Website of the Week: 2008 National Cherry Blossom Festival

This is the last week-end of the 2008 National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC. According to the website:

“The plantings of the cherry blossom trees originated as a gift in 1912 from the people of Japan to the United States as gesture of friendship and goodwill. Since then, the number of trees has expanded to approximately 3,750 trees of 16 varieties on National Park Service land.”

The first time I heard about the cherry blossoms, I wondered what all of the fuss was about. I mean, they’re just trees, right? And trees produce flowers in the spring. So what?

Well, last year I was fortunate enough to visit the Tidal Basin when the trees were in full bloom. They looked magical. I remember thinking that they seemed like fairy trees. It was a truly ethereal experience.

If you are able to visit this year, you might consider submitting your photographs to the 2008 NCBF Photo Contest, sponsored by Lulu.com. And if you can’t visit, be sure to check out the Cherry Blossom Web Cam.

The opposite of maybe

Yesterday, as I drove my six-year-old son home from school, he asked me a question.

"What's the opposite of maybe?"

I thought hard for a minute and answered, "I don't think 'maybe' has an opposite. It's kind of half-way between 'yes' and 'no'."

"I think the opposite of maybe is 'maybe not'," he replied.

Maybe my son is smarter than I am ...

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.

Website of the Week: KIDZONE

The St. Louis Public Library has put together a wonderful and comprehensive set of links for kids as part of their online science lab, KIDZONE. There are over 100 links on this page, connecting you to everything from the Periodic Table of Comic Books to The yuckiest site on the internet. Let me know which links you like best!

Thanks for Voting!

On behalf of the Mama Joules blog, I'd like to thank those of you who voted in the poll. I've taken out my own vote (hey, I had to vote to get the poll started!) and I'm looking at the results from the ten of you who were kind enough to share your thoughts with me.

In order of priority, here's the breakdown for what you like about the blog:

Science activities & crafts / science education (5 votes each)
Mama Joules' musings / how things work (4 votes each)
Science & the arts (3 votes)
Current science news / book & movie reviews / All of the above (2 votes each)
Website of the week (1 vote)

Now, two things really surprised me about this poll. For one, I've been really focused on finding websites of the week. I guess it's not really that important. I think I'll keep that feature for now, but modify those posts to expand on why I like the website or talk about what's neat about the topic.

Which leads me to point number two: at least four of you out there actually like reading my rambling thoughts on science and life. Cool! Check out yesterday's post and have an ice cream on me. *grin*

Just for Fun: Ice Cream!

Well, I've been trying to think of a way to tie this into a science lesson and I haven't come up with one yet. But I don't care! I read about these events online and I couldn't wait to share them with you.

Mark your calendars!

April 29, 2008: Free Ice Cream at Ben & Jerry's!

According to numerous internet sources, Tuesday, April 29, 2008 is the 30th annual Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry’s ice cream stores. Check out their Fun Stuff page for E-cards, online games, paper crafts, and my personal favorite, the Flavor Graveyard.

April 30, 2008: 31 Cent Scoop Night at Baskin-Robbins!

Come to any Baskin-Robbins ice cream store on April 30th from 5-10 pm for 31¢ scoop night. Check out the Baskin-Robbins Store Locator to find the store nearest to you.