Spring Snow!

Today, I had the pleasure of enjoying the freak March snowstorm with my middle child, Little Brother. We were both so excited to see a decent snowfall - last winter, we barely saw any snow where we live in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.

This snow was thick and heavy, coming down on a layer of ice, and the trees were simply stunning. There’s something truly magical about driving around and hopping out of the car at random intervals to take photos, or in having your almost-teen son share his favorite park.

I wish you all a day of glitter and sparkles.

Adventures in Local Eating: The Pumpkin Edition

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

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

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

Family Fun at the Rock & Mineral Show

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

Happy Earth Day!

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

Meet Jupiter's Mother (Part 2)

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)

Our nocturnal neighbors

Birds aren't the only animals checking out our backyard. The other night, Itinerant Cryptographer let the dog out back and promptly announced to me that I needed to take a look outside. This is what I saw:


Only I didn't just see one frog on the outside of the sliding glass door. I counted fourteen of them! Each one was tiny, about the size of the tip of my thumb. They weren't real keen on me taking photographs of them, though. I think the flash scared them.

The next day, Kerm and I walked around in the backyard to look for the frogs to try and identify them.


I didn't get very good photographs, but I think they are treefrogs, possibly Spring Peepers. Spring Peepers are noctural treefrogs common to wooded areas in the Northeastern United States. The most distinguishing feature of a Spring Peeper is the "X" on its back, which you can almost see here (or could if I had worked my optical zoom a bit better!):


Note how tiny these frogs are! I have small hands for a human, but my fingers are giant-sized from their perspective. Can you imagine hopping around with clovers as tall as your head?

Kerm and I were tickled to see so many frogs in our backyard. But then we discovered that something else was interested in our frogs. Can you imagine what predator might like our frogs? Find out for sure next week!


Photo credits: Mama Joules

Take a deep breath ...

As you go about your scientific discoveries today, don't forget to ...


stop to look around,



cultivate a sense of wonder,



and enjoy the road you're on.

Photo credits: Mama Joules