The Periodic Table of Haiku

I found something so strange and wonderful online today that I had to share it with you. The University of Minnesota at Rochester has put together a Periodic Table of Haiku. Most elements have a poem written about them and their properties. According to the website, this project was a 2009 venture of UMR's Center for Learning Innovation and seeks to "integrate chemistry and creative writing." The poems were written by students and faculty, and some of the haiku are quite good. Most poems reflect on the physical properties of the elements and describe how they react chemically.

I'm always interested in the many ways that people manage to combine science and the arts, and this project is a great example. Unfortunately, not all of the elements have been selected for poetry. So, I thought I'd take a stab at silicon & aluminum, two of the neglected elements. The project requires the haiku to have a 5-7-5 syllabic structure - so I did too - but modern haiku doesn't have to follow that format.

Silicon (Si)
master conductor:
your pure electronic grades
drive the world wide web


Aluminum (Al) in your reflection
I see pots and pans, cars, trucks ...
where are the people?


Photo credit: (top) Jannes Pockele, (bottom) Chris Harrison, via Flickr // CC BY 2.0

Artful Animals

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

Invasive Species Art

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:

Website of the Week: Let's Paint Nature!

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.

Weather words

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.

Best of 2009 at Mama Joules

I've been reading a lot of "best of ..." lists for 2009 lately, so I thought I'd recap this year at Mama Joules. See what you think of these posts from 2009:


Best Ideas for Gardeners:

Grow a Science Garden

Heinz Wholesome Memories Intergenerational Garden Award

Take the Lead Out of Gardening

Best Ideas for Mixing Art & Science:

Join the Fun at One Million Giraffes

Make-A-Flake

National Gallery of Art's Lending Library

Neuroscience for Kids (includes coloring pages)

Reuse Those Old Crayons!

Best Interview:

Meet a Beekeeper!

The Intelligence of Bees: Meet a Beekeeper! Part 2

Colony Collapse Disorder: Meet a Beekeeper! Part 3

Learning to Keep Bees: Meet a Beekeeper! Part 4

Best Invention:

Flying Car

Best Opportunities for Citizen Scientists:

Ancient Tree Hunt

FrogWatch USA™

North American Moths Backyard Inventory

Project BudBurst

Best Posts About Animals:

Cricket Ears are Amazing

Giant Frog Gets New Friend - Titanoboa

Venom & Vomit: Meet the Tarantula

Best Posts About Science Poetry:

Meet Scifaiku

Science Poem: Intrasolar Interloper

The Fibonacci Poem

Best Use of LEGO®s:

Kerm's Mars Rover

Little Brother's Mars Rover

Best Post of the Year

What is Global Warming?

Have a safe and wonderful New Year! Be sure to check out these fun ways to add science to 2010!

Photo credit: Gordana Adamovic-Mladenovic,
through a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license via Flickr.

Reuse those old crayons!

Inspired by LuAnn Foty and her Crazy Crayons (more about her in a future blog post), the boys and I decided to melt down some old crayons and make our own version of reused/recycled crayons. I found a recipe for melting down crayons in the oven and we set to work.

I have a box of 64 crayons with no tips, courtesy of last year's Sunday school class. I had planned to take them home and sharpen them (ugh!), but decided to melt them down instead.

Here's what you'll need to make "new" crayons: unwanted crayons and aluminum muffin cup liners. (Don't use paper liners, we discovered that they leave a waxy residue behind in your muffin tin!)


First, we broke the crayons into small pieces and took off the wrappers. Finally, I got wise about the paper labels and scored them with a knife to make them easier to remove. (Kids, be sure to get adult help for this!)

We came up with all sort of crazy color combinations for our new crayons, like grey-black-yellow and orange-purple. Be sure to put the same number of broken crayon pieces into each muffin cup. We didn't do this and the contents of one melted after 10 minutes, while the others took considerably longer.

I suggest using a 250 degree F oven, like the online recipe suggested. Initially, I thought that sounded a tad high, but after 20 minutes at 200 degrees F, most of our crayons still hadn't melted. This is what they looked like:



After 25 minutes, though, our crayons had liquified! It was fun to see how they looked in the tray.



I stirred a few of them and then took the muffin tin outside in the snow to quickly cool them. At 32 degrees F, they cooled solid within a half-hour.

When I took them out of their wrappers, I found that they had edges, kind of like Reese's peanut butter cups, so I broke the edges off.


Little Brother agreed to test the new crayons for us. They were a lot of fun to use!




Photo credits: Mama Joules

National Gallery of Art's lending library

I recently learned that the National Gallery of Art lends out educational materials through their Division of Education. Their Education Resources include over 120 items, including CD-ROMs, slides, DVDs, teaching packets, and videos. Topics range from broad-ranging surveys of art to profiles of individuals and specific artistic techniques. Some materials are available for an extended nine-month loan period, to coincide with the school year.

But you don't have to be a teacher or affiliated with a group to use the items. Anyone in the U.S. can borrow materials using the Loan Materials Finder (skip to the last paragraph of this post if you're outside of the U.S.). If you'd rather have a hard copy to browse the collection, request a catalog. More information about borrowing items can be found here. (In short, materials are geared for grades K-12. It takes at least a month to process your request, you can usually keep the materials for two weeks, and you pay return shipping at a reduced [media mail] rate.)

Among the many fascinating titles available through this service, I found several with direct ties to science:

Art + Science = Conservation: Learn about museum conservation techniques used by the NGA in this 19-minute videocassette. (Also available on DVD.)

Art&: A Teacher's Guide to Lessons and Activities for Fifth and Sixth Graders: This four lesson teaching packet includes a segment on Art and Ecology.

John James Audubon: The Birds of America: a 29-minute videocassette with viewer's guide showing his original drawings and engravings. (Also available on DVD.)

Leonardo: To Know How to See: a 58-minute videocassette discussing the works of Renaissance artist / inventor Leonardo da Vinci.

Masters of Illusion: a 30-minute videocassette examining how Renaissance artists changed the depiction of perspective and created illusions of space.

Seeing Color: Object, Light, Observer: a 27-minute video asks "artists, curators, conservation scientists, and science students" to define color. The DVD also includes an examination of pigments, optics, and color vision.

Thomas "Yellowstone" Moran: a 12-minute videocassette detailing his survey of Yellowstone and how that effort helped to found the U.S. National Park System. (Also available on DVD.)

Thomas Moran, circa 1883

Vermeer: Master of Light: X-ray analysis, infrared reflectography, and computer analysis are used to examine the paintings of Johannes Vermeer in this 58-minute videocassette.

You can also visit the NGA Classroom for online lessons in art and NGAKids for more adventures with art. Enjoy!


Photo credit: Yellowstone National Park, National Park Service

Design a poster for the National Zoo!

If you are between the ages of 8 - 14 and live in the United States, consider entering the poster contest at the Smithsonian National Zoo. Copies of the winning poster will be displayed at the zoo and at schools in the DC area. You and your poster could be honored at a special ceremony and you would win a gift basket with six tickets to this year's opening night of ZooLights!

According to the website, in order to be chosen, your poster must be the best at showing these three things:

* the Zoo is a wonderful place to see animals, trees, and plants,
* does a lot to save wildlife,
* and is always FREE.

Your poster must be at least 8.5" x 11" and no larger than 11" x 17". You can scan your work and enter online, mail in your entry (you'll need to include this entry form -- this is a .pdf file), or you can hand in your work at the Visitor's Center at the zoo. Contest entries must be received by November 12, 2009 and you can enter more than once.

Good luck!

Join the fun at One Million Giraffes!

Join thousands of people across the globe as we try to help Norway's Ola Helland win a bet with his friend Jørgen: Can he convince people to post one million handmade giraffes on his website, One Million Giraffes, within a year's time?

My friend Tanja pointed me toward this project, which has gone viral on the web through Twitter and Facebook. Helland is even starting to pick up round-the-world media coverage with groups throwing giraffe-drawing parties! What touched me about this idea, though, are the actual drawings. People from over 80 countries have submitted more than 100,000 photos of their giraffe creations since the project started 74 days ago. Helland showcases some of the most unique creations in his blog, including a giraffe made out of cake and one made out of human hair! But most of the giraffes are simple drawings, created by people from all stripes of life, revealing their connections with this iconic zoo animal.

How do you take a simple idea and make it better? According to the Telegraph.co.uk, Helland is currently looking for a corporate sponsor to donate money per drawing to World Wildlife Fund to aid in giraffe conservation.

Want to join in the fun? Read the official rules and upload your creation! Here's a clip to inspire you:

How photography brings science to life

Grand Teton National Park, WyomingPhoto credit: Ansel AdamsSource: The National Archives and Records Administration

Recently, my husband took our younger son to the bookstore. The little one was fascinated by a coffee table book about the solar system. Isn't it amazing, how the power of photography can grab us and pull us into a scientific subject?

I recently purchased Cloudman John A. Day's The Book of Clouds. I could give you some long-winded explanation of how I need this book to accurately identify different cloud formations, but let's face it, I just like looking at the pictures.

When I was very young, my favorite book was a guide to nature, complete with a photograph of a snake devouring a frog. I thought this was endlessly fascinating. Fast forward a few years and I was skimming a magazine in a doctor's office when I saw an Ansel Adams photograph for the first time. I remember the sensation of flying through the clouds, feeling the cool mist of condensation on my arms. The photograph gave me goosebumps, along with a lifelong appreciation of Adams' work.

The next time you are at the book store, drop by a display of those oversized hard-cover tomes filled with photography. Let your mind wander over various topics and pick out images that interest you. You might be surprised at what catches your eye -- and that of your little ones.

When scientists dance

I recently surfed into a fascinating competition sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. For the 2009 AAAS Science Dance Contest, entrants were asked to interpret their scientific PhD thesis topics using interpretive dance. The videos were posted on YouTube and the winners were chosen by a panel of artists and scientists (except for the popular vote, which was based upon the number of YouTube hits). The winners get to work with professional choreographers and will present their dances at the annual AAAS meeting in February 2009.

Of the winning entries, my favorite was Dr. Vince LiCata's entry about hemoglobin. In this video, the four dancers (dressed in blood red) represent the four subunits of a hemoglobin protein. The white balls depict oxygen molecules; the dance shows how the subunits handle oxygen molecules. And the sprinkles of glitter with the photographer snapping pictures remind us of how Dr. LiCata had to cool down the hemoglobin in order to study it.



Unfortunately, WMG disabled the audio to this clip not long after I finished this post. But let's face it, just the idea of a biochemistry professor dancing with his students is pretty fun. Congrats to Dr. LiCata and all of this year's winners!

The scientific benefits of origami

I picked up this interesting tidbit today from ScienceDaily: Studying origami, the ancient Japanese art of folding paper into shapes like birds and bugs, can improve your understanding of math. In ScienceDaily's The Science of Origami, Dr. Robert Lang is quoted as saying that the process used to create these intricate folded designs has made its way into scientific disciplines like medicine, aerospace design, and automotive engineering.

Dr. Lang has his own website with pages devoted to his art and the intersection of origami and math. His gallery of origami creations contains many fascinating specimens, including a 54 uniform-edge polypolyhedron. But to me, the most interesting are those folded from a single sheet of paper. Lang's page of crease patterns shows the detailed and complex folds necessary to create shapes like hermit crabs and garden spiders alongside the finished product.

Edward Burtynsky and Urban Landscapes

I stumbled upon an interesting blog post the other day at The Vigorous North about Edward Burtynsky and his photography of urban landscapes. Burtynsky describes the focus of his work as "nature transformed through industry." Christian McNeil, of the Vigorous North, further lauds him as "an Ansel Adams for 21st-century environmentalism," in part because of his "stunning, large-format photographs that are beautiful and can induce a sense of vertigo from their epic scale."

And exactly what is Burtynsky photographing in such breathtaking detail? Slices of the very scenes that make environmentalists wince: quarries, factories, mines, dumps, and urban sprawl. Burtynsky's work is so compelling -- often entwining scenes so beautiful and so tragic -- that it was made into a documentary entitled Manufactured Landscapes by Jennifer Baichwal.



Years ago, as part of my job investigating potential hazardous waste sites, I surveyed and photographed abandoned urban industrial areas. My natural default is to think of these places as hopelessly damaged or degraded from their once pristine state. Burtynsky's work and McNeil's comments showed me another way to view this part of life. Burtynsky's photography is vibrant and exciting. I find his pictures fascinating because what he sees through his photographer's lens is so different than what I saw through mine.

Walking House

What if the next time you needed to move, you simply picked up your house and took it with you? Unlike a traditional mobile home, however, the Copenhagen-based collective N55's Walking House (built in conjunction with MIT) doesn't need a road. This "modular dwelling system," commissioned by the Wysing Arts Centre, is said to be a re-design -- and unique interpretation -- of an 18th century horse-drawn carriage.

To me, Walking House resembles a giant ant, with its six autonomous legs and hexagonal, tubular body. The unit is equipped with a "composting toilet system", solar cells, and small windmills. Its inventors say that this design "enables persons to live a peaceful nomadic life, moving slowly through the landscape or cityscape with minimal impact on the environment."

You can watch the YouTube video (below) of Walking House, but the speed is so slow that the clip is almost unwatchable. The house moves at a snail's pace of 60 meters per hour (0.037 miles per hour or about 4/100 of a mile per hour), which seems to fall short of the designer's intent to have the house "move at a slow pace similar to the walking speed of the human body."

Nonetheless, there's a lot to love about this little ant-like house. treehugger has been following this project from its inception, and it's fun to see how the project has evolved from prototype until now.

As a temporary dwelling, Walking House truly takes the fun of a treehouse to another level. But I can't imagine living full-time in such a structure. What do you think? Could you live in Walking House? If you were going to design a walking house, what would it look like?

Nathan Sawaya: LEGO® Artist

My friend LD pointed me toward this CNN article -- LEGO artist building bigger career -- about Nathan Sawaya and his nifty LEGO® creations. Sawaya's work is currently on exhibit at the Stamford Museum & Nature Center in Connecticut, with plans to exhibit across the U.S. and into Canada (Visit The Art of the Brick™ Museum Exhibit for more information).

Check out Sawaya's unique sculptures in the Stamford Museum's Exhibition Spotlight or visit Sawaya's homepage at The Art of the Brick™. Although I like his life-size humanoid sculptures the best, I also was intrigued by the world, T-Rex, and PC Mag Computer.

Mammalthon 2 is coming April 19!

Over at The Daily Mammal, Jennifer Rae Atkins is gearing up for April 19^th when she’ll hold her second “mammalthon,” where she stays up for 24 hours straight drawing pictures of mammals for charity. You can request a mammal on her website for $35 and you get to see your drawing on her page and keep the picture afterward ($50 if you want the picture sent matted and ready to frame). Proceeds from Mammalthon 2 will be donated to The Wildlife Center, a wildlife rehabilitation facility in northern New Mexico.

Funny, the first thing that I thought of when I read about this event was that I would like a picture of a goldfish or a turtle or maybe a bird. But none of those animals are mammals. In short, mammals are like us: warm-blooded, hairy, and milk-producing. Most mammals give birth to live offspring, although Australia’s monotremes (the platypus and echidna) are notable and fascinating exceptions.

Need some help with your mammal request? Check out the San Diego Zoo’s Animal Bytes: Mammals for inspiration.

The center of the pie

One of my favorite authors is Madeleine L’Engle. I was about 10 when I first read A Wrinkle in Time and Meet the Austins. Finding L’Engle’s work was like finding a piece of myself that I didn’t know was missing, a coming home to self. I love the way that she deftly wove art with science, science with Christianity, in her stories. Her characters seem so real to me that, at times, I have had difficulty putting down her books.

Why the fascination? L’Engle’s world is populated with poet/scientists and artist/researchers. I love that her characters stretch across genres. Her work reminds me that I don’t have to give up writing poetry to be a science writer, or forgo my love of art in favor of research. It’s okay to do it all, to be interested in more than one thing at a time.

But school doesn’t tend support this idea, especially in higher education. What’s the first big choice you make in college? Declaring a major. There’s an undercurrent of thought that once you’ve chosen your major, you have to give up on everything else to focus on your goal. How unfortunate is that?

Far too often, I think, we tend to separate ourselves from science as if it were an abstract set of concepts unrelated to our daily lives. Popular culture tends to foster this misperception. How often do we appreciate the work of, say, Leonardo DiVinci* for both his scientific AND artistic contributions? Usually, he is lumped into one group or the other, depending upon the interests of the reviewer. (* Kudos to the Museum of Science for recognizing that DiVinci was all that and more!)

The popular 80’s board game, Trivial Pursuit, always bothered me for the same reason. You would get a slice of “pie” for your game piece if you correctly answered questions in one of six different categories, which included Arts & Literature and Science & Nature. It occurred to me that it would make more sense if we all try to live in the center of the pie, where all of the pieces interconnect.

Massachusetts Science Poetry Contest

I’m happy to follow up on a previous post,Try your hand at science poetry, and report that the Massachusetts Science Poetry Contest is alive and well and celebrating its 20th year! I recently received an E-mail from Ashley Berrios, who is coordinating the contest this year. She told me that the deadline for contest entries is tomorrow! So, for all of you who are competing, good luck with your entries.

If you are unfamiliar with the Massachusetts Science Poetry Contest, here are some facts that I learned from Ms. Berrios:

• Although most entrants are from the state of Massachusetts, this contest is open to all students in grades K-8 - including those in special education classes - but the poems must be written in class. Teachers choose the best poems from their classes and submit them to the contest, with parental permission.

• The purpose of this contest is to integrate writing and art with science. All poems must reflect current scientific knowledge. Students can write about any scientific topic except science fiction.

• Up to grade 5, the entries must be illustrated. For grades 6-8, the author may choose whether or not to illustrate the poem (or, for these grades, they may also choose to include a photograph).

• Poems must compete in one of eight categories, including Most Original Poem, Most Humorous Poem and Most Expressive Poem.

It may be too late to enter this year’s contest, but it’s not too late to start planning for next year! Since the website is not currently up-to-date, to learn more about the contest please contact Ashley Berrios at berriosa [at] bc [dot] edu or write to:

Dr. George Ladd
Professor Emeritus
Science Poetry Contest
Lynch School of Education
Boston College – Campion Hall
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

[Update: 3/9/09 -- The Massachusetts Science Poetry Contest has a new website! The deadline for the 2009 contest is April 3, 2009. Check the website for details!]

The science behind the comics

One of the most enjoyable places to explore science is in the pages of comic books. Gary Larson, of The Far Side fame, is the master of the science humor genre (and a leader in irreverent and off-beat humor as well!). Every university science department that I’ve wandered through has had at least one of his cartoons up on the wall.

The creator of FoxTrot, Bill Amend, has a background in physics. Chemistry, math, physics, computer science, and an iguana are sprinkled liberally throughout his comic strip.

Unfortunately, neither of these artists are running their daily strips anymore. So, please keep your eyes open for science humor in the comics and let me know what you find. I need something new to read!