed homes.  (Why do people think pet turtles are a good idea? - we humans have a hard time making a 30 year commitment to another human being - why do people think getting a long-lived reptile is a good idea?)  And, more recently some South American rodents include Degus and a Chinchilla.
I didn't go looking for any of them - all of them were animals that someone had gotten as a pet and then couldn't keep.   They make the lower school science room one of the most pleasant rooms in the school because they fill it with life.

Molly a chinchilla that needed a home.  

One of our Degus  (Octodon degus)

And, in addition to the regular residents of the science room in Grade 4 students also spend some time observing the smaller, more short-lived animals such as crayfish, crickets, mealworms/darkling beetles and locusts.  I hope by now the Grade 4 students have a better appreciation and understanding for the most numerous animals on earth - the arthropods (insects, spiders, isopods and crustaceans) and the molluscs (snails, clams, octopus and squid).

"Rosy" - the Chilean Rose Taratula (Grammostola  rosea) - just after she shed  or molted her skin

I do think it is important for children to have a chance to spend time observing and learning to respect and understand other kinds of living organisms. Each child needs an opportunity to develop their own relationship to other living things - and to develop a sense of respect for all life.  Not all animals are pets and that is a good thing.

But, back to my encounter with the fox one morning.  It reminded of why we have started the year with more time for the Grade 3 students to sit quietly and observe a small spot outside.  Even though we are a very urban campus we have nooks and crannies all around the school buildings that are full of vegetation and life.  If you sit quietly for a few moments you are sure to see some bird or squirrel or spider busily going about making it way in life.  

And that thought then reminded me of one Mary Oliver’s poems.  She has written so many wonderful poems about the natural world and a few of those have been about red foxes that she meets on occasion in her rambles.  But, that morning I was reminded of the poem by Mary Oliver that I shared with some the Grade 3 students at the beginning of school when we first started to observe our special spot in the Lower School courtyard.

Poet Mary Oliver

An Invitation
by Mary Oliver

Oh, do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy

and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note, or the lowest,

of the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air

as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine

and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude -
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing

just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in this broken world.
I beg of you,

do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.

It could mean something,
It could mean everything,
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.

Here is a link to a recent interview that Mary Oliver had with National Public Radio "Mary Oliver is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet whose body of work is largely filled with imagery of the natural world — cats, opossums crossing the street, sunflowers and black oaks in the sunshine. Her most recent collection is entitled A Thousand Mornings."

Orb weaving spiders have been very abundant this year.  The Grade 3 students have been observing a couple spiders in our recent study of the courtyard area.  That gave me an idea for a short video to try out creating YouTube videos of our science projects.   So, here is a link to my freshman effort to link some observations of spiders with a related Mary Oliver poem.

   

Finally - back to foxes at last!

To hear some of the strange and wonderful calls that red foxes can make go to the Macaulay Library sound archives at the The Cornell Lab of Ornithology

And if you would like to have a few minutes of watching a red fox yourself - go to their video collection as well. 

And just for fun here is a short video from the BBC Wildlife site of urban foxes in London that have been trained to sit on command.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Red_Fox#p00tv4zd

The Importance of Careful Measurements

The Grade 3 the students start the year learning how to make a range of careful measurements .  They measure solids and liquids using a range of tools to measure properties from linear to volume and temperature.  These kinds of practices are the foundation to building a real data set from which the class can begin to trace the actual patterns of the world.  They are also fun.

 It is fun to measure the temperature is on a foggy day.

And it is a chance to get to use new and interesting tools such as graduated cylinders.

All this attention to careful and accurate measuring has made me think about a couple of recent stories about some remarkable and very precise measurements that have been in the news recently.  The annual announcements about the Nobel prizes have just come out.   This year the Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to two scientists who developed new ways to study individual quantum particles without damaging them.

Did you know that one of the two scientists, the American scientist Dr. David Wineland, works at the National Institute of Standards and Technology?  I didn't even know we had a national center for standards! - but of course, it makes sense. We need one.  When I read the article in the New York Times  - I knew that I had to share this announcement with the Grade 3 students.  Recently we have been discussing why it might be important to have a standard unit of measure.

Here is what the New York Times had to say about Dr. Wineland's research "Dr. Wineland said that much of the motivation for his work over the years came from the need for better and better clocks. 'Historically,' he said in an interview with the Nobel committee, 'when we have better clocks, we have better navigation.' "

"Dr. Wineland’s work has focused on the material side of where matter meets light. His prize is the fourth Nobel awarded to a scientist associated with the National Institute of Standards and Technology over the past 15 years for work involving the trapping and measuring of atoms. Dr. Wineland and his colleagues trap charged beryllium atoms, or ions, in an electric field and cool them with specially tuned lasers so that they are barely moving, which is another way of saying they are very, very cold.

NIST physicist and Nobel Prize-winner David Wineland adjusts an ultraviolet laser beam used to manipulate ions in a high-vacuum apparatus containing an "ion trap." These devices have been used to demonstrate the basic operations required for a quantum computer.

 The photo above is from a great blog post from NPR

"Some of the measurements may be a bit hard to wrap your head around, but for even the most seemingly useless measurement, there's a practical use.

That's where the really precise clock comes into play. Ever wonder how GPS works?

'The fact that they have highly accurate and synchronized clocks on board [the satellites] is the crux of how GPS works,' says Andrew Novick, an electrical engineer at NIST.

'If they were off by hundreds of nanoseconds from each other then the whole thing would fall apart,' he says.

If you are wondering about the elementary science curriculum we are using -   many of the lesson plans are based on the FOSS Measurement curriculum module -(which is also a great resource for math lessons for Grades 3 and 4 as well) - of course our measurements not only take place in the science room but we do lots of measuring outdoors as well.

As we are learning more about the types and names of plants in our observation area it is also important to include scale on our notebook drawings.

Most recently students are learning how to measure liquids using metric units for volume and capacity.

Accurate measurements is a team effort because it is important to check and double check each measurement before the recorder writes it down on the data sheet.

It is important to get down level with the liquid to make sure the reading is correct.

In addition, first thing every morning the Meteorologists in Grade 3 are also outside taking careful and accurate weather data including the temperature in both Fahrenheit and Celsius - but more about that in an upcoming post.....