Acceptance

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

Dear McDonald's:

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

Gender discrimination starts early

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

Don't choose ignorance

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?

Ten Reasons to Love Dandelions

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

Fun at the dinner table

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.

Snow!

The view from my back door

Where I live along the Eastern seaboard in the US, we are in the middle of a record-breaking snowfall. For you folks out west or in other snowy climes, this storm wouldn't seem like much. But here, this quantity of snow is shocking!



Kerm and Little Brother went sledding today -- the first time ever for Little Brother. They had a wonderful time. :)

Fingernails are like tree trunks

Little Brother's little hands
Ouch! In September, Little Brother caught two of his fingers in the door of our car. It was a horrible experience. He screamed, I panicked, and Kerm came to the rescue by opening the door. Two of Little Brother's fingers immediately turned purple, at which point I threw everyone back into the car and sped off to the Emergency Room.

But by the time we had arrived, Little Brother's fingers looked fine. Aside from a mild cut, there was no visible injury. I felt bad for bothering the ER staff. However, the medical personnel assured me that following up with a crush-type injury is important.

About a week later, we went to our pediatrician for a recommended follow-up. Again, I worried that I was wasting her time. I couldn't see anything wrong. But the doctor pointed out two very teeny tiny blue-black spots right at the base of Little Brother's nail beds. Those are the bruises, she told me.



Here is a picture of Little Brother's fingers today, over two months later. The color of the bruises has faded (from bluish-black to purple to red) as his nails have grown. The bruised part of his fingers seems to have spread, but in reality, the affected area has simply grown larger along with the nail.




In this way, fingernails are like tree trunks -- they mark the passage of time. When you count the rings on a tree stump, you might notice that some rings are closer together than others, indicating years when the tree grew less due to drought or other stressors. You can sometimes see damage from fire or insects, which can cause the rings to be lopsided.

Fingernails are much the same. They grow more slowly when people suffer from poor nutrition. Human fingernails can tell you something about the overall health of a person. Their color and texture can reveal systemic illness, nutritional deficiencies, or, as in this case, injury.

Luckily for us, Little Brother is healing nicely. But it looks like it will be another month or two before his fingernails go -- or I should say, grow -- back to normal.


Photo credit: Mama Joules

My ornamental corn has sprouted!

Recently, I purchased some ornamental corn and put it in my front yard. I figured that I would celebrate the fall season and maybe feed some neighborhood squirrels in the process. I wasn't expecting this!

My ornamental corn has sprouted! All of the little kernels are trying to make baby corn plants. Now I'm not sure what to do with my corn. I hate to throw out anything that is growing, but I wasn't really planning to raise corn. Maybe I'll toss the cobs out into the woods behind my house to give the seedlings a fighting chance. Given that winter is coming, though, I'm not sure how well they will do. We'll see ...


Photo credit: Mama Joules

Where were you when the wall came down?

Twenty years ago today, as a college student, I sat transfixed before my television. People were standing on top of the Berlin Wall, tearing it to shreds. It was an event that I never thought I would see in my lifetime. The wall went up less than ten years before I was born. As long as I could remember, the wall had always been there, immovable and permanent. But on November 9, 1989, the wall came down. Amazing.

Today, the Berlin Wall reminds me that some problems, though they seem insurmountable at the time, do eventually have solutions. It might just take some time for us to break through.


Photo credit: Mama Joules (This portion of the Berlin Wall is currently on display at the Newseum.)

Wishing you a happy fall ...

Today, I watched my kids enjoy autumn. One of our little friends wanted to share and dropped a pile of leaves in Baby Princess' lap. It was fun to watch her lift each crisp leaf with an awed expression ... until she put one into her mouth! Oh, what a face she made! (Don't worry, I took the leaves away from her soon after.) Meanwhile, the boys were having "leaf fights" and enjoying burying each other and their friends in piles upon piles of fall leaves.

Little Brother buries Kerm in leaves

Wherever you live, I hope that you are taking the time to enjoy the season that you are in. Today was a good reminder for me that I don't usually take enough time to smell the roses ... or roll in the leaves.

Girls in love: Does dating make us stupid?

I was visiting with a friend the other day and we started talking about children and science. She's an educator by training, and I was asking her about pursuing a teaching degree in science education. Our conversation turned toward how to retain a student's enthusiasm for science.

"Girls seem to 'turn off' to science in middle school," I said.

My friend nodded. "Oh, yeah," she replied. "They don't want to appear smarter than the boys."

Oh, boy.

Once we'd unpacked this can of worms, I realized how deeply this idea had affected my own life. In my conversations with others exploring why women lag behind men in engineering , I'd never even thought about it. As an adult, I've overwritten this lousy piece of advice. But as a teen ...

The idea that I had to hide my intelligence to get a date was so ingrained, it never occurred to me to question it. I can remember being one of the "smart girls" in junior high and I just accepted that I would remain dateless for life. This was the assumption that I carried around:

Smart girls don't date. If you want to get a boy to like you, you have to make him feel superior and intelligent. Even if he's stupid.

Did I realize that I had absorbed this little tidbit from popular culture? No. But this idea definitely colored how I presented myself to others and how I thought about school and my studies. If I liked a boy, I would downplay my strengths and try not to show my intelligence.

How pathetic is that? And as my friend pointed out, once a girl stops showing interest in science, she starts to fall behind. Once behind, she often stays behind, and a self-fulfilling prophesy is sadly realized.

What do you think? Did you (or are you) short-changing yourself? Do you downplay your smarts to get dates?

To all of my smart young friends out there, please keep in mind that smart girls (and boys) do date! But sometimes they have to wait until college.

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

OT: Happy Cinco de Mayo ... with cake!

I hope that everyone had a great Cinco de Mayo. :)

Photo credit: nyflygirl76, through a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

OT: Finished Poetry Challenge!

I'm happy to announce that I have finally finished the Poem-A-Day poetry challenge over at Poetic Asides -- 30 poems in 30 days, to honor National Poetry Month. Working on the challenge has encouraged me to try new things. You never know how trying something new might inspire you, or even inspire others.

Photo credit: Erik Harmon, BurningWell.org

Bring back sidewalks

Yesterday, I took my baby for a walk. We had stopped for lunch in a lovely neighborhood in the next town over, one of those planned communities where everything was designed to be within arms' reach. It occurred to me, as I headed to my car to drive to the next store, that maybe I should try walking for a change instead of buzzing busily from stop to stop.

Well. For a planned community, someone should have thought about where to place the sidewalks! Yes, there were sidewalks along the main drag, but no one thought about why you might be walking along the road to begin with -- to go shopping. I had a stroller, but I could just as easily have had a wheeled bag to carry my groceries or been traveling in a wheelchair. Twice, I had to backtrack because my sidewalk simply ended or ended in stairs (!) Once I had to hop the curb to get from point A to point B. (Try doing that safely in a wheelchair!)

I was left wondering how one could actually manage to shop this way. I could barely carry the few groceries I had while also maneuvering the stroller. Don't get me wrong -- the skies were beautiful and I greatly enjoyed savoring the flowering trees while the baby napped. I highly recommend it. But it struck me that it would have been wise to first drive by my walking route to plot out my course. And that would have defeated the main purpose of my walk.

Photo credit: Leon Brooks, BurningWell.org

Thoughts about environmental reporting

Have you ever noticed that when you listen to the news on a topic that you know nothing about, you assume that the reporter knows what he or she is talking about? But when you are knowledgeable about the subject, you're surprised by how many things the reporter doesn't understand or actually gets wrong? It's kind of like how, when I'm driving, I expect all of the pedestrians to get out of my way. But if I'm walking, I assume that the cars should avoid me.

Anyway, I was listening to a news report yesterday about a landfill (dump) that was contaminating nearby groundwater (water contained in rocks below the ground surface) and my ears perked up. In my former life (before kids), I used to investigate abandoned hazardous waste sites (fascinating, icky places like mine tailings, old manufacturing plants, and dumps). But the reporter never talked about hazardous wastes or even hazardous substances. She said that monitoring wells around the landfill had detected "toxic chemicals" in the groundwater.

Now, this may not be wrong, but it doesn't tell us much. The word "toxic" has a specific meaning under the law, but reporters tend to throw it around randomly. As far as "chemicals" go, most anything can be a chemical. A quick search of online definitions tells us that chemicals result from reactions that effect changes to atoms or molecules.

So, have we learned anything about what's actually been found in the groundwater? No. Even assuming that the reporter is correct and the substance meets the legal definition of a toxic chemical, we could be looking the effects of anything from arsenic (a metal) to chlorine (a gas). We don't know if the substance dissolves in water or if it floats or sinks.

The reporter went on to say that the mystery substance was detected at levels that exceeded 50 times what the environmental agencies say is safe for drinking water. That sounds really scary, doesn't it? But she never said if anyone was actually drinking the water. Monitoring wells often are very shallow and examine water that most people would never drink anyway. Don't get me wrong, it's not great if water is contaminated. But it isn't quite as bad as it sounds.

So, the next time you listen to your news and think, that doesn't sound right, trust your gut. As we've discussed before, everyone has their own bias. Even me!

Thoughts on Pollution

My guest blogger today is Kerm, a 7-year-old who likes "bubble gum" and "organizing things." Kerm wants to share his thoughts on pollution with you. Kerm says:

"... Pollution is cool to try to help but sad. [It is sad because] you don't want the whole world getting polluted."

(Mama Joules adds: Pollution occurs when air, water, or soil gets contaminated [or dirty]. Too much man-made noise and light are kinds of pollution, too. Pollution makes it hard to enjoy the earth. If you've seen trash floating down a river or had trouble breathing when the sky is covered in brown smog, you've experienced the negative effects of pollution.)

Kerm has several tips to help stop pollution that you can try.

"Stop using so much electricity ... When you leave your house, turn off the lights."

"Never litter. Littering is bad for the environment. If everyone littered, the whole world would be piled in trash. Who wants to have garbage in their face?"

"Stop buying stuff. If you read this blog post now, then in one year, check your closets. If there's anything that still has tags on it or that you don't remember buying, get rid of it. Give it to someone who actually needs it."

"Remember to recycle old paper and boxes. Throwing out stuff that you can recycle like glass ... is just a waste. Remember to reduce, reuse, and recycle!"

"If everybody tried a little harder, the world would be a lot better."

Life lessons of a once-young scientist

What makes for a good science learning experience? I was thinking about this today and realized that, in my experience, fun isn't a requirement. In fact, some wonderful learning experiences aren't fun at all. When I really understood a scientific concept for the first time, there was usually some pain involved. Here's two examples:

When I was around four, my family went for an easy hike through the redwood forests of California. I saw something yellow against the carpet of pine needles and, thinking that it was a piece of banana, reached down to pick it up and eat it (hey, I was only four). But the banana moved! It wasn't a banana at all, but a banana slug! I was so startled that I probably dropped the poor thing and started to cry. I will never forget the shock of realizing that I nearly ate a slug!

Then in second grade, I got into a fight with a boy in my class. But he wasn't just any boy. He was smart and cute and I really wanted to make a good impression on him. We were talking about the weather (one of my favorite topics) and I said that when it rained, the sun wasn't in the sky. Obviously. There are only clouds up there, duh! And he said, no, you're wrong, the sun is up there, you just can't see it. Well, we argued about this for some time and -- I've blocked this part out of my memory -- somehow, we determined that I was wrong. I will never forget how embarrassed I was. (I told this story to second-grader Kerm recently and, upon learning that the boy won the argument, he just nodded and smiled.)

There are other experiences -- how I never understood my college chemistry labs until I banged my head upon every concept for the entire three hours, the way that identifying flowers in a field guide always meant more after I'd hiked up a mountain to see them, or how I spent my 21st birthday with friends, gorging on cake and cramming for a final exam in ecology class.

For some reason, the hardship involved cemented these memories -- and the concepts that went with them -- into my brain. I learned something new. And now that I'm older, I appreciate those memories for what they were -- good science learning lessons.

At least one daily serving of science

While pondering my future, I recently asked my older son "Kerm" this question:

"If Mommy wrote a book for other Mommies and Daddies about how to enjoy science with their children, what should Mommy write about? What would kids like?"

I expected Kerm to tell me that his interests, robots and outer space, would make good topics.

Instead, he answered me thoughtfully. "Some of the kids in my class don't like science. When I tell them that science is my favorite subject, they say that they hate science."

"That's really sad," I said.

Kerm nodded. "Science is how you figure stuff out."

I like that definition. For Kerm, science has a place in his life. But I wonder about the other second graders. Has science already become something that they feel separate from? If science isn't encouraged in the home, will kids still connect with the subject?

In Kerm's class, they only teach science twice a week. I've asked around, and this seems to be the norm where we live. This doesn't make sense to me. Science seems as equally important as social studies, mathematics, or reading/writing.

And how can you teach math without science? Science is a wonderful way to apply math. Who wants to measure a piece of paper when you could be measuring how much your plants have grown?

Maybe we should develop an education pyramid, kind of like a food pyramid, to ensure that everyone gets a daily serving of science.

Mama Joules' younger soncontemplating the mysteries of bubbles