Mama Joules

Halloween Candy Overload

2011-11-02T06:59:00.001-07:00

Two of my three kids went trick-or-treating for Halloween this year (the little one was sick). Now we are facing a mountain of candy, despite my best efforts.

I took the leftover candy that we had been passing out and put it out on the step after our neighborhood had settled down for the night. What do you know? Magically, some little gremlins spirited away our candy!

As for the kids' stash, my husband and I graciously ate every little bar that may have ever come into contact with a peanut. With a child with a severe peanut allergy, it's the least that we could do. (Actual peanut-containing foods are banned from our house. Our neighbor happily traded our kids' peanut-laden treats for fruity candy.)

Yet, despite this, and even after a family-wide pig-out, we still have a mound of candy left. What should we do with the leftovers? If you're facing a similar dilemma, here are some suggestions:

Donate your candy to the troops.

MoverMoms is organizing a candy collection in the greater Washington D.C. area. You can also mail your candy directly to Treats for Troops, based in Florida. The Treats for Troops website states that they collect left-over individually wrapped Halloween candy to use as filler in care packages for our military men and women overseas. On their website, they write, "Candy tastes better than packing 'peanuts' and is environmentally friendlier." I couldn't agree more!

Use candy on cookies and gingerbread houses.

The holidays are just around the corner and you know what that means - holiday baking! This year, try baking some Halloween candy cookies. Small candies work great for decorations on a gingerbread house; blocks of chocolate make good beams, logs and posts. You can even use gingerbread houses to teach kids about science!

Reuse your wrappers.

Terracycle® collects and reuses individual candy wrappers, large candy bags, and multi-pack candy bags from Mars®, Wrigley®, and Cadbury® through their Candy Wrapper Brigade® program. Look for this program at schools and businesses in your area or start a group of your own!

Conduct Candy Experiments™.

I first encountered this fun group at last year's USA Science & Engineering Festival Expo. Did you know that you can create a density rainbow using Skittles? Float the letter "m" off of your M&Ms? Make Life Savers flash in the dark? Neither did I! (And be sure to mark your calendar - the 2nd USA Science & Engineering Festival is planned for April 28-29, 2012.)

Spread the joy - share your candy!

My friends at Celebrate Green!® have even more ideas for re-purposing your candy, including taking your candy to work, nursing homes, and fire stations.

Do you have a creative use for leftover Halloween candy? Share your idea in the comments!

Photo credit: normanack, via flickr (cropped from the original) // CC BY 2.0

Outdoors & Oceans in October Contest

2011-10-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

Dhana, an environmentally-friendly clothing line, is hosting a fall contest for kids ages 5 to 12. To enter, kids create artwork celebrating the theme of "Outdoors and Oceans in October"; parents post a photo of their child's art to Dhana's Facebook page. Contest entries should be created using pastels, oil, water color, crayons or mixed media (which includes just about everything other art supply that you can think of!).

The deadline for entries was just extended to Monday, October 17th, so you know what that means -- your odds are good for winning a prize! You could win a T-shirt from Dhana, a bag of treats & toys from my friends at Green Halloween®, or a mystery prize.

Good luck!

Where we live, October always includes a visit to a local farm.

Freebies for Science Teachers

2011-06-17T14:34:00.001-07:00

The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) has put together Freebies for Science Teachers, a list of links to online reference material and other goodies like these:

Surf your way over to Evolution Rocks, a musical ode to Darwin from the band Overman.

Explore the Antarctic with Tawani International Antarctic Expeditions.

Meet The Perfect Corpse, courtesy of NOVA.

According to the NSTA website, the National Science Teachers Association "is the largest organization in the world committed to promoting excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all."

If you are a second or third year secondary science teacher in the United States, now is the time to apply for NSTA's New Science Teacher Academy, a program providing free professional development and mentoring. Two hundred teachers will be accepted as new Fellows for the 2011 Academy. The application deadline is August 1, 2011. Good luck!

Photo credit: Wm Chamberlain, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

Get Ready for National Trails Day®!

2011-05-26T07:03:00.000-07:00

June 4 is American Hiking Society's National Trails Day® here in the United States. Search for an event near you and make plans to take a hike or explore a trail! This year's theme is "Made With All Natural Ingredients." This year marks the 19th annual celebration of the event.

Kids 12 and under are invited to participate in a coloring contest sponsored by the American Hiking Society. Winners will receive a prize pack. The deadline for entry is August 1, 2011. Good luck!

Learning from the fire ant

2011-05-22T13:14:00.000-07:00

I saw this great article yesterday with wonderful visuals about fire ants working together cooperatively to avoid drowning - they link together and form living rafts that are remarkably hydrophobic. Engineers are looking to the ants for new ideas in waterproof materials. It was too fascinating not to share with you!

An Analysis of John McPhee's The Pine Barrens (Part 3 of 4)

2011-04-08T08:08:00.000-07:00

[Note: I recently took an environmental literature class. As part of the coursework, I had to read two books that have influenced the American environmental movement and prepare a report on each. One of the books that I chose was John McPhee's The Pine Barrens.]

Who is John McPhee? A Hard-Working Journalist and Teacher

John McPhee was born in Princeton, New Jersey in 1931. Following his education at Princeton and Cambridge Universities, he started to write magazine articles, first with Time magazine and later with The New Yorker. He’s been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1965. McPhee has also worked extensively as a nonfiction writing instructor. As recently as 2009, McPhee was still teaching at Princeton University.

The Pine Barrens, published in 1968, was one of McPhee’s earlier books. Personally, I thought he rambled in places and could have used more editing. While my husband assures me that this is simply McPhee’s style, I am interested in reading McPhee’s later works to see if he tightened up his writing over the years.

Part of Itinerant Cryptographer's John McPhee collection

To date, John McPhee has published 30 books on wide-ranging topics that tend to examine the intersection of humans, history, and ecology. John McPhee won the Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for his essays on geology which he threaded into a book called Annals of the Former World.

McPhee’s tremendous output of work coupled with an ability to take complex ideas and break them down into enjoyable prose are surely his greatest gifts as a writer. He has been called the most gifted non-fiction writer working today and he is certainly one of the hardest working. At the age of 80, he doesn’t show any signs of slowing down.

***

If you like this post, be sure to read:

Part 1: Background: What are the Pine Barrens?
Part 2: What Makes the Pine Barrens So Special?
Part 4: What Type of Writer is McPhee? Why Was His Book Effective?

An Analysis of John McPhee's The Pine Barrens (Part 2 of 4)

2011-04-04T17:25:00.000-07:00

What Makes the Pine Barrens So Special?

The sheer size of unbroken forest in the Pinelands is unparalleled along the eastern seaboard. The region is underlain by a massive aquifer. John McPhee wrote of the groundwater:

“The water of the Pine Barrens is soft and pure, and there is so much of it that, like the forest above it, it is an incongruity in time and place.”

The sandy soils of the Pinelands, while great for purifying groundwater, make for lousy farmland. Early U.S. pioneers generally avoided the Pinelands unless they were hiding from someone or something. Their ancestors living in the region have retained that reticent, self-reliant nature. Despite some past development for iron smelting and charcoal production, the Pinelands are markedly absent of industry. Folks that lived there when McPhee was writing his book, in the late 1960’s, tended to be self-reliant. Most were not wealthy in material possessions but enjoyed their solitude, making a living by collecting and selling moss and pinecones or tending blueberry bushes and cranberry bogs.

The ecology of the pine barrens relies upon fire. Some of the pine species in the barrens won’t reproduce without fire – they need the heat to open their pine cones and release the seeds. McPhee describes this process in Chapter 7:

“It is because of fire that pines are predominant in the Pine Barrens. There is thought to be a progression in development of any forest from pioneer species to climax trees. Most ecologists agree that if fire were kept out of the Pine Barrens altogether, the woods would be eventually dominated by a climax of black oaks, white oaks, chestnut oaks, scarlet oaks, and a lesser proportion of hickories and red maples. In some areas, oaks dominate now. Fire, however, has generally stopped the march of natural progression, and the resulting situation is one that might be called biological inertia – apparently endless cycles of fire and sprouting.”

***

If you like this post, be sure to read:

Part 1: Background: What are the Pine Barrens?
Part 3: Who is John McPhee? A Hard-Working Journalist and Teacher
Part 4: What Type of Writer is McPhee? Why Was His Book Effective?

An Analysis of John McPhee's The Pine Barrens (Part 1 of 4)

2011-04-02T15:07:00.000-07:00

Abandoned train tracks running through
the pine barrens of New Jersey.
Photo credit: Matt Swern, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

Background: What are the Pine Barrens?

The pine barrens, or Pinelands, of New Jersey are an ecologically unique area in the center of the state dominated by various species of pine growing in nutrient-poor soils. Despite New Jersey’s reputation as a cheek-by-jowl urban area, over one million acres of land – nearly one-quarter of the state – is Pinelands. According to the New Jersey Pinelands Commission, "It is the largest body of open space on the Mid-Atlantic seaboard between Richmond and Boston and is underlain by aquifers containing 17 trillion gallons of some of the purest water in the land.”

At the time John McPhee published The Pine Barrens in 1968, people were considering building a large interstate through this natural area, complete with a supersonic jetport and a city of 250,000 people. The jetport alone would have been massive in scale. McPhee described the proposed airport as “the largest airport on earth – four times as large as Newark Airport, LaGuardia, and Kennedy put together.”

McPhee devoted the last chapter of his book about the Pinelands to describing the proposed development. In these affecting passages, he juxtaposed the developer’s dreams against the current condition of the undeveloped natural area, driving home the urgent need to protect the pinelands:

"We moved on to see the site of the jetport, which would cover thirty-two thousand five hundred acres and would eliminate virtually all of the Upper and Lower Plains, several ponds, a lake, an entire state forest, and Bear Swamp Hill … We were standing on the observation platform of the fire tower on Bear Swamp Hill. The ranger, in the cabin above us, was listening to rock ‘n’ roll. Looking out over the immense forest, Smith [the developer] went on to say, ‘One of our great problems is that you can’t get people to believe that this area is as big as this. They can’t believe that you could come down here and build a fifty-one-square mile airport and not have a structure problem – not even one building visible from here to the horizon. Bear Swamp Hill is in the terminal-service area, where the planes would come in and unload. I can just see those supersonic transports coming in here now. Gorgeous!’..."

The New Jersey Pinelands Commission states on their website that publication of McPhee’s book “spur[red] tremendous public outcry to protect the Pinelands natural and cultural resources.” In 1978, the Pinelands National Reserve – the first national reserve of its kind – was established in the United States. In 1983, the Pinelands were designated as a U.S. Biosphere Reserve; by 1988, this land was also considered an International Biosphere Reserve.

***

If you like this post, be sure to read:

Part 2: What Makes the Pine Barrens So Special?
Part 3: Who is John McPhee? A Hard-Working Journalist and Teacher
Part 4: What Type of Writer is McPhee? Why Was His Book Effective?

Super Bug!

2011-03-24T21:34:00.001-07:00

Little Brother finished his bug project for school today. Can you tell which insect this is?

Like all insects, it has a segmented body (3 styrofoam balls), six legs (3 McDonald's straws, rinsed and cut in half), two antennae (black pipe cleaners), and two compound eyes (pink foam circles with a checkerboard pattern drawn on them). This particular insect also has two wooden chopsticks holding its body together.

Little Brother painted it red because it's a red ant. Did you guess correctly?

Recipe for an Insect

2011-03-21T20:37:00.000-07:00

Not to be outdone by big brother Kerm's butterfly sculpture last year, Little Brother is taking his recent assignment seriously. He has to create a three-dimensional insect for a kindergarten class project. I told him to write up a "bug plan" with a shopping list for us to take to Michael's craft store.

Here's his list:

In case you have trouble reading the printing of a 5-year-old, let me translate:

Insect Materials
Glue
Balls of [styro]foam (3 x)
Pipe cleaners (8 x)
Googly eyes (5 x)

I can't wait to see the finished product!

Take the Hexapod Haiku Challenge!

2011-03-14T19:22:00.000-07:00

Do you like writing poems about insects? The North Carolina State University Insect Museum wants to hear them!

The Hexapod Haiku Challenge runs through March 20. The contest judges are looking for short poems that celebrate insect life:

"We would love to have haiku, senryū, haiga, and pseudohaiku that feature any familiar arthropod associated with the field of entomology ..."

Visit the contest website for more details. There's a special category for poets under the age of 13. I especially enjoyed looking at this poem about a bee from an eight-year-old runner-up in last year's contest.

Good luck!

Photo credit: carol2chat, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

Plant a Flower Day

2011-03-12T20:57:00.000-08:00

Today was Plant a Flower Day. Did you get outside to work in your garden? Or maybe it's still too cold where you live and, like my mom, you are germinating your seeds inside. I'm sorry to say that I didn't make it outside today despite the lovely weather.

But though I've been too busy lately to tend to my yard, I can tell that winter is ending. New leaves are pushing through the soft earth in my front garden bed. I wonder what is growing there? I don't remember the names of the different bulbs that my older son and I planted these past two years. Maybe some daffodils or crocuses. We'll have to wait and see. And now that the snow has turned to rain, the trees are starting to bud and grasses are coming to life, my children are tracking mud all over my house. Whether I am ready or not, spring is here!

If, like me, you are too busy right now to start your spring gardening, maybe you'd like to stop to smell the virtual roses. Do you know your state flower? How about your national flower? The National Gardening Association has a nice selection of resources online, including a section for children and teachers.

Even when things are crazy hectic, don't forget to enjoy the natural beauty around you.

Photo credit: EvelynGiggles, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

It's Time to Adopt-a-Physicist!

2011-03-05T06:00:00.000-08:00

I received this information yesterday from Kendra Redmond, Program Coordinator of the Society of Physics Students at the American Institute of Physics:

"Registration is open for spring Adopt-a-Physicist!

Spring 2011 Schedule
*Teacher Registration: Now - March 8 (or until full)
*Physicist Registration: March 9 - March 14 (or until full)
*Teachers adopt physicists: March 15 - March 25
*Discussion forums open: March 29 - April 18

Adopt-a-Physicist connects high school physics students to real physics graduates who are eager to share their stories. Working in areas ranging from particle physics research to freelance writing, the participating physicists embody a huge range of careers, backgrounds, interests, and educational levels. Adopt-a-Physicist connects classes with the physicists of their choice through online discussion forums that are active for a set three-week period. Each physicist can only be "adopted" by up to three classes, making lively, in-depth discussions possible. Learn more at Adopt-a-Physicist."

Image credit: Image Editor, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtles

2011-03-03T19:50:00.000-08:00

Photo credit: USFWS Endangered Species Program, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

I am currently taking a nature literature course. As part of my class, I'm reading The Windward Road by Archie Carr. Originally published in 1956, this engaging, scientific travelogue follows Dr. Carr as he wanders through the Caribbean islands studying sea turtles. This book drew attention to the plight of the sea turtles and their need for conservation. Today's Sea Turtle Conservancy has its origins in this book.

At the time of the book's publication, no one knew where the Kemp's Ridley sea turtle nested. People speculated that babies were born in the sea or even that it was a cross between a loggerhead and a green. Carr was puzzled by this turtle.

Reading his words, I could relate to Carr's confusion. I've always heard that the Kemp's Ridley is the rarest of all sea turtles, but I never knew why.

After publication of the book, the primary Kemp's Ridley nesting ground was finally identified by scientists - on a ten mile stretch of Mexican beach. Even today, 95% of females still nest on this beach. Imagine! No wonder they are so rare.

According to NOAA, the population of Kemp's Ridley has fluctuated but it is generally in decline. In 1947, a video recording showed 40,000 nesting females. By the mid-1980's, this number was down to 700. Thanks to conservation efforts, things were looking up for the Kemp's Ridley in the early 2000's, with almost 7,000 nests in 2003. Unfortunately, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has further decimated the numbers of this critically endangered species. If you look at the range of where they live, you can see why. I hope and pray for their recovery.

Unlike in Carr's day, when turtles were banded with metal tags, today's turtles are monitored using satellite tracking. You can even "adopt" sea turtles! And care of injured and wounded sea turtles has greatly improved. So there is hope! Maybe I will have to take a trip over to the National Aquarium and see if I can meet some Kemp's Ridleys ...

Get Ready for the Great Backyard Bird Count!

2011-02-17T09:14:00.001-08:00

This week-end, Friday through Monday, marks the annual Great Backyard Bird Count, sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. You can contribute by watching birds in your backyard for as little as 15 minutes during one day of the count.

Last year, birdwatchers in Canada and the United States submitted more than 97,200 checklists and saw more than 602 different species of birds. The collected data is used by scientists to track migration patterns and spot trends in bird populations. In 2010, the American Robin was the bird most commonly sighted; the Red-billed Tropicbird made it onto the list for the first time.

Here's everything you need to know about how to participate. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has an online bird guide with descriptions of 585 birds - including pictures and bird calls. If you are new to birding, you might want to start with the 51 most common bird species sighted in North America. You can also search for a birding walk or workshop in your area.

Happy birdwatching!

Acceptance

2011-02-05T10:18:00.001-08:00

One of my dearest friends and I don't exactly see eye to eye. In fact, we have opposing opinions on a number of topics. We have a running joke that if it was up to her the world would be encased in concrete whereas if it was up to me, we'd all be living in mud huts wishing for fire. Suffice to say, our views on environmental topics differ greatly.

I am an unabashed tree-hugger. I get worked up at the thought of trees being cut down, at the wanton and often unchallenged assumption that natural habitat is only here to serve mankind, that land only has value if man can use it for something. The idea of imprisoning an ecosystem behind a chain-link fence can move me to tears.

However, I have to accept that my view isn't quite standard, that most folks don't feel so quite passionately about the topic of habitat destruction (or, as others might say, land use changes). Despite my fervent feelings, life is about compromise.

The Serenity Prayer, so often evoked as a 12-step maxim, applies here: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

My passion to educate others about green topics ends when they understand my viewpoint. I have to accept that what they do with that information is up to them.

Which is as it should be. Otherwise, I would be very cold in my mud hut.

Photo credit: Rachel Davies, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

National Seed Swap Day

2011-01-29T10:06:00.000-08:00

Thanks to my friends at Celebrate Green!®, I learned that the last Saturday in January is known as National Seed Swap Day. The event started in 2006 in the Washington, D.C. area, but has quickly spread across the country to become a national event.

What is a seed swap?

Simply put, you trade seeds with someone else. Why? You can share extra seeds that you don't need and they won't go to waste. It's a fun way to gain seeds for your garden inexpensively. You might even obtain rare varieties that you can't find in local stores.

How do you save seeds?

Jack Rowe has posted a marvelous free Vegetable Seed Saving Handbook to get you started. Some seeds are harder to save than others. Modern-day carrots, for example, can be cross-pollinated by the wild carrot, or Queen Anne's Lace. The seeds you'd wind up with from this cross would not produce tasty carrots.

How long do seeds last?

It depends upon the seed. Even the experts disagree, as explored in this post by A Way to Garden.com.

When I was studying wetlands in graduate school, we talked about the government's idea of letting folks drain a wetland as long as they created one somewhere else. This was part of the No Net Loss wetlands policy first touted in the late 1980's.

This line of thinking fails to consider the functionality of wetlands. Wetland soil contains important seeds - a "bank" of future plants. Just adding water to an upland area doesn't turn it into a wetland. Conversely, some industrial areas built on drained wetlands have been successfully converted back to wetlands.

Seeds, when properly cared for, can last a long time.

How important is it to save seeds?

One of the problems with modern agriculture is that we tend to fixate on certain types of plants at the expense of others. Let's say we have grown the perfect tomato. Other tomato varieties might be discounted because their fruits are too small, too squishy, maybe a funny color. If no one saves these seeds, we are in for a big problem when later, our perfect tomato falls prey to an insect or disease. Some of these lesser varieties might be resistant, but if we don't save the seeds, we don't have a way to deal with the problem.

This is the rationale behind seedbanks - we want to save the seeds for posterity. You never know when we might need them.

How can I swap seeds?

Ask your friends and neighbors to swap seeds with you. The advantage of swapping seeds locally is that you know they are likely to grow in your climate and they won't harm your local ecosystem.

The National Gardening Association has set up this page to help you swap seeds online. HeirloomSeedSwap.com is an international seed swapping site. But be careful when sending seeds long distances - a seed that is welcome in your area might be considered an invasive somewhere else.

Happy swapping!

Photo credit: Kirsty Hall, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

Dear McDonald's:

2011-01-23T16:35:00.000-08:00

I went to the drive-through yesterday with my three kids and bought them Happy Meals. (I'll leave the discussion of the nutritional value / addictive nature of these meals to others.)

My complaint is this. I was asked whether each meal was for a boy or a girl and I answered honestly. So I wound up with two so-called "boy toys" - trucks - and one "girl toy" - a pink pony. Would you like to be the one to explain to a screaming not quite two-year-old why she doesn't get a "twuck" like her brothers?

So, McDonald's, here's a clue. It is 2011. Boys play with dolls. Girls play with trucks. Get over it.

It's time to change the language used by your employees. Instead of asking if the toy is for a boy or a girl, ask your customers if they would like toy A or toy B. It's really not hard.

I thank you in advance from my daughter and all of the other children who don't conform to your stereotypes.

Sincerely,
Annoyed Mother

Photo credit: Keo 101, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

The Anatomy of the Cockroach

2011-01-14T19:22:00.000-08:00

I received a rather unusual email today from Steve Clark which read, in part:

"I wanted to notify you about an educational resource developed by my company Orkin Pest Control. It is a fully interactive virtual cockroach designed to be an instructional tool about insect anatomy."

I visited the website and found it to be rather detailed, including micrographs of every imaginable slice of cockroach. I have to say, it was more than I ever wanted to know about cockroach innards!

And it never before occurred to me that the cockroach might make a useful tool for the study of insects because, as the Orkin Virtual Roach page points out, the cockroach is both a familiar insect and readily available. Think of how cheaply students could acquire supplies for lab class. Folks might even be willing to pay students to collect their roaches. Now that's a win-win solution!

I like the idea of taking this "useless" pest and finding a purpose for it. Good luck, Orkin! I hope that your virtual cockroach has a long and happy life.

Photo credit: Anil Jadhav, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

Color Mixing and Color Wheels

2010-12-27T12:22:00.000-08:00

I was working on a poem tonight and I wanted to know how an orange-hued sunset might affect something that was the color blue. I suspected that the resulting color would be some variation on brown, but I wanted to see it for myself. Since it was too late in the day for a nice sunset, I searched online for color wheels. They were so much fun to use, and I learned so much about color, that I thought I would share my findings with you.

Mixing Colors

This Online Color Mixing Palette for Painters from About.com is easy to use. Just click the colors to add them to the mixing bowl and see what happens. If you want to examine, say, two parts blue to one part red, click on the blue square twice and the red square once. The counter keeps track of how many "parts" you've added of each primary color.

COLORCUBE's Color Paintbox is a bit trickier to use. What I liked about this simulation is that you are mixing colors other than the three primary colors of red, blue, and yellow. Instead, your tubes of online mixing paint are white, black, cyan, magenta, and yellow. With effort, you can mix the paint to create any shade along the COLORCUBE. It takes some practice to achieve the color you want!

Made From Dots, from the Teachers' Lab's The Science of Light pages, explores the same theme as COLORCUBE and explains the reasoning behind these choices for mixing colors:

"A magazine printing press usually can only print four colors: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black. Our eyes and brain put colors together from the colored dots. Printers (and the computers they use to help them) print the dots in special grids that do not overlap."

Made From Dots shows you what different percentages of cyan, magenta, and yellow saturation look like when they overlap and how our brain perceives the resulting mixture of dots. I found it challenging at first to predict the resulting colors, but it became easier the longer I practiced.

However, keep in mind that mixing colors online is different than mixing them in real life. For example, if you mix every drop of paint in the rainbow of oils on your palette, you will create a blob of blackish paint for your canvas. This is known as the subtractive color method. You start with a white page and end up with a darker mixture of paint.

Online, however, you start with an essentially black screen. Colors are mixed on the computer using the additive color method and you wind up with a lighter image than what you began with. You can read more about additive and subtractive color methods at Janet Lynn Ford's Color Worqx pages.

Color Wheels

Color wheels can be fun to make. Little Brother made one in preschool using a sheet of heavy-duty construction paper, a straw, and a pin. His wasn't a full color wheel, but just two alternating colors of red and yellow. When you spun the wheel, the whole thing looked orange.

Here's a lovely COLORbasics segment from Lisa Viger on painting a color wheel:

According to numerous web sources, including Home Science Tools, if you punch a hole through the middle of a real color wheel and spin the thing fast enough, all of the colors seem to disappear and the wheel will look white. The logic behind this is that white light is a mixture of all of the colors of the spectrum. (But it is still hard to fathom!)

After poking around on YouTube for awhile, I've come to the conclusion that while this result is true in theory, it's difficult in real life to get your color wheel spinning fast enough for the effect to work. According to the Physics Archive at Argonne National Lab's NEWTON Ask a Scientist, Vince Calder wrote that "the color wheel must rotate quickly enough so that each color segment superimposes the other two in 1/25 of a second or less."

Do you have any fun experiences to share about color or color wheels? Let me know in the comments.

Enjoy a colorful day!

Informative Blogs for Animal Lovers

2010-12-03T06:00:00.000-08:00

Want to learn more about different kinds of animals? These blogs are a great resource and include some of my favorite websites.

Animal A Day!

From common species like the American Robin to the lesser known Arapaima, Lauren shares the tidbits and insights that make each of these animals unique. Have an animal that you're curious about? You can chat with her on Twitter and suggest new animals for future blog posts.

A 110 pound Arapaima
Photo credit: Andrew Hosegood, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

The Daily Mammal

I'm sorry to report that The Daily Mammal has not been updated in awhile. Nonetheless, check out the archives for Jennifer's gorgeous drawings of over 340 mammals. I hope she comes back soon and makes good on her "attempt to draw every one of the 5,000 (or so) mammal species known to science."

The Featured Creature

The Featured Creature came in 7th place in 2009's Best Animal Blogger category at the Blogger's Choice Awards and it's easy to see why. Photography is used to its full advantage here, with colorful images chosen to bring unusual animals like the banana slug up close and personal.

Ugly Overload

If you like ugly, you're in for a treat. The animals (and plants and fungi) of Ugly Overload are some of the most cringe-worthy that our planet has to offer. Check out the Reef Stonefish, with a face that's a dead ringer for Jabba the Hutt, or the red-eyed Fantastic Leaf-tailed Gecko. And I did not know that there are fish that can walk! Did you?

ZooBorns

There's nothing cuter than baby animals and ZooBorns delivers the cuteness we crave. This blog is like an internet brag book of the world's newest babies born at zoos and aquariums worldwide. From cougar cubs to tiny Kihasa Spray Toad, you're sure to find your favorite animal babies here.

Baby Opossum
Photo credit: kthypryn, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

Celebrate Computer Security Day

2010-11-30T06:22:00.000-08:00

November 30 is Computer Security Day, so I sat down for a chat with Itinerant Cryptographer, my resident computer security expert.

Mama Joules: Welcome to Mama Joules, Itinerant Cryptographer. You certainly have an unusual name. What do you do for a living?

Itinerant Cryptographer: I do research in computer security and cryptography. Most of my work is in applied cryptography - cryptography applied to real-world problems such as electronic voting and encrypting files based on passwords.

MJ: That sounds interesting. What is cryptography?

IC: Cryptography is the mathematical end of computer security. It includes encryption, which is a way of scrambling up information so that no one can read it except the person with the key, and other related ideas like digital signatures and information hiding.

Some ways that people use cryptography:

-- You have a movie and you want to embed a copyright notice in [it].

-- [You are playing an] online multi-player game [and want] to make sure that somebody else can't steal your player or the items that your player owns.

-- [You want] to keep a log of events on a computer that can't be deleted or tampered with without detection.

A digital signature lets you send a message [so that] anybody who knows your public key can identify that the message comes from you and hasn't been changed. Microsoft, for example, uses digital signatures when they distribute updates or programs. That lets your computer verify that the program really came from Microsoft.

The most important place where most people use encryption every day is SSL (secure socket layer). When you order things online and use a credit card, that information goes through an encrypted connection.

MJ: What are the biggest threats facing computer security today?

IC: A big problem in computer security is that over the last ten years or so, attacks over computer systems have moved from being done by hobbyists for fun to attacks that are done by criminals for a profit. When they were done by amateurs, the attacks tended to be more like pranks. Now, the attacks tend to be a lot more serious, more professional. They are harder to defend against and there are a lot more of them.

MJ: What can we, as users, do to make our personal computers more secure?

IC: Unplug them? (laughs)

You need to have a personal firewall and a virus scanner. A personal firewall is a computer program that sits between the outside world and your computer and tries to prevent bad communications from coming in from the outside and taking over your computer. Computer attacks are all about communicating. They can cause the computer to crash or malfunction in a useful way.

Imagine your computer is a house. A house has not only doors, but windows and an attic, air ducts, and maybe a crawl space underneath. What a firewall is supposed to do is block off most of those access points [to your home] except for the doors. You still have to lock your doors - keep your web browser and software up to date and run your virus scanner - but the firewall makes it harder to get in.

You need to be careful about accepting things over the Internet. If you click on a link and it tells you to download some software to view a movie, it may be trying to carry out an attack or take over your computer.

An attacker only has to find one weak point, like an Achilles heel. That's why computer security is a really hard challenge. You never get to the end of it. You never know if you've got all the bugs or the weakness. We can look for bugs in software. Weaknesses only show up if there's an attacker to exploit them.

MJ: What resources would you suggest for someone who is interested in cryptography, but doesn't know where to start?

IC: That's a good question. You're going to need to study a lot of math. And you also want to become a good computer programmer.

There are a lot of paper and pen ciphers that are good starting points - for example, the Vigenere cipher, the Caesar cipher, and the Rail Fence cipher. In a cipher, each individual piece of a message gets scrambled up. For example, each letter might be changed into a different letter. A cipher usually involves some calculation.

In a code, whole words or ideas get encoded into different words or ideas. A code uses a table or code book to translate the information. Read about the Navajo Code Talkers. These American soldiers used a different language [than English] as their code during World War II.

MJ: How are you planning to celebrate Computer Security Day?

IC: I think I'll go to work. (smiles)

Photo credit: Gil Paradis, via BurningWell.org

Boy Finds Giant Maple Leaf, Stirs Controversy

2010-11-27T06:00:00.000-08:00

The Weather Channel recently reported that a 9-year-old Canadian boy just became a Guinness World Record holder for finding the world's largest maple leaf. Just how large was this leaf? As big as a dinner plate - about a square foot in size.

But as Canada's CTV News reported:

All the attention has one possible downside. "People are jealous at school," [the boy] confided, and they're trying to find bigger leaves.

In fact, a ten-year-old Canadian girl is now challenging the record and two other families say their leaves are larger yet.

When will the controversy end? Maybe when *you* find the world's largest maple leaf!

Photo credit: Suvodeb Banerjee, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

Black Friday or Buy Nothing Day?

2010-11-24T12:22:00.000-08:00

Traditionally, here in the U.S., the day after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday, the official start of the winter holiday buying frenzy. But some people are bucking the trend on November 26 by celebrating Buy Nothing Day instead.

The first Buy Nothing Day was celebrated in Canada in 1992 to promote awareness of wasteful spending and overconsumption. Today, Buy Nothing Day is celebrated - on Nov. 26 in North America and Nov. 27 elsewhere - in over 65 countries around the world.

How does Buy Nothing Day stack up against Black Friday? Let's do a quick comparison:

Black Friday: whip out your credit card
Buy Nothing Day: cut up your credit card

Black Friday: wait in the streets
Buy Nothing Day: free street parties

Black Friday: Wal-Mart (fill your cart to the brim)
Buy Nothing Day: Whirl-Mart (twirl your cart around without purchasing anything)

Black Friday: shop until you walk like a zombie
Buy Nothing Day: Zombie walk to draw awareness to Buy Nothing Day

However you choose to celebrate on November 26, enjoy yourself. And have a wonderful Thanksgiving. :)

Photo credit: Brave New Films, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

It's America Recycles Day!

2010-11-15T13:50:00.000-08:00

November 15 is America Recycles Day. How are you planning to celebrate?

For certain locations in the United States, 1-800-Recycling.com can help locate businesses near you that recycle everything from paper and glass to automotive wastes and hazardous materials. For example, Best Buy will recycle most electronic items at its US and Puerto Rico stores, "including TVs, DVD players, computer monitors, audio and video cables, cell phones, and more."

From now until December 13, Recycling Zychal is offering to "upcycle" your broken umbrella for free (you pay for shipping the umbrella to them). Send them your broken umbrella and they will make something nifty out of it. The Recycling Zychal Etsy shop sells items repurposed from the fabric portion of umbrellas, like rain hoods, pet toys, and dog raincoats, so I can't wait to see what they are planning! This video shows you how to strip your umbrella and ship the material cheaply to them:

Treehugger writer Lloyd Alter says we should take America Recycles Day a step further and strive for a Zero Waste Day instead. Today is good time to consider the environmental impact of what you purchase. Can you live without the latest electronic gadget? Find companies that use less packaging? Invent new ways to use old objects?

EPA has a great section on their website entitled Wastes: What You Can Do. It's broken down by location of waste generation and season, with tips to reduce your environmental impact. Check it out!

Fun at the USA Science & Engineering Festival Expo

2010-11-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, October 23, 2010, Princess and I joined the crowd at the first USA Science & Engineering Festival Expo in Washington, DC. Roughly 850 organizations from all walks of science - education, industry, government - presented more than 1,500 interactive exhibits. The range of topics was staggering. But my favorite exhibits weren't just interactive, they were off the wall.

Maggot Monet, presented by Southeastern Louisiana University's College of Science and Technology, allowed visitors to paint with live maggots. Or rather, you dipped the maggots into paint and they did the painting for you by wiggling across the page. You got to take home their maggot masterpiece.

Candy Experiments™ was another hot exhibit. Visit their online experiments page to put your Halloween candy to the test. Did you know that you can create a density rainbow using Skittles? Float the letter "m" off of your M&Ms? Make Life Savers flash in the dark? Their booth was so popular that I couldn't even get the stroller near it.

All in all, the festival was a terrific success. Families crowded around displays of sea ice, robotic arms, nanotechnology, microbiology. The 8-to-12-year-old crowd, in particular, enjoyed the many options for fun: racing model cars, building molecular models, shooting foam rockets, meeting TV stars from CSI Miami.

But the festival didn't exactly cater to the youngest scientists. Access was difficult with a stroller. Princess did get to color a kidney for the American Society of Nephrology. We won a stuffed E. coli. And she had fun playing with ping-pong ball "moons".

I hope it becomes an annual event so that we can take her brothers with us next time. As it was, I lugged home a load of science swag for them. As soon as this picture was taken, they divvied up the goods and scurried off with their newfound treasures. Dad got to keep the science-themed T-shirt. Princess and I have our memories. Well, that and the stuffed E. coli.

Photo credits: Mama Joules

Adventures in Local Eating: The Pumpkin Edition

2010-11-04T09:28:00.000-07:00

When my friend Lazy Locavore first talked with me about her food choices, I thought that I had misheard her.

"You're a loco-vore?" I asked. "A crazy-eater?"

"No," she said with a laugh. "I'm a locavore. I eat locally-grown foods."

I didn't think much about this until she handed me a pound of locally-raised ground beef.

"Try this," she said.

I put the meat in my refrigerator. Again, I didn't think much about it until I took the meat out and actually looked at it. This was Meat with a capital M. It smelled fresh, it looked fresh, and it was very moist, almost bloody. I could practically visualize the cow, which initially set me back a bit. But my husband and I persisted and soon we had tasty hamburgers for dinner.

"Huh," I thought. "Maybe there is something to this locally-grown food stuff."

A couple of weeks later, I was standing in a farmer's market, looking for ripe apples. Taking a sniff of the rich and lovely scent of fresh produce, I realized something. I miss the smell of food. So many things you pick up in the grocery store these days are almost devoid of smell.

But what really got to me were pumpkins. This year, my boys went on several hay rides and soon we had a porch full of pumpkins. Lazy Locavore persuaded me to cook one.

"It's not hard," she insisted. "I can do it and I'm lazy about my food."

Several of our pumpkins were true carving pumpkins, hollow inside with a slightly off smell and few seeds. I was glad that Lazy Locavore had taught me to look for a small, solid pumpkin when baking. When I found one that literally bent the knife as I tried to cut into it, I knew I had a keeper. It looked something like this (sans the face):

Now, several days later, my pumpkin looks like this:

And here's what I learned: Pumpkins are food! I had been completely ignoring the fact that people actually eat them. I just saw them as ornamental.

The most important thing that the locavore movement has taught me so far: when we no longer relate to fresh foodstuffs as food, something needs to change.

Photo credits: Mama Joules

Blog Action Day 2010

2010-10-15T13:04:00.000-07:00

Today is Blog Action Day 2010 and the topic at hand is water. When I think about the many issues surrounding water, it's hard for me to pick just one to write about.

In James McBride's memoir / family retrospective The Color of Water, the author asks his mother, "What color is God's spirit?" She replies, "It doesn't have a color ... God is the color of water."

I like that quote. It seems fitting, somehow, since "up to 60% of the human body is water" (source: USGS). We live on a planet where 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by water (source: NASA). Water is integral to our daily lives. Regardless of race, class, gender, income, or other dividing lines, every person on earth depends upon water. It is our lowest common denominator. We all need water to survive.

Yet, only 3% of the Earth's water is available as fresh water suitable for drinking (source: NASA). According to the UN, "[one] billion people lack access to [an] improved water supply." Worse, "2.6 billion people lack access to improved sanitation" and "[i]f the 1990-2002 trend continues, it is thought that some 2.4 billion people will be without improved sanitation in 2015 - almost as many as are without today" (source: UN).

What can be done? Blog Action Day is calling upon people to sign a petition supporting the UN's efforts to bring clean water and sanitation to the developing world. The hope is that Blog Action Day will bring attention to this growing, glaring problem and, hopefully, will spur positive change. The United States Fund for UNICEF is sponsoring this petition.

Petitions by Change.org|Start a Petition »

Happy National Fossil Day!

2010-10-13T04:30:00.000-07:00

October 13, 2010 has been designed as the very first National Fossil Day in the United States.

"National Fossil Day is a celebration organized by the National Park Service to promote public awareness and stewardship of fossils, as well as to foster a greater appreciation of their scientific and educational values." - National Park Service website

So, what is a fossil? "Fossils are the remains or traces of organisms that were once alive," as per the National Fossil Day FAQs page. A fossil could have occurred when a seashell left an impression in ancient mud, or you might find a fossil bone from a prehistoric animal. Fossils can be large or small. More than 230 National Park Service locations work on the preservation of fossils.

I like to collect fossils. I have some fossilized seashells that I found in California and Utah. Some are impressions, or trace fossils, and some are the actual shells, or body fossils. It's always fun to look at the rocks and imagine what prehistoric life must have been like. Remember that some locations - like national parks - prohibit the collection of fossils and other natural resources.

The NPS has a Junior Paleontologist Program for kids ages 5-12. Check out these educational opportunities. You can make your own fossils! National Fossil Day even has its own song. And if that's not enough fossil goodness, visit this list of additional resources about fossils and paleontology compiled by the NPS.

Enjoy!

Photo credit: Kevin Walsh, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

Earth Science Week 2010

2010-10-09T10:06:00.000-07:00

In the United States, October 10 - 16, 2010 is Earth Science Week. This year's theme is "Exploring Energy."

An online toolkit, containing an Introduction to Earth Science is available in both English and Spanish from the American Geological Institute.

NASA has also set up a special page for Climate Change: Earth Science Week 2010, where you can test your "energy I.Q.", view Energy Essentials like the image below, and more.

Human use of artificial lights at night in the western hemisphere.
Data courtesy of Marc Imhoff (NASA/GSFC) and Christopher Elvidge (NOAA/NGDC).
Image by Craig Mayhew (NASA/GSFC) and Robert Simmon (NASA/GSFC).

If you live in the US, folks of any age can enter AGI's photography contest for Earth Science Week. The theme is "We Depend on Energy." Photographs may be submitted electronically.

For little US residents, AGI is also hosting a poster contest for kids in grades K-5 on the topic of "Energy on Earth." Entries must be mailed. Older kids can enter AGI's essay contest for US students in grades 6-9. The typed essay must contain no more than 300 words on the topic of "How Energy Powers the Planet."

The winner of each contest will receive $300 and a copy of AGI's Faces of Earth DVD. The deadline for all three contests is this Friday, October 15, 2010. Please visit AGI's contest page for more details.

Want to keep Earth Science Week going throughout the year? Check out AGI's Earth Science Activity Calendar for the 2010-2011 school year. Each month focuses on a different topic and includes some special dates in earth science. You can even sign up for a free monthly E-newsletter - Earth Science Week Update - from AGI.

Good luck with the contests and have fun celebrating!

A New Website for Rocket Lovers

2010-10-07T11:21:00.000-07:00

During World Space Week, it seems only fitting to talk about NASA's newly launched Rocketry page. I received this blurb in an Email this week:

"NASA Education is launching a new website to get students and educators off the launch pad and on their way to becoming rocket scientists."

NASA - Rocketry has sets of articles designed for kids in grades K-4 and 5-8 on topics like What is a Rocket? (this is the K-4 version) and What is the Space Shuttle? (this is the 5-8 version). You can compare the designs of model rockets and their full-size counterparts. (I've got to admit, the interactive flash version of this article is more fun!) You can even build your own rocket, but, alas, it's only online. Through NASA Kids' Club, you can build an entire fleet of online rockets with Rocket Builder.

Thinking of a career in rocketry? Read the bios of these engineers and scientists. Learn about educational opportunities like Rocketry Workshops for grades K-12 and the Team America Rocketry Challenge.

The NASA-Rocketry website has also compiled a wonderful collection of podcasts, videos, images, and simulations at their Robotics-Multimedia page. That's where I found this:

Apollo 11 Launch from the Kennedy Space Center on July 16, 1969
Photo credit: NASA

It's World Space Week!

2010-10-04T07:44:00.000-07:00

World Space Week is celebrated each year from October 4-10. According to NASA, World Space Week was designated by the United Nations in 1999. The week was chosen, in part, to commemorate the October 4, 1957 launch of Sputnik 1, the first human-made satellite to be launched into outer space.

Search for a special event near you on the World Space Week 2010 Calendar. This year, over 20 countries, from Afghanistan to the United States, are joining in.

Help the European Space Agency and play The Space Game to find a trajectory to Jupiter.

Or, if you are under the age of 15, create art about the moon and send a photo of your artwork to ESA's Space Gallery Competition by October 31, 2010. You could win prizes!

Take some time this week to browse the photos and video on Discovery Space. Visit the space site of the Science Channel to learn which planet matches your personality. (Oh dear. I'm Pluto, the tiny cold planet recently demoted to "dwarf planet.")

Photo credit: Anindo Ghosh, via flickr //CC BY 2.0

Gardening with kids? Apply for a grant!

2010-09-28T12:09:00.000-07:00

Fall is the right time to plan a community-based garden for the following spring. Why? With your plans in mind, you can apply for a gardening grant. There are many grants available for all types - and stages - of gardens, but these programs all have one thing in common: they want detailed information about you and your proposed garden. If you have your plans at hand, filling out grant applications like these will be a snap.

Some gardening grants accept applications on a rolling basis, but several recur yearly with a spring or fall deadline. Here are two with fall deadlines for my U.S.-based readers, presented by the National Gardening Association. Both require that your garden will be tended by 15 or more children between the ages of 3 and 18:

The 2010 Subaru Healthy Sprouts Award provides 30 schools and/or organizations with a $500 gift certificate for gardening supplies, along with additional gardening and nutritional information. If you are using your garden to teach "about our environment, nutrition and hunger issues in the United States," be sure to sign up! The application deadline is October 1, 2010.

One hundred Youth Garden Grants are available to gardening groups for 2011. Five recipients will win educational materials and $1000 in gift cards to purchase gardening supplies; ninety-five groups will receive half of this amount. For the best chance of success, your garden should tie in with education, environmental awareness, leadership, and community building. The application deadline is November 1, 2010 (postmark).

Good luck and happy gardening!

Photo credit: woodley wonderworks via flickr // CC BY 2.0

Celebrate World Car Free Day

2010-09-21T16:23:00.000-07:00

Since 2000, World Car Free Day has been regularly celebrated each year on September 22. According to the World Carfree Network:

"World Carfree Day is an annual celebration of cities and public life, free from the noise, stress and pollution of cars."

I don't know about you, but where I live, life without a car isn't practical. That said, I think World Car Free Day is a wonderful opportunity to examine society's over-dependence upon the automobile. If you - like me - can't eliminate car usage entirely, try to reduce your dependence upon automobiles and learn to use them more efficiently. Some ideas to consider:

Sit down with your family and look at a map of your neighborhood. When running errands, is there some way to make one loop around town instead of zigzagging back and forth?

The next time you go shopping, is there a place to park your car that allows you to walk from store to store instead of parking - and driving - to each?

Have you looked into all types of public transit offered in your area? Would these travel options - buses, monorail, trains, etc. - work for anyone in the family?

Are you missing opportunities to get to know classmates or co-workers by carpooling?

Serious about going car free? Green LA Girl has ideas for renting out your car, supporting public transit, biking, and more. Check out Car Free Mondays, a series of interviews with women living (happily) sans automobile in Los Angeles.

Photo credit: Anuradha Sengupta, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

OT: It's Talk Like A Pirate Day!

2010-09-19T06:09:00.000-07:00

Yes, this is off-topic, but I wanted to share this with you. Do you have pirate-lovers at your house, too? Today, September 19th, is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Planning a pirate-themed party to celebrate? Add your event to the official map. Browse through the link list and you, too, could wind up with a cool pirate name like mine. :)

My pirate name is:

Bloody Jenny Rackham

Every pirate lives for something different. For some, it's the open sea. For others (the masochists), it's the food. For you, it's definitely the fighting. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Happy World Water Monitoring Day!

2010-09-18T12:22:00.000-07:00

According to my handy-dandy, newly compiled Calendar of Science Holidays, today is World Water Monitoring Day. According to the World Water Monitoring Day website, the purpose of this day is to encourage people to identify their local water bodies (like rivers, lakes, streams, oceans) and take steps to protect them by conducting basic water monitoring.

The World Water Monitoring Day website tracks water quality monitoring data from around the world. Local groups upload their findings by geographic location. The basic water monitoring measures tracked for this website are pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), temperature, and turbidity. These measures are important for many reasons, but here's some information on how they affect aquatic life:

pH tells you if the water is acidic, basic (alkaline), or neutral. Water with high acidity or high alkalinity is not healthy for aquatic life. Natural waters should have a pH that is roughly neutral.

Dissolved oxygen tells you how much oxygen in the water is available to aquatic life. For example, if lake water has low dissolved oxygen, the fish won't be able to breathe. In general, water bodies that are in motion (streams, rivers) have higher dissolved oxygen than stagnant water bodies like lakes and ponds.

Temperature is a useful measure of a water body's resilience to atmospheric temperature changes. Let's say that one day, the temperature outside is 90 degrees F and the next day it drops down to 40 degrees (this can happen where I live!). If water temperature in lakes and streams followed those extremes, most - if not all - aquatic life would die. But water generally heats and cools more slowly than air, which allows lakes and streams to withstand daily atmospheric temperature fluctuations. When you monitor water temperature, you don't want to see rapid changes over short periods of time. If a polluter suddenly dumped a large volume of hot wastewater into a small stream, for example, you would see a big temperature difference from one day to the next and you might see lots of dead fish floating on top of the water.

Turbidity looks at the amount of suspended material in the water. Very turbid water can look green from high concentrations of algae or brown from suspended sediments. Often, pollution increases turbidity. Crystal clear water, however, doesn't guarantee that a water body is healthy. Sometimes, it means that the water is "dead" and that no aquatic life is living there. Fish need algae and other suspended materials for food.

A Secchi disk is used to measure the turbidity of your water. You basically drop it down into a water body until you can't see it any more and measure at what depth that occurs.
Photo credit: Secchi Dip-In | Biological Sciences Department Kent State University

To learn more about these four water quality measures, check out this page of World Water Monitoring Day handouts or visit EPA's Volunteer Monitoring Program. In the US, you can find local monitoring clubs at EPA's Surf Your Watershed. Check with environmental groups in your area to see if they offer water quality monitoring classes. Getting to know your watershed is a great way to get acquainted with your local environment.

The Calendar of Science Holidays

2010-09-16T08:01:00.000-07:00

Each year holds a wealth of weird, wacky, and interesting -- yet under-celebrated -- days for science, like World Weather Day and World Water Day. I decided to put together a calendar of annual science holidays and special events that celebrate science so that we could enjoy them together.

National events listed here refer to the United States, unless otherwise noted. Of course, if you live outside of the US, you are more than welcome to celebrate with us! (And I'll admit, some of these holidays are a little less "official" than others.) I expect to update this post in the future, so feel free to send me your special day and I'll add it to the list. Thanks!

* * * *

January
5 - National Bird Day
17 - Kid Inventors' Day
Last Saturday of the month - National Seed Swap Day

February
2 - World Wetlands Day
11 - National Inventors' Day
12 - Darwin Day
mid-month - Great Backyard Bird Count (four days)
third week - National Engineers Week (includes Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day)

March
12 - National Agriculture Day
12 - Plant a Flower Day
14 - Pi Day
22 - World Water Day
23 - World Weather Day
on or near Spring Equinox - Sun-Earth Day
National Wildlife Week

April
12 - Yuri's Night (The World Space Party)
13 - International Plant Appreciation Day
22 - Earth Day
the week before Earth Day - National Environmental Education Week
second full week - National Robotics Week (new!)
Earth Month

May
8 - National Rain Day (Australia)
12 - National Lab Day (new!)
22 - International Day of Biodiversity
23 - World Turtle Day
third Friday - Endangered Species Day
first full week - National Wildflower Week

June
5 - World Environment Day
6 - National Butterfly Awareness Day (new!)
8 - World Oceans Day
first Saturday - National Trails Day
National Pollinator Week

July
20 - Moon Day

August
fourth Sunday - World Kitchen Garden Day
National Water Quality Month

September
14 - Protect Your Groundwater Day (new!)
18 - International Observe the Moon Night (new!)
18 - World Water Monitoring Day
25 - Nature Rocks Day
26 - World Rivers Day (Canada)
third Saturday - World Tree Day
last Saturday of the month - National Public Lands Day
24-30 Take a Child Outside Week

October
10 - Powers of Ten Day
13 - National Fossil Day (new!)
20 - World Statistics Day (new!)
23 - National Mole Day (celebrating Avogadro's number)
4 - 10 World Space Week
week containing the 10th day - National Metric Week
second full week - Earth Science Week
third full week - National Chemistry Week
Waste Reduction Week (Canada)

November
15 - America Recycles Day
30 - Computer Security Day

December
(No listings yet.)

[Last updated 1/29/11 - Added National Seed Swap Day; edited link for Sun-Earth Day. 10/4/10 - Added World Space Week. 9/17/10 - Added International Observe the Moon Night, National Metric Week. ]

Photo credit: SantaRosa OLD SKOOL via flickr // CC BY 2.0

Adopt-a-Physicist

2010-09-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

I received this Email yesterday from Kendra Redmond, Program Coordinator of the Society of Physics Students at the American Institute of Physics:

Registration is open for fall Adopt-a-Physicist!

Adopt-a-Physicist connects high school physics students to real physics graduates who are eager to share their stories. Working in areas ranging from particle physics research to freelance writing, the participating physicists embody a huge range of careers, backgrounds, interests, and educational levels. Adopt-a-Physicist connects classes with the physicists of their choice through online discussion forums that are active for a set three-week period. Each physicist can only be "adopted" by up to three classes, making lively, in-depth discussions possible. Learn more at Adopt-a-Physicist.

Fall 2010 Schedule
*Teacher Registration: Now - September 28 (or until full)
*Physicist Registration: September 29 - October 4 (or until full)
*Teachers adopt physicists: October 5 - October 15
*Discussion forums open: October 19 - November 9

Years ago, when I worked at a state environmental agency, I participated in a program with a similar idea: Science-by-Mail. At that time, I was "adopted" by several classrooms of gradeschoolers. The kids worked through a specific set of problems and sent me their findings. I wrote back and tried to be encouraging and helpful. One year, they worked on pinhole cameras, which I remember distinctly because I knew next to nothing about the subject and had to hit the reference books. Another time, we discussed the science behind making gingerbread houses. It was a fun and worthwhile project. I'm sure that Adopt-a-Physicist will be a rich and rewarding experience for physicists and students alike.

Who knows? You could connect with the next
Benjamin Franklin, Sir Isaac Newton, or Albert Einstein!

Photo credit: Jeremy Banks, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

National Costume Swap Day

2010-09-14T08:32:00.000-07:00

My friends over at Green Halloween®, together with KIWI magazine, have come up with a new idea for greening the holidays: National Costume Swap Day! On October 9, grab a group of friends and trade Halloween costumes. It's that simple. Don't have friends with kids your age? Can't find folks who want to swap? Head over to Green Halloween and search for a swap in your area. Or, if no swap is listed, you can start one! Just register your event as a public swap.

But maybe swapping isn't for you or you don't have a costume to share. Never fear! Astrid Van Den Broek of Green Living Online suggests visiting free online classified sites such as craigslist, eBay Classifieds, or The Freecycle Network to search for your next costume.

Reusing costumes can also be fun. One year, I combined a Captain America costume with a Superman costume for Kerm. We re-worked the cape and attached some sticky letters to the back that read: Super Big Brother! I also put "SBB" over his Superman belt buckle. The costume was a hit! Since Princess was born, Little Brother has also been known to borrow the Super Big Brother cape.

Enjoy a Green Halloween this year!

Photo credit: epSos.de via flickr // CC BY 2.0

World Water Monitoring Day - What's Your pH?

2010-09-11T06:41:00.000-07:00

In honor of World Water Monitoring Day, which occurs on September 18, let's talk about pH:

A pH test lets you know if your water is acidic or basic. The scale runs from 0 (very acidic) to 14 (very basic). Natural waters, according to the EPA, usually have a pH between 6.5 and 8.5. On this scale, 7 is the midpoint and it is considered neutral (neither basic nor acidic). Values at either end of this scale (like battery acid, with a pH of less than one, or lye, with a pH of greater than 12) are very hazardous to people.

Image credit: Environment Canada
(who had nothing to do with this blog post but kindly made this nice chart available for reprint)

pH can be measured in different ways, but test strips are commonly used because they are inexpensive and easy to read. You just dip the strip into the water and the strip will change colors. Then you compare the new strip color to a chart of different shades. The color that matches best is a rough guess of your pH. You can pick up pH test strips at your local pet supply store in the aquarium department.

What do the results mean? Let's say that you measured the pH in a stream in your neighborhood and it was below 6. This acidic water might be causing stress to aquatic life like algae and fish. The acids in water might be reacting with metals (copper, lead) in the sediments, causing these substances to enter the water column. Since natural water wouldn't usually have a pH that low*, you'd have a pretty good idea that the water was polluted. Maybe a chemical plant upstream was dumping their effluent - treated wastewater - into the stream and causing these changes. Reporting your findings to a local environmental monitoring agency could lead to finding and stopping the source of the pollution.

Although pH test strips are usually used to check the water in streams, ponds, or your own drinking water supplies, you can test any fluid or even moist solids, like soil. One day, when I was working in a laboratory at college, I stuck one into a can of soda. I remember that my drink had a pH of 3 and I wondered if I should be sticking something so acidic into my body on a regular basis. For reference, the pH of lemon juice is around 2 or 3. Can you imagine drinking a can of lemon juice?

Now, to be fair, lemon juice and soda aren't as close as they seem on the pH scale. The pH scale is logarithmic. With 7 as neutral, that means that a fluid with a pH of 6 would be a 10 times stronger acid than neutral, one with a pH of 5 would be 100 times stronger than neutral, and so on. This image gives a nice sense of the logarithmic nature of the values.

Note to my friends in Texas or New Mexico: In honor of World Water Monitoring Day, Chazimal National Memorial is providing free water testing kits for classes in your area. Each kit has 50 pH and oxygen tests. From their newsletter: to receive your free test kit, contact Chamizal staff at 915-532-7273 ext 130 or email cham_education (at) nps (dot)gov.

* Keep in mind that some areas have acidic water due to naturally occurring conditions - maybe the bedrock or soils near the stream are naturally acidic. If you want to monitor surface water in your area, it's always good to check with your local water quality monitoring groups. They can tell you what values are considered normal for where you live. Check EPA's Volunteer Monitoring page to find a group in your area.

Win big at the fair!

2010-09-04T18:28:00.000-07:00

During the last school year, Kerm had to build a colonial ship and create a three-dimensional butterfly sculpture. What can you do with school projects once they've been graded and returned home? This year, we're going to enter them as a "model boat" and "miscellaneous model" in our local community fair.

I've written about county fairs and how they can be fun places to learn about science. But if visions of ribbons motivate you, competing at a fair can also be a great way for you to learn something new and share your knowledge with others. With categories like home-grown fruits and vegetables for green thumbs, collections of shells or rocks for budding naturalists, and educational exhibits tailored to your favorite topic, everyone can find something to fit their interests. You might even win a ribbon!

Photo credit: Benny Mazur, via flickr //CC BY 2.0

Gender discrimination starts early

2010-08-23T18:28:00.000-07:00

Last week, I took one of my sons to the doctor. Fortunately, this office has a lot of nice, fun things to play with while you are waiting. Princess ignored the doll house, the books, and the coloring books. When she spied the blocks, she picked up a couple of them and began to run around the room.

I was absently watching her play when a little boy came up to me. He was about four years old. Pointing at Princess, he said, "She needs to give me those."

I looked at my toddler daughter, happily running around with two blocks in one hand and one in the other. For once, she wasn't tearing off down the hall hoping that I would chase her. She wasn't taking toys away from this child or anyone else. She was behaving as well as should be expected for her age.

So I looked down at him with a slightly bemused expression and said, "No, she doesn't."

His mom piped up. "[Child], you need to share the toys with the little girl. Why don't you bring her something else to play with?"

I found my mouth saying, "Oh, yeah, that would be great," while my mind was thinking, "This isn't right."

The little boy ran over with a doll. A small plastic doll in a pink dress. He thrust it at Princess.

"Here!" he said.

She ignored him. Is it wrong to admit that I smiled inside when she ran the other way, banging the blocks together with a happy grin?

I found myself explaining Princess' behavior to the little boy, who seemed puzzled and angry. "She doesn't like dolls yet. She likes blocks and cars." I should have added, "just like you." Instead, I found myself saying, "She has brothers ..."

How sad is that? Why did I feel the need to explain away her behavior? She's a girl. She likes trucks and blocks. So what?

At the age of four, this little boy has already learned that it is okay to take blocks and cars -- what he sees as "boy toys" -- away from the girls. He has learned that girls play with dolls and, apparently, only dolls. And I, without stopping to think about it, contributed to his biases.

Fortunately, my daughter did not.

Photo credit: Holger Zscheyge, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

Summer Smiles

2010-08-21T10:35:00.000-07:00

beneath the gnarled oak
a boy is sprawled, exhausted
successful tree climb

Image credit: Little Brother (watercolor on looseleaf)
Poem: Mama Joules
Subject of poem: Kerm, who met his summer goal of climbing a tree!

Artful Animals

2010-08-17T08:48:00.001-07:00

This summer, my family was lucky enough to visit the Artful Animals exhibit, an accessible and friendly display of animal-themed African art at the National Museum of African Art. The engaging nature of the exhibition made me feel like creating art of my own. (Disclaimer: I actually did sit down with the kids and decorate a woven basket coloring sheet.)

The exhibit has since closed to the public, but you can still visit the animals online. We enjoyed looking for the animals in 125 pieces of art, from pottery and instruments to clothing and furniture. I loved the hands-on nature of the pieces, which included masks like the one Kerm is trying on in the photograph above.

You can listen to podcasts about some of the artwork here. Download the visually stunning Artful Animals Activity Guide (this is a .pdf file), which asks:

"What can we learn about ourselves by looking at our relationship to animals?"

"What is our place in nature and the world?"

and perhaps most importantly,

What animal would you choose to represent you?

The Artful Animals exhibit, a collaborative venture between the National Museum of African Art, the National Postal Museum, the National Zoo, and the Natural Museum of Natural History, has now closed in Washington, D.C. But the exhibit may be coming to a museum near you! Artful Animals is listed on the Smithsonian Institution's Traveling Exhibition Service, and is due to hit the road in 2012. Don't miss it!

Photo credit: Mama Joules

"No, you can't teethe on my computer!"

2010-07-08T17:29:00.000-07:00

To my regular readers -

First of all, thank you for following my blog. I appreciate you dropping by, even if sometimes I forget to tell you.

I owe you an apology. When I started Mama Joules, my goal was to write three posts a week. Lately, it's been all I can do to post every two weeks. You might have been wondering where we are and how we are doing over here.

Excuse me just a minute ...

["Sweetheart, that helmet doesn't go on your face. It goes on your head."]

Well, things are fine, but very hectic. I had no idea that having three kids would keep me hopping quite this much. They are all home for the summer, and things are quite busy. Especially with the toddler ...

[ominous crinkling sounds as my purse is opened]

Just a minute, I'll be right back ...

["Yes, they are cool and they do look neat around your neck, but no, you can't wear my sunglasses."]

As I was saying, life with a toddler is hectic! I forgot just how crazy things can get. Simple things, like my canned goods, have started to go missing. The remote is no longer safe. Today, I even found my credit card in her chubby little hands. I'm lucky I found her before she discovered home shopping. The last time she found the phone, she dialed her grandmother.

So, this blog is effectively going on hiatus until fall. I may get time to write this summer, but I'm not counting on it. Once the boys are back in school, I am hoping to squeeze in some writing time when she naps. I might even take a class. But, for now I have to ...

["Wait! Don't eat that!"]

Don't choose ignorance

2010-07-01T15:27:00.000-07:00

A couple of nights ago, my husband, Itinerant Cryptographer, and I were debating the current state of American politics.

"I just wish there was an up-and-coming environmentally-aware presidential candidate," I lamented. "The last one we had was Al Gore, and I'm not sure he would have made a great president."

We proceeded to dissect several recent prominent political figures. With my green-leaning views and his Libertarian ones, we diverged on several points.

"I think he was stupid," I declared, describing a politician rather bluntly.

Itinerant Cryptographer disagreed. "He was ignorant on the issues," my husband said. "I think he could have understood them if his advisors had allowed it."

Ignorance. We imbue the word with disgust, but what does it really mean?

Merriam-Webster defines ignorance as "the state or fact of being ignorant: lack of knowledge, education, or awareness.

So let's face facts: there's no shame in being ignorant. No one can know everything. But when we refuse to examine new ideas or learn new things, we are choosing to remain ignorant. Ignoring the issues doesn't make them go away.

There are certain subjects - foreign policy, how a camera works, proper use of a compass, how to diagram a sentence* - that are going to send me straight to a text book or even a children's encyclopedia. It might feel embarrassing to me - how can I not know what fuels the trains that run behind my house? - but there is no shame to not knowing the answer. Everyone has to start somewhere.

Life is a learning lesson. I truly believe that our job is to learn, ponder, and use our newly-acquired knowledge to leave the world a better place than we found it.

Photo credit: Leon Brooks, BurningWell.org

* My nine-year-old learned to diagram sentences in the third grade. Despite my two college degrees and scads of English classes, I never learned to do this. My husband had to help our son with his homework because it baffled me. But now that I've written this post (despite my firm desire to remain ignorant on this subject!), I am going to go to my son and have him teach me how to diagram sentences. I don't want to be a hypocrite!

What are you going to learn today?

When you give a four-year-old a camera ...

2010-06-12T13:02:00.000-07:00

Last Christmas, my then four-year-old received a Fisher-Price digital camera. It's been great fun for him because it's easy to use and nearly indestructible. Itinerant Cryptographer just downloaded the first few months of his photos and it's interesting to truly see the world through the eyes of a child. I know that I've posted about older brother Kerm's love of photography, but I hadn't realized that Little Brother would impress me at such a young age. Way to go, Little Brother!

Photo credits: Little Brother

Make a Butterfly Sculpture!

2010-05-31T20:27:00.000-07:00

Today, Kerm and I worked on his extra credit project for school. He had to create a three dimensional butterfly and label the body parts.

The body of our butterfly is made out of three pieces of green foam core: one dome-shaped piece and two circular disks. The proboscis, legs, antennae, and structural supports are pipe cleaners. Kerm cut the wings from construction paper. Our favorite body part, the compound eyes, consist of beads. We anchored the butterfly on a green piece of heavy cardboard and stuck in a few artificial flowers for good measure.

What I liked about this project is that the body was relatively easy for an eight-year-old to assemble and label, once we had all of the pieces handy. But the wings were another story. They were hard to attach and we had to use extra pipe cleaners to support their weight. Kerm hid our ample glue splotches under the "thorax" label. If you try this at home, I would suggest using something lighter for the wings, like tissue paper.

Photo credit: Mama Joules

Invasive Species Art

2010-05-28T18:02:00.001-07:00

When life gives you an abundance of invasive species, don't fret! Follow the lead of Seth Goldstein* and Paula Stone and make art!

Invasive species are non-native plants and animals -- often introduced by humans -- that outcompete their native counterparts and take over an ecosystem with disastrous effects. It's not hard to think of examples in the United States: kudzu in the South (in the photo above), zebra mussels in the Great Lakes, killer bees in Texas. You can learn more about invasive species at the National Invasive Species Information Center.

Organizations like The Nature Conservancy lead groups of volunteer "weed warriors" and animal spotters to locate and help remove invasive species. In a recent TNC publication, I read about Goldstein and Stone, a husband and wife weed warrior team, who bring their volunteer work home with them.

The artistic duo take looping vines of Oriental Bittersweet and turn it into art! I like Vinalope and Dude. You can see additional examples of their work at Gazette.Net and WUSA9.com. What a wonderful way to utilize this otherwise useless invasive species!

Photo credit of creeping kudzu: Kitten Wants, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

* Goldstein is also "the inventor of Why Knot, the machine that ties a tie in 562 steps", which is just bizarre enough that I felt compelled to include a link to it, even though it has nothing to do with endangered species:

Celebrate Endangered Species Day!

2010-05-20T08:22:00.000-07:00

Royal Bengal Tiger
Thanks to the North Carolina Zoological Society, I learned that tomorrow is Endangered Species Day. What are endangered species? Simply put, they are plants and animals that are in danger of dying off forever. Endangered species might be at risk from climate change, illness, habitat destruction, or all three.

You can learn about endangered species at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's Endangered Species Program or research endangered species (in the US) by habitat or name at the Endangered Species Coalition. The Educational Materials page from the Coalition's Endangered Species Day website has links to lesson plans and more. After you've read up, you can test your knowledge of endangered species with this FWS quiz.

Check out these fun ways to celebrate or plan to attend an upcoming endangered species event. Print out stickers and learn how to protect wildlife. If you're a Girl Scout, there's even a special badge commemorating Endangered Species Day 2010!

Photo credit: Siddhartha Lammata, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

Enter the Kids Count for Earthday Haiku Contest!

2010-05-15T13:19:00.000-07:00

What does Earth Day mean to you? Can you write a poem about it? If so, you could win a prize and your writing might be published in Sketchbook, a Journal for Eastern and Western Short Forms.

The international Kids Count for Earthday Haiku Contest 2010 is looking for haiku poetry (17 syllables or less) written by children and young adults ages 7 - 20 years. Poems must be written by individuals; each person can only enter once. There is no fee to enter. The theme of this year's contest is "What Earth Day means to you".

According to the Kids Count for Earthday website,

"The contest is designed to combine the love of earth with the sheer simple fun of writing Japanese haiku in English!"

The deadline for this haiku contest is May 23rd (postmark of May 22nd). For more details about where to send your entry and what information to include, please visit Kids Count for Earthday 5-7-5 Haiku Contest 2010.

Good luck!

[Update 10/9/10: Read the winning entries here!]

Family Fun at the Rock & Mineral Show

2010-05-13T19:37:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago, I took the boys (and Princess, but she was in the stroller and didn't see much) to their first rock and mineral show. Actually, it was my first, as well. I wasn't sure what to expect. Would it just be a big room with row after row of rock samples? To my family, as novices, would they all look the same? Would there be other folks in attendance like us, curious newbies, or would the room be filled with seasoned, dusty rockhounds?

I was pleasantly surprised by how welcoming the show was to children. My boys had a great time. Yes, there were collections of rocks and minerals on display. But there was a wonderful variety. Most displays contained just enough documentation to be informative without overwhelming the viewer. There was even a "please touch" table, which Kerm and Little Brother greatly enjoyed.

One exhibiter collected little bottles of sand. They were all different shades - pink, black, beige, tan - and they were labeled with locations from all over the world. Another person collected "dangerous" rocks, minerals containing substances like lead or arsenic that can be harmful to humans.

In the back, there was a makeshift room covered with tarps. The boys loved seeing the fluorescent rocks displayed there.

Fluorescent rocks appear to glow in the dark, but they actually glow under shortwave or long wave ultraviolet light. The Tozour Family's Fluorescent Rocks shows a similar display of fluorescent minerals, with photos of what the rocks look like under normal (white) light and what they look like under ultraviolet (black) light.

(I am tempted to buy a black light bulb to see if any of our rocks fluoresce under long wave UV. Fun side note: you can also see old dog or cat urine stains using black light.)

There was a special hands-on display where kids could "mine" for minerals. The boys were each given a card with small pictures of different minerals and they dug through the sand until each found a specimen. The boys then compared their samples to the pictures on the card and identified which minerals they had uncovered. I thought this was a clever way to introduce kids to rock collecting and the process of identifying minerals by using a key.

Kerm mines for minerals

Of course, we also went upstairs and visited the vendor room, where you could buy mineral samples on just about every budget. We picked out a few of the cheaper specimens for purchase, and I pointed out to Kerm and Little Brother that I frequently couldn't tell the $6 rocks from the $600 rocks, so they'd better stay close and not touch anything.

All in all, it was great visit, and a nice introduction to mineralogy, geology, and paleontology (did I mention the nice fellow giving away fossilized shark vertebrae?). The rock and mineral show cost less than $10 per person to attend. My greatest expense was running out to buy Kerm and Little Brother display cases to store their new found treasures.

Photo credits: Mama Joules

Cause & effect

2010-05-10T17:19:00.000-07:00

Scientific inquiry starts early ...

This week's discoveries? You can float magnets in the dog's water bowl. When you blow into a straw that is sitting in a cup of water, you can make bubbles! And when you pull out one diaper wipe, a new one magically takes its place. (And your mom runs to take a picture before she takes the diaper wipes away!)

Gardening Goodness

2010-05-03T16:43:00.001-07:00

I thought I'd share what Kerm and I were up to this week-end. We finally planted all of the geraniums, replanted the petunias and marigolds in potting soil instead of garden soil (didn't realize just how dry "garden soil" could get!), and transplanted almost all of the strawberry plants into our new, nifty, clay strawberry planter. It was a productive Saturday.

Photo credits: Mama Joules

One Good Thing About Tent Worms

2010-04-26T13:15:00.000-07:00

Photo credit: Eden, Janine and Jim,
via flickr // CC BY 2.0
Let's face it: Eastern tent caterpillars, commonly known as tent worms, are a nuisance. And that's putting it nicely. Tent worms can completely defoliate trees (eat all of the leaves), they put up ugly "tents" of webbing in tree branches, and have even been implicated in Mare Reproductive Loss Syndrome, a complication that occurs when horses inadvertently eat the caterpillars.

But, tent worms have one saving grace: they make nice pets. My boys like to collect tent worms and put them in their bug habitat, a small cylinder covered with netting.

Photo credit: Mama Joules
Tent worms are fun to watch, since they are active and like to crawl around. They are easy to feed. If Kerm and Little Brother forget to give them fresh offerings of leaves and grass daily, they don't seem to mind. Tent worms tend to get smaller if they aren't eating properly, so it's obvious when you should release them outside (away from your plants!). And, frankly, since they are an insect pest, you don't feel so bad if they die before becoming a moth. Most tent worms aren't as lucky as those in our bug habitat!

An interesting note: I read in several places that tent worms are social creatures. Some folks even described them coming out of their tent in succession, like cars on a train.

Photo credit: Tim and Selena Middleton, via flickr // CC BY 2.0
I wonder if tent worms get lonely and confused living in a bug habitat?

Happy Earth Day!

2010-04-22T12:19:00.000-07:00

Little Brother. Earth. 2010.
Paper plate and tissue paper. From the private collection of Mama Joules.

Today is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day! Little Brother, Princess, and I went to a local park with friends. Little Brother climbed on the playground equipment with his buddy. Princess ate wood chips. I snapped this picture of an incoming spring storm front.

How are you planning to celebrate your Earth Day?

Photo credits: Mama Joules

Ten Reasons to Love Dandelions

2010-04-14T19:37:00.000-07:00

I snapped this picture today when I picked up Little Brother from preschool. It made me think of a Joe Mohr cartoon I saw recently over at Natural Papa, extolling the virtues of dandelions as a source of food for honeybees (and humans).

That got me thinking ... why do adults hate dandelions? As a kid, I loved dandelions. I liked their hollow stems. I loved blowing on their seeds. I used to tie their stems into knots and wear the flowers as rings.

But now, I react differently. A couple of days ago, when I saw a flash of yellow in my yard, I was excited until I realized that it wasn't a *real* flower, it was only a dandelion. My thoughts quickly turned: It might take over the yard!

And yet ... I kind of like dandelions. So, I thought I would post the top ten reasons that dandelions are awesome:

1) Dandelions remind us of childhood. Pick one and stick it in your lapel. Blow on the seeds (away from your yard!) and watch them drift away on the wind. It will remind you of a simpler time in your life.

2) Dandelions are persistent. They don't give up when we spray them. They dig their roots down deep and try again and again to grow (and thrive) in difficult places. (Just look at some of these enormous tools people have to use to get rid of them!)

3) Dandelions are harbingers of spring. You can't look at one and think of winter. They even look like little glowing suns.

4) Dandelions can add "zing" to your meals, according to this article -- with recipes -- from The Canadian Press. And according to the Alternative Medicine webpages of the University of Maryland Medical Center, "[d]andelion is a rich source of vitamins A, B complex, C, and D, as well as minerals such as iron, potassium, and zinc."

5) A couple of years ago, The Washington Post ran an article on how we can help the honeybees, which stressed that "bees love dandelions. You may want to leave some for them as a food source."

6) Dandelions have historically been used to treat a variety of ailments, from digestive disorders to fever and swelling. The leaves and roots are still used today in some alternative medicines.

7) Would you rather drink your dandelions? Dandelion tea and dandelion wine are both popular.

8) You can use dandelions as a teaching tool, as outlined in this article, Fun with Dandelions!. I especially like the suggestion that dandelions make a perfect first plant for a child to dig up, transplant into a pot, and take home to grow. We all know how hard dandelions are to kill. Why not use them for good?

9) The dandelion has inspired dandelion poetry, dandelion art and even "wearable wind power"!

10) Dandelion seeds provide food for birds, insects, and rodents. "Pigs, goats and rabbits will eat the [dandelion] plant," according to this Dandelion page from Columbia University's website. And I found this part of their summary particularly interesting: "The dandelion has a low ecological impact and provides no real damage to the ecosystem ... It seems only necessary to control the species when seen as an aesthetic problem or ‘weed’."

Is it time for us to change the way we think about dandelions? Lisa at 5 Orange Potatoes is on a campaign to Save the Dandelions!. Perhaps we should all join her ...

Photo credits: Mama Joules

40th Anniversary of Earth Day!

2010-04-12T07:00:00.000-07:00

April 22, 2010 is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. According to Earth Day Network, Earth Day is "the largest secular holiday in the world, now celebrated by more than one billion people."

How are you going to celebrate? You could sign a petition, pledge to take better care of the earth, find a green event (like the big Earth Day Climate Rally planned for April 25th on the National Mall in Washington, DC), or read up about some of the biggest environmental issues facing our planet.

But participating in Earth Day doesn't require a big fancy activity. You can start small. Get out your rubber gloves, find a trash bag, and organize a cleanup of your favorite park, walking trail, or even your own backyard. Every little bit helps.

I thank you and the earth thanks you. Happy Earth Day!

Photo credit: Lauren "Lolly" Weinhold, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

In praise of gardening ...

2010-04-05T19:06:00.000-07:00

My boys and I spent the day in the dirt. I had to reseed the grass, so we dug up the top layer of soil, added a soil amendment, and put down a grass patching material. Our native soils are rocky with a high clay content, but since I added a layer of topsoil last year, it was interesting to observe what came up in my spade. The boys were fascinated by the worms, grubs, rocks, and roots. I pondered why some shovelfuls were brown topsoil mixed with orange clay and some were all orange clay: a clear sign that some of last year's topsoil was missing. Where did the topsoil go? Our lawn is flat, so how did it wash away?

We all liked planting flowers in the front yard. Baby Princess watched us from her exersaucer. Each boy has his own pot and every year I let the boys pick out the types of flowers that they want to plant. We went to Home Depot and picked up whatever caught our eye. Little Brother chose a yellow-orange marigold and some light purple flowers this year. I'm partial to petunias and snapdragons so I have a couple of those in my pot. Kerm decided on a tomato plant in addition to his flowers. I really wanted to get him a strawberry planter, but I couldn't find one.

I keep intending to "go native" and grow native plants, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I wish that native plants were easier to find in the marketplace. Where I live, most gardening centers don't carry them. And I would need some help to get started, especially since I didn't grow up here and I'm not familiar with plants native to the Mid-Atlantic region.

I have to admit, for someone who likes gardening as much as I do, I don't know very much about flowers. But I know enough to show my boys how to "crack" the plastic bedding pots and gently tug on the flowers until the root balls of the plants are released. I showed the boys that you don't carry a plant by its flowers but instead hold the stem, just above the roots. I reminded them to break up the root ball before burying it into the newly dug soil. And after placed the flower pots onto the steps of our home, I watered both the plants and the kids.

The house looks ready for summer now. It was a good day.

Photo credit: D. Sharon Pruitt, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

World Autism Awareness Day

2010-04-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

Today, April 2, is World Autism Awareness Day. Designated by the United Nations in 2007, this event highlights the growing number of people affected by this developmental brain disorder. According to Autism Speaks, autism affects one in 110 children in the United States. Tens of millions of people are affected worldwide, and the numbers are on the rise. "Autism is the fastest-growing serious developmental disability in the U.S.," according to the Autism Speaks website.

Although there are a number of theories, no one knows exactly what causes autism. Researchers suspect that some people are more susceptible to developing the condition, because there appears to be a genetic link. For example, siblings of a child with autism are more likely to have the condition. (My friend Ilene blogs about her life with autistic boy-girl twins at My Family's Experience with Autism.) One thing is nearly certain: the cause of autism is a complex mix of factors.

How can you show support for World Autism Awareness Day? Learn the signs of autism. CNN has put together a link list of 10 sites worth checking out if your child has autism. Share the special autism-themed Arthur episode (airing on PBS on April 5) with your family. And wear blue today to show support for everyone touched by this condition.

Three Cheers for Curious George!

2010-03-29T08:36:00.000-07:00

When PBS began airing a new show for children about Curious George, I had my doubts. After all, Curious George, the wonderfully mischievous monkey behind Margret and H.A. Rey's books, is a beloved iconic character.

But I've been pleasantly surprised. The Curious George television show introduces children to the scientific method in very simple terms -- by doing. George gets his hands dirty (sometimes literally!) in every episode.

On a recent show, George was recording sounds around the yard and taking pictures of each noise-maker. I've heard of audio maps, but a picture book of sounds is a clever idea.

In the same episode, The Man with the Yellow Hat was participating in a moth inventory and conducting a study of the nocturnal feeding habits of raccoons. These activities weren't central to the storyline, but I thought that was pretty cool. Scientific explorations are just normal background "noise" in George's home.

You can visit the PBS Kids Curious George website to play online games, print coloring sheets, and watch science-themed video clips. The Parents and Teachers section includes teaching activities and a science & math themed family activity booklet.

Drop by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, publisher of the Curious George series of books, to see their Curiosity Day website for kids and families. You can download a complete list of Curious George titles, a writing-themed activity book, a list of suggestions for hosting a Curious George party, and more!

Image credit: Houghton Mifflin Trade and Reference Division - "Distinguished book publishing since 1832"

Earth Hour 2010

2010-03-27T01:00:00.000-07:00

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Join the global movement known as Earth Hour today - Saturday, March 27, 2010 at 8:30 pm (your local time). We'll be right there with you. Our family has participated for the last two years and it's interesting to see how momentum is growing for this little movement. Over 25 state governments across the US are participating this year (I wish I could say that it was all 50!).

How do you join? Simple. Just don't use any electricity for one hour. Spend the time talking to your family, playing board games by candlelight, noticing how quiet things are when we don't use so much electricity. This year, there's even an Earth Hour Kids webpage to help get you started.

Does an event like Earth Hour have an impact? Does it really save energy?

The first Earth Hour, celebrated in Sydney, Australia in 2007, had around two million participants. Last year, "[n]early one billion people turned out for Earth Hour 2009 – involving 4,100 cities in 87 countries on seven continents," according to the Earth Hour website.

Despite this wonderful outpouring of support, the overall effect of Earth Hour on energy usage has not proven to be significant. (As I wrote in my Thoughts About Earth Hour last year, some cities only reported a 1% decrease in power usage during the event.)

However, I think Earth Hour does two things extremely well:

* Before and after pictures taken of participating cities show us, in vivid detail, the extensive and sometimes devastating impact of light pollution on our society (speaking as someone who can seldom see the stars where I live!).

* More importantly, participation in Earth Hour makes us -- individually and collectively -- stop and think about what we are doing, how we are living, and why we are making these choices. To me, this is the most important reason to participate: to join in the global dialogue.

* * *

If you liked this post, you might enjoy:

- Earth Hour 2009

- Earth Hour 2008

- Thoughts About Earth Hour

Go Fly a Kite This Week-End!

2010-03-26T10:08:00.000-07:00

This Saturday, March 27th, marks the 44th Annual Smithsonian Kite Festival in Washington, DC. Come to this free event on the Washington Monument grounds from 10 am until 3 pm (schedule here). Kids can make a kite at the festival, view handmade kites from all over the world, and watch - or enter - the kite-flying competitions (adults can compete, too!). You could win an award; every child who competes will receive a participation ribbon.

Despite the "official" designation of February 8 as Kite Flying Day here in the U.S., celebrations involving kites are popular during the windy month of March. Washington, DC, isn't the only place you can see kites this week-end. South Korea is holding an International Kite Flying Contest at Dadaepo Beach in Busan and the Midland Kite Flyers are hosting Kite Flying Day at Calke Abbey near Ticknall in Derbyshire, England.

Let's hope the weather is nice and windy this week-end!

Photo credit: Smithsonian Kite Festival

Kerm's Sea-Monkeys®

2010-03-26T07:42:00.000-07:00

My older son received a Sea-Monkeys® kit for Christmas. Unbeknowst to me, he opened the package. After pouring in half of the recommended amount of water into the tank, he added the water purifier, eggs, and double the suggested amount of dried food. Nothing happened.

When I found the little tank, it was a murky green mess. I comforted Kerm and told him that we could contact the company and try again. I intended to dump out the water and clean out the tank. But, as it sometimes happens with busy moms, I promptly forgot all about it ... until a week later, when Kerm came running in to find me.

"Mommy! They hatched!"

Yes, we have a tank of Sea-Monkeys® living at our house. I think we might be on our second generation, since we have some large ones (and a couple that appear "stuck together"!) and some very teeny tiny dots that look like swimming periods.

What are they? Sea-Monkeys® are a modified species of brine shrimp designed to grow and thrive in the home. This species undergoes crytobiosis, which can be defined as a "reversibly suspended metabolic state." In short, their eggs are nearly indestructible. At this stage in their life cycle, they can survive for long periods of time without water or food.

I have mixed feelings about engineering animals for human use, particularly as novelty items. But I have to admit that, so far, I like the Sea-Monkeys®. These little guys are easy to "grow" and appear to be robust. After all, ours easily tolerated the odd conditions that Kerm threw at them.

I hope that our tank thrives for a long time. In fact, the Sea-Monkeys® website claims that a colony like ours might live for up to two years!

Photo credit: Mama Joules (Note how small they are -- that's my thumb in the bottom of the picture. The critter that you can see looks bigger than it really is because it was swimming very quickly when I took the photo.)

Space is goop!

2010-03-24T05:32:00.000-07:00

Last week, Kerm was working on a project for school about the Native American Cheyenne Indians. As a family, we learned all sorts of nifty things about the Cheyenne, like how their famous leader Dull Knife designed their flag. While working on this presentation, I took Kerm to Michael's to buy posterboard.

Once in the store - not to be outdone - Little Brother decided that he needed to complete a project. I told him that he had to pick a theme, like space or animals. After he chose his theme, we picked out stickers and stiff cardboard for his poster presentation.

When we got home, I needed to take care of the baby. So Kerm and Little Brother got out their supplies and set to work. Little Brother designed this piece all by himself. Now, remember, he's only four, so numbers and letters sometimes get reversed. I'm not quite sure why a website is mentioned, but the boys told me that "ww" refers to the World Wide Web. The take-home message - the theme of his collage - is that space is "good."

Photo credit: Mama Joules. Collage artist: Little Brother.

Happy World Weather Day!

2010-03-23T08:07:00.000-07:00

Well, it turns out that today, March 23, 2010, is full of special events -- it's Free Pastry Day at Starbucks (print out the coupon quickly & rush to order your coffee, the offer ends at 10:30 am!), Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry's (good from noon until 8 pm, head there after you get your pastry at Starbucks!) and it's also World Meteorological Day 2010, as proclaimed by the World Meteorological Organization.

Sadly, apart from the kind folks on Twitter who alerted me to this special day, there doesn't seem to be much enthusiasm for World Weather Day -- no mentions on The Weather Channel or WeatherBug and not many hits on Google either.

That is just sad. Let's face it, no matter where you live on the globe, weather affects your daily life. Even the folks up on the International Space Station have to worry about weather when it's time to come home!

Yesterday's World Water Day received far more press, and water is just one component of weather. Weather is bigger than water! So, in honor of World Weather Day, let's start some new traditions:

* Visit a weather-themed science exhibit, like the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry's Science Storms, described by Kara Spak of the Chicago Sun-Times as "a science lab on steroids."

* Take a minute to look up at the sky. Is it partly cloudy or partly sunny? "Meteorologists like to say that the difference between 'partly cloudy' and 'partly sunny' is the forecaster's mood," according to this fun set of questions & answers from USATODAY.com.

* Watch Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

* Browse the weather-themed topics on this blog. Don't miss The Science of Snow and How Big are Raindrops?

* Make your own book of weather words! How would you draw smoggy or snowy?

* Remember special weather days in your own history. Has weather played a crucial role on certain days of your life? I know it has for me! On the night before I married Itinerant Cryptographer, we had a big stormy cold snap. In the morning, there were no flowers (save some leftover funeral bouquets!) in the church where we were to be married. The florist's excuse was that the doors to the company van had frozen shut. They couldn't deliver the flowers until they'd warmed up the van -- and until half of our wedding pictures had already been taken.

However, you choose to celebrate, enjoy the weather today!

Photo credit: Bex Ross, via flickr //CC BY 2.0

Happy World Water Day!

2010-03-22T06:34:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Jason at CephalopodCast, I learned that today, March 22, is World Water Day. This annual global observance started in 1993 through the work of the United Nations. Over 35 countries around the world have special water-themed events planned to mark the occasion.

Why have a special day about water? With nearly 3/4 of the earth's surface covered in seawater, it might come as a surprise that fresh water is a scarce resource on our planet. According to the US World Water Day website, "nearly one billion people around the world don't have clean drinking water, and 2.6 billion still lack basic sanitation."

What can we do about it? Remember that fresh drinking water is precious -- some people don't have any! Try your best not to waste water:

* Don't leave the faucet running when you brush your teeth.

* Be sure to fix leaky faucets and running toilets.

* Try to take less time showering. Use a timer and challenge everyone in your family to beat your time.

* Don't flush the toilet unless it's truly necessary.

* Don't dump medicine down the toilet. Some medicines are not easily removed by sewage treatment plants and these chemicals can wind up in our water supply.

Enjoy the water that you drink today!

Photo credit: Alberto P. Veiga, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

Hydroponic Gardening at Epcot

2010-03-16T16:10:00.000-07:00

Last week, our family traveled to Walt Disney World in Florida. One of my favorite exhibits at Epcot is Living with the Land, a slow-moving ride that explores the future of farming and gardening. One focus of the exhibit is on hydroponic gardening - growing crops in a water and nutrient solution without soil, often using limited space. I wish that I had found the time to take the Behind the Seeds gardening tour!

dcJohn, who captured the wonderful image above in 2005, wrote this note along with the photo: "One of the few (only?) places that's actually doing any research at EPCOT, which was the original dream Walt had for the park." I have to agree. Since the last time I visited, I can tell that Epcot's focus is moving away from science and more toward theme park, which seems a shame. Why not continue to meld the two?

But I digress. I am fascinated with hydroponic gardening. One of the crops exhibited was grown along a vertical coil, kind of like a large hollow spring with holes cut out of it. You can see that the winding arms provide a lot of surface area upon which the plants can grow.

Brad Jones, who took the Behind the Seeds tour in 2009, captured the wonderful photograph above. Check out his Behind the Seeds Tour photo set for great images of vertical gardening, including hanging winter melons, cucumbers, tomatoes and more. Note how little ground space is taken up by these planting systems.

Photo credits: (top) dcJohn and (bottom) Brad Jones, via flickr // CC BY 2.0.

Website of the Week: Let's Paint Nature!

2010-03-12T06:30:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've written up a Website of the Week, but Let's Paint Nature! deserves a special nod. I love the topic -- combining nature and art -- and I think it's great that the artist, Christine Kane, donates 10% of her artwork sales to a local food pantry.

The best part about Let's Paint Nature!, however, is the juxtaposition of nature photography with nature painting. Christine doesn't just show you her work. She lets you in on the creative process. You get to see the image that inspired the art, along with photos of the artwork in progress.

Let's Paint Winter Woods! is quite striking. I was fascinated by the artist's use of deep blues and purples early in the work, which faded to shadows later when she covered them up with snow.

Check out the Learn How to Paint page for more detailed step-by-step instructions of how to paint landscapes, wildlife, and plants or head to the gallery to buy a pastel or watercolor for your wall.

It's Time to Read!

2010-03-09T19:50:00.000-08:00

March is time for Read Across America here in the United States, when the National Education Association encourages us to celebrate reading. The kickoff date for this annual event was March 2nd, which is also Dr. Suess' birthday.

Reading Rockets is a wonderful reading-themed website to visit, with a wealth of information for launching young readers. You can also pick up some nifty widgets, like this one:

and this one:

PBS KIDS Island is another good destination. This interactive website promotes early reading. First, you set up an account. This allows you to keep track of how you (or your child) are progressing through the games. The website keeps track of which games you play and how well you perform on each type of game. The summary data can help to pinpoint any problem areas with reading comprehension. And, you get to collect points and earn rides, games, and virtual prizes along the way. Little Brother loves it! He built up his whole island and we had to create some new identities for him so that he could have the fun of working through it all over again.

Whatever you choose to read this month, or however you might celebrate, happy reading, everyone!

Get Ready for Pi Day!

2010-03-06T20:05:00.000-08:00

Math lovers, rejoice! Pi Day is almost here.

Pi (π) describes the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, a number that's awfully close to, but not quite 3.14. Since Pi is an irrational number, the digits of Pi never end and the pattern of numbers doesn't repeat. According to the Pi Day website, "With the use of computers, Pi has been calculated to over 1 trillion digits past the decimal."

The concept of Pi has fascinated people for thousands of years. Now, you can join in! Watch Pi-themed YouTube videos, send e-cards to your friends, or sign up now to solve logic puzzles on March 14th at the Pi Day Challenge.

The language of dolphins

2010-02-27T06:52:00.001-08:00

If you search for "dolphin speech" online, you can pull up some interesting articles, like this one from the blog dichotomistic, about humans teaching dolphins a human-devised system of squeaks and whistles. It makes me wonder why we have just assumed that dolphins should learn to speak with us, rather than humans trying to learn the language of dolphins.

Apparently, I'm not the only one pondering this question. I read an interesting article (this is a .pdf file) in a recent issue of University of Chicago's Medicine on the Midway, describing the work of two student researchers who were studying dolphin speech. According to the article, each dolphin has its own unique, identifying whistle. Other whistles are shared between the dolphins and are used repeatedly in the same situations, a finding echoed in another, similar study in Australia.

So, what does this mean? We know that dolphins use echolocation. Do dolphins also have a full-fledged, evolved language? It appears that they might. Given that our current understanding of dolphin speech is more limited than an infant trying to learn to talk, I think we should give dolphins the benefit of the doubt. Are there dialects in dolphin language, as suggested by a comment to this article? Can we ever hope to understand dolphin speech? If we can't, how does that reflect on humans and our so-called superior intelligence?

Scientists are still in disagreement about exactly how intelligent dolphins are and whether findings like these should affect our treatment of them. Many feel that dolphins are the world's second-smartest mammal, but there are dissenters who argue that dolphins are relative dim-wits. Animal-rights groups and some scientists ponder whether dolphins be treated as "non-human persons", as proposed by this article from the Times Online. What do you think?

Photo credit: justthatgoodguyjim via flickr // CC BY 2.0

Kids' Science Challenge

2010-02-22T08:03:00.000-08:00

Ashwin Vasavada, planetary scientist at JPL, throws a Frisbee in the Mars yard (Photo credit: Kids' Science Challenge)

Would you like to see a scientist work to solve a problem or experiment that you designed? If you live in the U.S. and are in grades 3-6, you've got six days left to enter the three science contests presented by Kids' Science Challenge.

Let's say that you like astronomy. You can enter the Sports of Mars contest. In the future, astronaut explorers might colonize Mars. What kind of games could people play there? How would the Martian climate (dusty, with less atmosphere than Earth) affect the ways sports and games are played?

If Mars isn't your thing, check out the Detective Science Challenge ("Can you think of an everyday mystery that you can solve with the scientific tools of detection?") or the Bio-Inspired Designs Challenge ("Birds inspired airplanes. Seed burrs inspired Velcro. What part of nature will inspire your new invention?")

Visit the media arcade for inspiration. You can enter one idea for each contest! If you have a winning submission, you will get to work with a scientist to put your idea in action. And, your entry could win one of these awesome prizes, including a week at Space Camp, a bionic eye, or night vision goggles.

The entry deadline for all three contests in the Kids' Science Challenge is February 28, 2010. You can enter individually or as a team. You will have to describe your idea and tell how you came up with it; a sketch of your concept is optional. Complete rules are listed here; you'll need to register first. The official entry form (this is a .pdf file) can be mailed, faxed, or submitted online.

Good luck!

Happy National Engineers Week!

2010-02-17T13:08:00.000-08:00

Have you hugged an engineer lately? This is National Engineers Week! If you're an engineer, here are 50 ways to get involved, suggested by the National Engineers Week Foundation. Some of these ideas are great for families, too!

Across the country, special events have been planned for tomorrow, February 18th, also known as Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day. If you're in the greater Washington, DC area, head to the National Building Museum this Saturday, February 20th, and Discover Engineering Family Day. You can try over 25 hands-on science activity stations. If you don't live in nearby, drop by the Discover Engineering Family Day website anyway and check out their list of family-friendly engineering projects to try at home.

And, if you are age 13 through grade 12, consider entering the 2010 West Point Bridge Design Contest. Follow the rules closely as you design your virtual bridge -- you could win a $5000 scholarship or a laptop computer! Not the right age? You can join the challenge anyway, you just aren't eligible to win prizes. The final day for the first round of design submissions is March 5, 2010.

Happy Engineers Week, everyone!

The Tangled Bank: Love, Wonder, & Evolution

2010-02-12T12:30:00.000-08:00

I received a happy email today from Chris Lynch, the editor at Tangled Bank Press, which largely said this:

The Tangled Bank: Love, Wonder, & Evolution has launched!

The anthology, which marks the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, features over 100,000 words of speculative fiction, poetry, artwork, and essays about evolution. An international line-up of nearly 50 contributors includes Sean Williams, Brian Stableford, Patricia Russo, and Carlos Hernandez. (And me!)

The Tangled Bank is now available for download as a PDF (cost is US$4.99). Check out "Darwin's Daughter" by Christopher Green, a free short story from the anthology.

For more information, please visit the Tangled Bank Press, drop by Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

Happy Darwin Day, everyone!

Website of the Week: Science of the Olympic Winter Games

2010-02-10T18:24:00.000-08:00

The Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics is this Friday, so it's a great time to review the Science of the Olympic Winter Games. NBC paired up with the National Science Foundation to create sixteen short videos on the science behind everything from curling to hockey. (Note: I had difficulty accessing these videos from the official NBC Olympics website. You can also view them at NBC Learn.)

Want to learn about Newton's Three Laws of Motion? Check out speed skating. Forms of energy? Try hockey. Angular momentum? View aerial skiing and figure skating. How is math used at the Games? Watch Mathletes.

I found these videos to be entertaining, educational, and a nice introduction to individual members of the U.S. Olympic Team. (For those outside of the U.S., humor us when viewing the patriotic parts!) Mathletes and Short Track Speed Skating were particularly well done.

I can't wait for the Games! How about you?

[Update: Right after I posted this, I headed to Twitter and found out that there are also lesson plans for grades 6-9 to go with this series on Lessonopoly. How awesome is that?]

Photo credit: Justin D. Henry, via flickr // CC BY 2.0

***

If you liked this post, you might also like:

Website of the Week: 2008 Olympic Games

Win $500 for your green idea!

2010-02-08T17:02:00.000-08:00

Got a green idea? Are you over 18 and living in the US or Canada (excluding Quebec)? Can you put your environmental solution into three words in a snappy video running under 30 seconds? If you can sell your green idea like a television ad, you could win $500!

The Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University is running the Green in 3 video contest (detailed contest rules can be found here). There are three contest windows; five winners will be chosen from each period. The first contest ends Friday, so get those entries in! You can view submissions from other entrants at the Green in 3 YouTube page.

Good luck!

Mama Joules' Online Resume

2010-02-06T19:49:00.000-08:00

Are you looking for a writer?

I am a freelance writer with a background in the environmental sciences. My non-fiction articles have appeared in a number of publications, including Albemarle Family, FundsforWriters, Southern Families, Washington Parent, and Writing-World.com. I also write poetry, short stories, and creative nonfiction.

Here are links to some of my published pieces. If you'd like to reprint one of these articles, or if you'd like learn more about me or see a formal resume, please drop me a line at jublke [at] gmail [dot] com.

Thanks!

***

Family-Friendly Science

Fair-Weather Friends: Making Science Come Alive

Nuturing the Budding Gardener

10 Tips for Celebrating Snow Days

Family Health

Blood-Level Basics: What You Really Need to Know

Playing It Safe At the Beach

Have a Healthy and Happy Halloween

Take the Lead Out of Gardening

Ten Tips for Healthy Holiday Eating

Wee Care for Tots' Teeth

What is a Green School?

Home & Family Life

Choosing the Right Pet for Your Apartment

Dining Without Whining: Taking Little Kids to Dinner

Heading Home for the Holidays: Sanity Saving Strategies

Let 'em Eat Cake: Paring Down the Pint-Sized Party

Nuturing the Inner Artist

Super Special Summer Birthday Parties

Writing

Find Your Next Writing Gig on Twitter

Internet Want Ads: Finding Writing Jobs Online

Awards

2010

Second place in the 15th International "Kusamakura" Haiku Competition

2009

Third place in FundsforWriters annual essay contest

The Blizzard of 2010

2010-02-06T11:22:00.001-08:00

This is what I woke up to this morning.

Believe it or not, there are cars under there!

I have to admit, when the weathercasters referred to our December 2009 snowfall as a blizzard, I was skeptical. But this snowstorm clearly meets the definition. Intense snowfall, heavy wind, broken tree branches, and, of course, lots and lots of snow. And, 24 hours later, it's still snowing!

Look at the amount of snow on that mailbox!
Note the broken tree branch in the background.

The Science of Snow

2010-02-06T06:35:00.000-08:00

Two years ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Joseph M. Moran, of the American Meteorological Society, for an article about snow that appeared in Washington Parent magazine. Given that snowy weather has taken over much of the United States, I thought you might enjoy this reprint of our conversation.

***

The Science of Snow: Ask the Expert!

Dr. Joseph M. Moran, of the American Meteorological Society, answers your questions about snow:

1. Is it true that no two snowflakes are alike?

Dr. Moran says, "‘No two snowflakes are alike' is a widely held assumption. Although all snowflakes are composed of ice crystals having six-sided ... symmetry, they may occur in billions of different forms." Even so, a researcher discovered two identical snowflakes while sampling clouds over Wisconsin in 1988.

2. Are there different kinds of snow?

"Yes," says Dr. Moran. He explains, "Snow is an agglomeration of ice crystals in the form of flakes that develop in clouds and fall to the Earth's surface. Snowflakes vary in shape and size depending on air temperature and humidity. With decreasing cloud temperature, snowflake crystals occur as needles, dendrites, plates, and columns."

A dendrite snowflake below; a plate snowflake on the right. Both of these images were taken by Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley. For more information, SnowCrystals.com has nice descriptions of different types of snowflakes.

"Snowflake size depends in part on how humid (moist) the air is. At very low temperatures, the humidity is relatively low, and snowflakes tend to be small. Snowflake size also depends on the efficiency with which they collide with one another as they fall through the atmosphere to the ground. At air temperatures near freezing, snowflakes more readily stick together after colliding, and their diameters sometimes reach 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 centimeters). Snow pellets and snow grains are similar to snowflakes but much smaller. Snow pellets are soft conical or spherical white particles of ice with diameters of 2 to 5 millimeters. Snow grains are flat or elongated opaque white particles of ice, usually less than 1 millimeter in diameter."

3. How do meteorologists measure snow? My measurements at home never seem to match what the weathercaster says.

Meteorologists measure three things, says Dr. Moran: "The depth of snow that falls between successive observations, the meltwater equivalent of that snowfall, and the depth of snow on the ground at observation time."

Dr. Moran tells us how to measure a storm's snowfall like the experts. "Prior to an anticipated snowfall, place a simple wooden board on the ground ... New snowfall accumulates on the board, and at observation time a ruler is used to measure the snow depth to the board. Record the snowfall ... and sweep the snowboard clean so that it is ready to receive new snowfall. Repeat this process throughout the snow event, and then compare your total snowfall with that reported by the local television or broadcast meteorologist. Note that snowfall is notoriously variable from one place to another ..." depending upon things like temperature, the distance you are from the ocean, and the track of the storm.

Photo credits: Wilson Bentley, from NOAA's National Weather Service Collection.

Ten Tips for Celebrating Snow Days

2010-02-05T09:30:00.000-08:00

With the forecast for much of the United States calling for snow sometime in the next week, I thought I'd re-post these ten tips for making the most of snow days. (This post is excerpted from my original article, which was published in Washington Parent magazine in January 2007.)

The forecast is grim: snow, snow, and more snow. What are you going to do all day? Before you go stir-crazy, try these ten tips for turning a snow day into together time:

1. Have an all-white day. Encourage everyone in the house to wear white. Prepare your family all-white meals like oatmeal with milk for breakfast and chicken breast, mashed potatoes and cauliflower for dinner.

2. Make snow-themed treats together. Bake your favorite cookies and add a dusting of powdered sugar "snow" on top. Make marshmallow snowmen using candies for eyes, raisins for buttons and pretzel sticks for arms.

3. Read about Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley. Virginia mom Karen Cole, founder of Big Learning, suggests the book Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin and the Snowflake Bentley website. In 1885, Bentley became the first person to photograph individual snowflakes; in his lifetime, he took pictures of more than 5,000 different snowflakes (including the picture at the top of this post!).

4. Have a snow-inspired movie marathon. Bring out snowy family favorites like Ice Age and March of the Penguins. To increase the educational value, break out the encyclopedias or hop on the Internet to learn about glaciation or the continent of Antarctica. Be glad that you don't live at Vostok Station in Antarctica, where the coldest recorded temperature on Earth was observed on July 21, 1983 (-128.6°F / -89.2°C).

5. Conduct scientific experiments with snow.

"Even though freshly fallen snow appears bright white and clean, it is not," says Dr. Joseph M. Moran of the American Meteorological Society. Dr. Moran is the author of a brand new textbook, Climate Studies: Introduction to Climate Science.

"One of my favorite activities goes a long way to convincing children not to eat snow. You will need a 1- or 2-gallon pail, large paper coffee filter, paper towels, and a magnifying glass … Scoop up a large pail of freshly fallen snow and bring it indoors to a warm room. Set the pail down undisturbed until all the snow melts. Then, over a sink, slowly and carefully pour the meltwater through a paper coffee filter. Set the coffee filter aside on some paper towels until it dries. Next, examine the surface of the dry coffee filter … What do you see? Where did that material come from?"

He adds, "As snowflakes fall through the atmosphere, they intercept and capture a variety of tiny particles that are suspended in the atmosphere and carried by the wind. Most of these particles originated at the Earth's surface. [You can] speculate on what these particles might be."

6. Have your kids play "cool" word games. For example, ask them the following questions: How many words can you think of that start with the word "snow"? (snowflake, snowplow, snowstorm, snowmobile …). How many words can you make from the letters in the word "snowflake"? (sow, now, lake, wake …). For a harder challenge, try making words from the letters in the word "avalanche" (ache, vale, lava, leach, lane …).

7. Try recipes made with snow. (Although, after reading Dr. Moran's comments, you might wish to make your own "snow" by mixing ice from the freezer in your blender!). Scoop up some fresh snow, and mix it with fruit juice to make a snow cone. Or make Snow Cream: Scoop snow into a large bowl, and blend in 1 cup milk or cream, 1/2 cup sugar and a few drops of vanilla. Enjoy!

8. Compete in your version of the Winter Olympic Games. See who can throw a snowball the farthest or sled down a hill the fastest. Stuck indoors? Glide over the kitchen tiles in your socks and have an ice-skating competition.

9. Go outside and examine individual snowflakes.

Dr. Moran says, "This activity requires a sheet of black construction paper or a dark cloth, a magnifying glass, a journal and a pencil. During a snowfall, go outdoors and hold the construction paper or cloth horizontally to catch some snowflakes. Take care that the heat from your breath or fingers does not melt the snowflakes. Using the magnifying glass, examine the individual snowflakes. Describe what [shapes] you see, and draw some of them in your journal. Are any of the snowflakes identical in appearance?"

He notes, "Recording data in a journal is a good introduction to scientific observation and the scientific method."

10. Share your family's favorite snowy memories. Do you remember when you saw snow for the first time? Ever caught a snowflake on your tongue? What was the deepest snowfall that you can remember? You might be surprised at what your family members share with you. Sometimes, a day spent together "doing nothing" turns into a cherished memory.

Photo credit: Wilson Bentley. This picture is part of NOAA's National Weather Service Collection and was taken in 1902.

Carnival of Space #139

2010-01-31T20:57:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the 139th edition of the Carnival of Space, your portal to the blogosphere's most interesting astronomy posts of the week. I'm delighted to be in your company.

Since I'm new here, let me introduce myself. I blog about family-friendly science here at Mama Joules and astronomy is a favorite topic in our family. I recently interviewed Tracy, of Tiny Mantras, about her experiences raising a four-year-old astronomer. You can read her wonderful responses in Meet Jupiter's Mother and Meet Jupiter's Mother (Part 2). As you can see, my own four-year-old, Little Brother, has been working on his book of Space Words.

Speaking of terminology used in astronomy, Stephen of Steve's Astro Corner has defined basic terms used when describing how planets orbit the sun. Kim at Chandra Blog gets more technical by sharing five differences between white dwarfs and neutron stars.

And white dwarfs are getting some press this week! Mike, of Simostronomy, shares the heartening story of how amateur astronomers alerted the world to a rare stellar eruption known as U Scorpii. He writes, "Observers around the planet will now be observing this remarkable system intensely for the next few months trying to unlock the mysteries of white dwarfs, interacting binaries, accretion and the progenitors of Type IA supernovae."

Interacting with the public can take researchers to some interesting places. What do you get when you combine ancient legends and Google Earth? Steve of Cheap Astronomy interviews an astronomer who used this unusual method to find a new meteor impact crater. You can listen to the interview as a podcast or read the transcript (this is a .pdf file). (I didn't know you could get a degree in Aboriginal astronomy - fascinating!)

Careful examination of photographic images can yield some interesting results. In 2000, the unmanned Galileo spacecraft conducted a flyby of Jupiter's moon Io. Jason of The Gish Bar Times explores Io's Chaac Patera, a green-hued volcanic depression, using data collected by this space probe.

As for spacecraft, this week was a sad one for fans of the Mars Exploration Rovers. Efforts to free Spirit, still stuck in the Martian sand with two of six wheels broken, have been called off. However, as Stu at Cumbrian Sky points out, we should not count Spirit out, because Spirit is not dead. We wish her well as she hunkers down to survive the harsh Martian winter, and we hope that she is able to endure as a now-stationary science station.

In honor of Spirit, why not enter Alice's competition for artists at Alice's Astro Info. Draw, photoshop, or paint your rendition of Spirit stuck at Troy, send it over to Alice, and your artwork will grace the Space Place Bulletin Board at Pacific Science Center. What a wonderful way to celebrate the beginning of Spirit’s new life as a station!

As you are visualizing Spirit on Mars, let your mind wander beyond the edge of our solar system, where Ian at Astroblog gives us a wonderful rendition of the sun as seen from other planets. (I feel very small now, Ian!)

After drifting among the stars, take in James Cameron's blockbuster new movie Avatar, which is poised to break the all-time U.S box office record later this week. But before you go, drop by Next Big Future, where Brian examines the Valkyrie Antimatter Propulsion Rocket used in the movie and explores the science propelling this spaceship.

How long will it be before we go back into space ourselves? Is President Obama going to axe Ares and Constellation? Has funding for this new rocket system dried up? How will this affect future space travel? Phil tackles this rumor and its possible implications at Bad Astronomy.

And what does the rest of this year have in store for us? Have we begun a new Global Space Age? Bruce at 21st Century Waves shares ten space trends for 2010. (2015 looks like a good year!)

What if we open up cislunar space (the space between the Earth and the moon) to entrepreneurs? Check out these unique business ideas from Ken at Out of the Cradle. Is a 3-D gravitometric map of the inner Solar system in our future?

How are we going to keep up with the energy consumption needs of future civilizations? Brian at Next Big Future examines what it would take to power a yottawatt civilization. (A yottawatt is 10²⁴ watts - a blindingly large number. In 2006, total human power consumption worldwide was about 16 terawatts; a terawatt is 10¹² watts.) It's hard for me to fathom, but as Brian concludes, "As noted by the definitions, capturing and using 0.3% of the energy from the sun enables a yottawatt civilization." Personally, though, I was most intrigued by Brian's off-handed comment about "using Jupiter for nuclear fusion fuel." Now that's thinking big!

One thing we know for certain, this is the year of launches at Kentucky Space, with three confirmed launch dates set for 2010. As Wayne shares, "Our suborbital 'ADAMASat' mission is slated for February 24 from Wallops. Discovery (STS-131) will lift off with the first of three 'Nanoracks' bound for the ISS in March. Our free orbiting craft, KySat-1, was just publicly confirmed as a secondary on NASA's 'Glory' mission in November." Safe travels, Kentucky Space!

On a sober note, C.C. at TheSpacewriter's Ramblings remembers pioneers of space exploration, noting that three terrible disasters are recalled this week: the Apollo 1 fire, the Challenger disaster, and the loss of the space shuttle Columbia. As she so eloquently says, let's "salute the Apollo, Challenger, and Columbia crews who gave their all so we could explore. Let’s do them the honor of pushing forward and continuing our push to space regardless of the challenges we face at the moment."

That brings us to the close of issue #139. Thanks for stopping by! If you'd like to check out previous issues of the Carnival of Space or if you would like to host or submit to this blog carnival in the future, please visit Universe Today.

Photo credits: top two photos by Mama Joules, images by Little Brother; bottom photo by Jurvetson (flickr)

Fun at the dinner table

2010-01-30T17:54:00.001-08:00

I made pasta for dinner tonight. In the middle of the meal, I heard a strange sound. My 8-year-old was blowing through one of the thick, tubular, penne noodles. It sounded just like a whistle.

Before I could stop myself, I asked, "How did you do that?"

I found a sauceless noodle of my own and tried blowing through it. When it didn't whistle, I thought out loud, "I wonder what will happen when I poke it with my fork?"

When I was done, my noodle looked vaguely like a tiny, fat clarinet. I proceeded to blow through it while covering the new holes with my fingers. (It still didn't whistle, BTW. I think Kerm had a special noodle!)

At this point, everyone at the table -- Itinerant Cryptographer, Kerm, Little Brother, me -- was blowing through a noodle. (Princess just stared at us.) I looked up, aghast, at what I had started.

"All right, everyone," I said. "These are the last noodles that we're blowing. Put your food back on your plates and let's eat like civilized people."

My husband looked at me and smiled. "Your inner scientist is in conflict with your inner mom."

I had to agree. But once in awhile, you just have to use your noodle.

Photo credit: babbagecabbage through a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license via flickr.

Get ready for the Great Backyard Bird Count!

2010-01-26T17:55:00.000-08:00

Great Blue Heron
2009 Great Backyard Bird Count
Photo credit: Marianne DiAntonio, FL

If you live in North America, mark your calendars! It's almost time for the 13th annual Great Backyard Bird Count, sponsored by the National Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Held in February, this year's count will occur from February 12-15, 2010.

Want to participate? It's easy! You need to count birds for at least 15 minutes on one or more days of the survey and then enter your data online. You can download a tally sheet for birds in your geographic area here and look for special GBBC events near your home. There's even a flickr group where you can upload your bird photos taken during the count. And if you are snapping pics, be sure to participate in this year's photo contest (you can win prizes!).

Get ready to identify birds by taking this sound quiz (love the title, "Guess Who's Squawkin'!") and visiting the online bird guide from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, with profiles of over 550 species. And don't worry if, like me, you can't identify every bird that you spot during your count. There's a special box to check on the survey if that's the case. Be sure to download a participation certificate (this is a .pdf file) after you've completed your count!

Space Words

2010-01-22T09:02:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago, Little Brother created an illustrated book of weather words. He was so proud of his creation that he recently told me, "I want to make another book -- an award-winning alphabet book!"

As a writer myself, I was excited to hear this. The original weather book was my idea, but now he was taking things further. I told him that his new book needed a theme. "Like animals, outer space, or places."

Little Brother loved the idea of a book of "space words." I wasn't sure. How do you draw "dark matter" or "black holes"? How could I explain these concepts to a four-year-old? Could I even think of words for each letter of the alphabet? You can see that we are missing several letters in our original list of space words.

Mommy, what color is gravity?

Fortunately, Twitter is populated with some kind people, including Debra L. Davis, otherwise known as Woman Astronomer. She made some helpful suggestions for Little Brother's book, including "flyby" for f, "Kuiper belt" for k, and "ice moons" for i.

And so, "Space Words" was born.

Little Brother referenced his older brother's illustrated Earth & Space book, which influenced his drawings for "black hole" and "dark matter".

I told him to think of a "comet" like a shooting star (since it looks like one), but I now realize that's the wrong way to think about it so we'll have to have a chat about that soon.

Our conversation about dark matter went something like this:

Me: "Well, you know how there's all that stuff up there in outer space that we can see?"

Little Brother: "Yeah."

Me: "Well, there's a lot of stuff out there that we know about, but we can't see. That's dark matter."

I taught Little Brother how satellites would sometimes have a "flyby" near a planet to gather data. And I suggested that maybe someday, manned spaceships would fly by planets, too. He loved this idea, which is why the rocket is much larger than the planet -- in this case, Jupiter (note the large red eye!).

"Gravity" was another fun topic.

Little Brother: "What color is gravity?"

Me: "Uh, gravity doesn't have a color. It's the force that sticks us to the Earth. How about you draw some people walking on the Earth with an arrow pointing down?"

So far, it's my favorite of his drawings. I promised him that if he finishes the whole alphabet, I'll find a way to get his pictures bound in a real book.

Photo credits: Mama Joules. Images courtesy of Little Brother.

We are all scientists

2010-01-18T16:39:00.000-08:00

In the US, today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day and I've been thinking about equality. I just arrived home from attending Science Online 2010, a science blogging and web communication conference, where I sat in on several talks about citizen science. In one, while discussing the lack of STEM (science, technology, engineering & math) funding for adult science literacy programs, a participant said,

"It's like we've given up on the adults."

This is tragic. Not everyone is going to work in a lab doing research, but everyone can be a scientist. We are all entitled to explore the world through science - it's our birthright. My husband, Itinerant Cryptographer, said it well:

"Everyone should have the opportunity to explore science as far as their interests and abilities can take them."

But in this country, many adults no longer participate in discussions about science. In turn, scientists feel like the general public isn't listening anymore. Both sides are growing more polarized, with the scientists amping up their insistence and the non-scientists becoming more resistant. As someone who has sat on both sides of the table -- as a working scientist and now a stay-at-home mom -- I can see why some people have completely opted out of this discussion.

On the plus side, practicing scientists are often generous with their time. They love to be asked about their work. Many share their knowledge freely with those who are interested. Frankly, I find most scientists to be nice folks when you get to know them. (And I love ecologists. I know I am biased here, but people who want to save the planet tend to be kind.)

But scientists can be an intimidating lot to the uninitiated. Some researchers are so steeped in their work that they can't imagine why someone would see things differently. They don't hesitate to tell you so -- this is their life's work and they know it well. But this passionate viewpoint can sound aggrandizing, or worse, insulting. The non-scientist (or non-practicing stay-at-home mom science blogger) might leave the conversation feeling frustrated, angry, and unheard. As John Morley once said, "You have not converted a man because you have silenced him."

Where does this leave us? It's terrible for the future of science. Scientists need to get the word out about their research. Non-scientists need to hear the message, but their concerns must be addressed by the scientific community. Nothing is going to improve if we don't all start listening to one another.

In order for this to happen, though, everyone needs to feel welcome at the table of science. Whether you are a four-year-old stargazer or a distinguished Nobel Laureate, your concerns and ideas matter. You are a part of this conversation.

If you felt unwelcome in scientific discussions before, let this be your ticket in. Please come back to the table of science. We need you here. All of our futures depend upon it.

"Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase."
-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Photo credit: Linda Byers, National Park Service

Meet Jupiter's Mother (Part 2)

2010-01-13T12:45:00.000-08:00

Today, we welcome back Tracy Zollinger Turner, of Tiny Mantras. Tracy is the mother of a four-year-old astronomer (above) and has been sharing her tips for encouraging a child's love of science. You can read the first part of our interview here.

***

Welcome back to Mama Joules, Tracy! I've gathered from reading your blog that astronomy was not one of your primary interests prior to your son falling in love with Jupiter (and the rest of the universe). How do you foster your son's love of astronomy?

For someone like me, I think remembering the connection between art and science (or science and everything!) has been helpful. I bring the science he likes into projects I enjoy more. We make planets and galaxies and nebulas out of clay. Or we do things like make egg tempera paint and encourage color mixing so there's a scientific process that's part of painting.

Tracy and her son made these planets and stellar objects
out of Play-Doh and FIMO clay.

I've promoted his interest in letters and reading by spelling and helping him write space-related words (we have used so many space metaphors in this house). When you actively notice what your child responds to, it gets easier to realize that shimmery fabrics can be used for imaginative play when he feels like being a comet or a black hole, crystals that hang in the window make rainbows around the house, and that it's okay for an apple to be sacrificed in the name of understanding gravity now and then.

What suggestions (for websites, books, etc.) do you have for parents of other would-be astronomers?

Websites

There are plenty of great astronomy sites out there, but few of them have stuff for younger kids. I like KidsAstronomy.com. There are science songs and reasonably simple games there.

Television, Music & Books

[My son] loves watching Powers of Ten, which may be one of the best videos ever made when it comes to illustrating the vastness of the universe, as well as the microverse! The TV show Zula Patrol is actually pretty great [too].

They Might Be Giants CD, "Here Comes Science" is our new soundtrack around here. It's actually taught or reminded me of a number of basic [scientific] concepts.

I wrote a post a while back about some of the astronomy books for kids that I like. [Note from Mama Joules to Tracy: Kerm reviewed George's Secret Key to the Universe; he thought it was great!]

Places to Visit

We've used Google Earth a lot to find our house, and [my son's] favorite places nearby from space. Incidentally, his favorite places are...

COSI - our local science center

Perkins Observatory - where the telescope was formerly the most high-powered in Ohio and used for astronomical research. It's now an educational center with lots of old-school astronomy displays, and lots of volunteer amateur astronomers who love to help people of any age develop a love of space and telescopes.

We have had the chance to go to a couple of NASA sites - one was a rare open house. [NASA scientists] are really good at figuring out how to talk to and educate kids!

Of course, we want to take him to Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Hayden Planetarium in NYC, the Air and Space Museum in DC and any [other] NASA site that we can, but we haven't had the chance just yet.

Tracy, those are some wonderful suggestions. I know that I will be visiting those websites soon. Thank you so much for stopping by!

***

If you'd like to contact Tracy, or read further about her adventures with her astronomy-loving preschooler, please visit her at her blog, Tiny Mantras. She is also the occasional host for the Carnival of Space, a must-read if you want to keep up with astronomy in the blogosphere.

Photo credits: Tracy Zollinger Turner (used with permission)

Win a copy of 2010 Writer's Market! (Cross-Post)

2010-01-12T11:49:00.000-08:00

NOTE: This message is cross-posted from my other blog, Stars in my Sugar Bowl. PLEASE LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS THERE. Thank you!

To celebrate the launch of my new poetry blog, Stars in my Sugar Bowl, I am giving away an unused paperback copy of the 2010 Writer's Market published by Writer's Digest Books. This tome is a great addition to any writer's toolkit, containing listings for 3,500 places to publish your work. I already own a copy and received this extra one at Christmas -- a perfect opportunity for a giveaway!

To be eligible for the drawing, please leave me comment about science, poetry, or both, on that post only. Any comments left on the Mama Joules blog are NOT eligible.

Tell me about your favorite scientific subject, describe a fun science activity, tell me what you like about Mama Joules, provide a link to a family-friendly science website, or tell me anything else about science.

If science isn't your thing, talk to me about haiku, tanka, haiga, alliteration, Robert Frost, Gwendolyn Brooks, or anything else relating to poetry.

And if, like me, you enjoy both science and poetry, share your thoughts on Scifaiku, Fibonacci sequence poetry, or some other topic similar to both.

You must include something about science, poetry, or both, in your comment to be eligible for this drawing. Again, please leave your comments there. I reserve the right to delete any comments that contain spam, sexually explicit references, swearing, or other overtly troll-like content. Please make sure to include enough contact information that I can E-mail you back if you win!

I'll be accepting comments there for roughly two weeks (until 8 pm EST January 20th) and then I'll have my husband, Itinerant Cryptographer, help me pick a winner at random (since he does that sort of thing for a living). At that time, I will announce the winner there, by updating that post on Stars in my Sugar Bowl, and I will request that you contact me by E-mail to claim your prize.

If you are chosen as the winner and haven't contacted me by 8 pm EST January 24th, you will forfeit the prize and I will draw another name from the list.

I look forward to reading your comments on my other blog. Good luck!

Photo credit: Francis via flickr // CC BY 2.0

Help! I'm more than 1,292,976,000 seconds old!

2010-01-07T17:30:00.000-08:00

I feel ancient after visiting GirlsGoTech, an online math, science, and technology outreach program from the Girl Scouts. You can learn about careers in science, html code and the Internet (and find out how many seconds old you are!), try cryptic codes, make your own mandala (and learn about mathematics and symmetry), discover how your brain processes information, and compose digital music.

The GirlsGoTech Mandala Maker reminded me of Make-A-Flake (although it took me a bit longer to learn to use the Mandala Maker). What do you think of my mandala?

With either of these programs, you will create a design with several lines of symmetry. Can you see where the lines of symmetry are on this design? How can you fold this circle in half so that both sides have an identical pattern?

Click on the image above to visit GirlsGoTech and their nifty Mandala Maker to design your own!

Weather words

2010-01-06T06:25:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week, Itinerant Cryptographer came home and announced, "I signed us up to run the activity at Boy Scouts next week. Our topic is weather."

Now, if you've read this blog before, you know how much I like meteorology! But I'm at a loss for an appropriate weather-related activity to try with a group of third grade boys. So, I consulted with my favorite four-year-old.

"What should Mommy and Daddy do next week to teach about the weather?" In the back of my head floated images of cotton ball clouds, weather station data, and field guides full of bizarre weather phenomena (like lenticular clouds).

Little Brother's response, however, was simple and delivered with great enthusiasm. It didn't matter what the big boys did next week. He wanted to try this today.

"Let's make a weather book!"

So we did. I took one sheet of black construction paper and five sheets of drawing paper, stacked them neatly, and folded them in half so that the black paper formed a cover. Then I punched three holes down the fold and tied some ribbon for the binding. I gave Little Brother a list of 17 weather terms -- like wet, partly cloudy, foggy (can you think of more?) -- to illustrate and let him choose the ones he wanted to copy into his book.

Little Brother did a great job! Here are two of my favorite pages:

Photo credits: Mama Joules. Images courtesy of Little Brother.

Meet Jupiter's Mother

2010-01-04T12:43:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! I'm pleased to welcome Tracy Zollinger Turner, of Tiny Mantras, to Mama Joules. In a recent issue of the Carnival of Space, she described her relationship with astronomy like this:

"[My son's] interest in space has been unyielding for as long as he's been able to talk. Therefore, I spend a lot of time reading astronomy blogs to try and become more scientifically literate, as well as riding imaginary space elevators out to Proxima Centauri and other stars in search of exoplanets. And smoothing flour and cocoa powder in a large bin so my son can throw rocks in it and make craters. Or making special trips to Big Lots to buy a bright yellow bucket for a $1 so he can keep his pretend meteor collection safe. You get the idea."

I was fascinated by her description. Reading further into her blog, I discovered that Tracy's son has a special affinity for Jupiter, and has even dressed up as the planet for Halloween.

Jupiter goes trick-or-treating
Photo credit: Tracy Zollinger Turner (used with permission)
When thinking of blog topics for Mama Joules, I often focus on how to engage a child's love of science. But Tracy's blog got me thinking: How do parents and educators sustain a child's interest in a scientific topic, especially when his or her fascination goes beyond our own? So, I invited Tracy to Mama Joules for a visit.

***

Today, we welcome Tracy Zollinger Turner, of the blog Tiny Mantras, for a chat about raising scientifically literate children. Tell us about yourself, Tracy.

I'm a longtime freelance writer and editor, technology lover, journalist, blogger, art and music appreciator, wife, mother, home-based career woman, learner.

You write in Tiny Mantras that you are "mother to a fanantical four-year-old astronomer." When did you realize that your son's interest in outer space was unusual for his age?

It's been a consistent interest for as long as he has been able to speak. When he was about a year-and-a-half old, he learned words in groups - colors, shapes, animals. Since he just seemed drawn to spheres and pictures of planets, he learned the solar system next.

I think I kind of always realized it was unusual. I do remember it really hit home for me when we went to the bookstore on his second birthday and he pointed at a big coffee table book up high on a shelf and said, "Get the 'bero galaxy book, Mommy." I pulled the thing down, looked at the inside flap, and found out that the picture on the cover was of the Sombrero Galaxy, which I wouldn't have known.

Sombrero Galaxy as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Image courtesy of NASA
He either picked it up through the space documentaries we were watching ("The Universe" on the History Channel was in its first season) or one of the space books we had begun to accumulate. At the time, he was far more interested in books full of space telescope images than space books that were created for kids.

I have always been prepared for him to lose this interest or move on to something else. Other parents told me that sometimes two-year-olds get really into something then forget all of the details they once knew as they move on to other things. At times, he's gone pretty deeply into learning about other (usually science-y) things, like anatomy and weather, but now, at four and a half, space still prevails.

Do you have any tips for how to encourage children to love science, especially when their interest in a specific topic exceeds your own?

I let his questions lead me. I learn a lot of this stuff with him. Like a lot of people - and women, especially - I grew up thinking that I didn't have much of an aptitude or love for science, and one of my son's real gifts to me has been teaching me that I actually do!

With a couple of exceptions, I don't think that most of my elementary or high school teachers knew how to make science relevant to students' lives. Yet it is so relevant and so common, and can be so much less intimidating than we make it. I see a lot of parents tripped up thinking that they have to know something to teach it, when learning it together - giving them some of the power to realize that grown-ups don't have all the answers - can make it so much more memorable for the child.

When I want to set [him] up with something I don't have to help a lot with, there are so many great resources and ideas out there when it comes to creating projects and experiments. Like putting flour and cocoa powder at the bottom of a big plastic bin, smoothing it, then letting him throw rocks in there to see what happens when meteors hit the moon, or Mercury.

Thanks, Tracy, for giving us such wonderful suggestions for making science fun!

***

You can learn more about Tracy's adventures raising her mini-astronomer at her blog, Tiny Mantras. Join us next week as Tracy shares some of her family's favorite astronomy websites and places to visit!