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Science teacher
A high school science teacher explores ways to expand the universe inside classroom walls.
December 2011 - Posts
Faith based science
30 December 11 09:36 AM
Everywhere I look I see signs of spontaneous generation. Scum blooms in a puddle of water, flies erupt from a wintry beach, and I once found a possum carcass writhing with maggots obviously emanating from its flesh. We see this, but we all know that spontaneous
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A late December walk
29 December 11 06:51 PM
'Turn away no more; Why wilt thou turn away The starry floor, The watery shore, Is given thee till the break of day.' William Blake Today is the last day of the darkest two weeks of the year, the shadows stretched long on the beach like languid lovers
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A shore thing
29 December 11 11:24 AM
Late December, the back bay, still autumn-warm, gets blown up the beach by the stiff breeze, and washes my feet. "I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas." TSE A shell on the beach, once alive, now falls apart
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Late December oyster
29 December 11 10:08 AM
What is the lifespan of Crassostrea viginica , our local oyster? What is its maximum size? The experts will tell you it gets to 20 years old, and about 8" long. I found the shell of one 3 years ago today that just misses 9 inches. Its shell tells a story
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Vomitorium
29 December 11 07:30 AM
(OK, the analogy may be a little over the top...) We talk a good game, but we still ask our kids to regurgitate. We pay suits handsomely to charm us for a couple of hours, but we still ask our kids to regurgitate. We buy expensive tech toys, but we still
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Doyle's School of Educharlantry
28 December 11 05:26 PM
Trust me, I'm an expert in this--I have multiple degrees, have traveled multiple continents, play 17 instruments, and have the pedigree that rivals an AKC champion Pekingese. I speak 3 languages, dabble in a dozen more, and I can recite the alphabet in
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1st Annual Readamatic Pacer Award
26 December 11 06:23 PM
My board certification in pediatrics expires in a few days--I renewed it less than a year before I started my student teaching, and haven't looked back (much). Still, I spent most of my adult life assessing child development, and I know a little bit about
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Clam up, Arne
26 December 11 12:04 PM
Tomorrow I am going on an adventure! Despite predictions of a 30 knot breeze with rain tossed in, I plan to grab my rake and wander out to a mudflat to grab a handful of clams for tomorrow's dinner, and when I'm done, I'll be glad I did. I have yet to
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A Christmas Tale
25 December 11 08:53 AM
I love the Christmas Story, the lights, the glitter, the love. I love that the day coincides with the first glimmer of the rising sun. I love the madness that reminds us how tenuous our grip is. Here's a photo from the latest Vatican nativity scene. It's
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Are you Sirious?
24 December 11 04:38 PM
Tuesday I'll grab the clam rake for the last time this year. Late Tuesday afternoon I'll wander over to an exposed tidal flat, and pull food out of the muck. I do not know who crafted the tines of my rake, but I know how it was done. I do not know where
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Cerf the oceanographer
23 December 11 05:43 AM
New Jersey got a piece of the Race to the Top action yesterday. Given Arne's track record in reform, this may not bode well, but there's a glimmer of hope: “This award today will help us to accelerate the tide of reform across New Jersey.” Chris Cerf,
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Parrots, primates, and privilege
22 December 11 08:30 PM
Science and that old time religion do share a common link--the tendency to put H. sapiens on a pedestal with "dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing
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12:30 A.M
21 December 11 07:17 PM
Yep, the annual winter solstice news--the tinge of sadness I felt late June now reflects back as a tige of joy. The sun is dead. Long live the sun. 12:30 A.M. tonight the sun will stand still for an instant, shift its mass * , and head back north. 6 months
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Not a good reason to learn science....
21 December 11 12:19 AM
There are few good reasons to learn science, but if you want to know the universe outside the nutty human sphere wrapped around most of us in this part of the world, that should be reason enough. I hear a lot of educated people give inane reasons for
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Mr. Cerf's Christmas List
18 December 11 06:59 AM
An old-fashioned gum eraser ($0.45) New Jersey, like several other states, has an eraser problem--children in some districts have a bad habit of changing just about all their wrong answers into right ones. We're just clumsy that way. Mr. Cerf understands
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27 degrees
17 December 11 02:23 PM
The buffleheads are here now--we saw about a dozen in the Cape May Harbor, blooping into the water as they chased whatever it is that bufflehead chase. The bright white clown heads of the males clashes with the oblique shadows of the late year. We're
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Top four gifts for your favorite science teacher
17 December 11 10:43 AM
Here are a few inexpensive "toys" that can make your favorite biology teacher a hero in her classroom! Crookes radiometer (~$8): Mesmerizing, and the science is just incomplete enough to keep everyone guessing how it works. Turns out it won't work in
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Catechism in the classroom
17 December 11 08:59 AM
I have a lovely cross-section of an ash tree in class, about an inch thick and almost two feet wide. It makes a great sound when I rap it with my knuckle, its heft is just right, and it still smells great. Bored students count its rings, so I know it
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Dark
15 December 11 06:20 PM
Last week of the sinking sun. The Earth hurtles closer to the sun, but my little piece of paradise edges more and more oblique to the sun, our source of light, of life. We're in the dark season. *** The bell still rings at 7:45 in the morning. It's not
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In honor of errant cannonballs
11 December 11 06:27 PM
Most folks who read science blogs probably already know this, but the folks at Mythbusters managed to put a cannoball through both someone's home and another family's minivan. In honor of that, here's a repost from two Decembers ago. I love xkcd , and
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NJEA, really?
11 December 11 04:11 PM
I pay good money to be in a union. I get (in both senses) what we've gained as a union, and I'm glad we have the right to organize in New Jersey. Our Governor is a political beast, and will eventually be the second banana on the GOP 2012 ticket. In the
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Teaching photosynthesis
11 December 11 08:23 AM
I work hard to make my classroom "unscientifical." I discovered not so long ago that some students learn just enough scientifical vocabulary to throw me off their scent. We are raising a generation of liturgists. I ask specific questions no one truly
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Lunar (yawn) eclipse
10 December 11 08:32 AM
In a few moments the Earth's shadow will start to creep across the full moon. While it gives the science news folks something to squawk about, and they do, I suspect events like this turn more than a few children off to astronomy. Oh, it makes for a nice
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Full August moon just 4 months ago
09 December 11 06:27 PM
The grain moon of summer moves perceptibly Through the white birch we did not plant. It showed up as a sapling when our child still suckled And now drapes over the pond that the young one Dug when she needed to dig. Daphnia dance in the shadows of the
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Bill Gates can't dance
08 December 11 07:38 PM
In my previous life, I once found myself lounging on a raft in the middle of someone's very large swimming pool. Its owner stuck wires up the femoral arteries of babies, and got paid well to do that. She sighed the deep sigh of the eternally malcontent
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New worlds
07 December 11 09:21 PM
As various factions wrestle with various standards for various (and occasionally dubious) reasons, I find myself in a classroom with a couple dozen young humans at various stages of cognitive development, learning about the world. A drop of pond water
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In the you cannot make this stuff up department....
04 December 11 08:58 PM
"When using and choosing technology for children teachers should let children pretend with the types of gadgets they see their parents using. Stock the dramatic play area with a non-working mouse and keyboard, cell phone and/or electronic music device."
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Seasonal affective disorder is not
04 December 11 01:24 PM
Yep, this one again--I trot it out pretty much every year now for those who wonder why I'm such a crab in the winter.... Every year the Earth orbits around the sun, and every year, the shadows lengthen as the days shorten. While this may be news to those
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