I would like very much to go to the Siemen's STEM Institute this summer, though after today, I'm not sure they'd welcome me  in their midst. I've spent hours wrestling with a Flip camera, MS Movie Maker, and and apparent conflict between the chip set in my laptop and the rest of the world (a chip with a chip on its shoulder), and  may be ...

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 grew for about 100 years, give or take a decade. Every biology class should have one. We are ...

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 a bell anymore, but we still call it that. I blew a conch shell as the bell sounded, an ...

If a child has an insatiable appetite to learn about the world, to pursue patterns and rhythms in the swirl of sensations slipping into her consciousness each day, then it makes sense to teach her the vocabulary of the trade. If a child chases the rational world with her eyes alit, then it makes sense to teach her the finer points of ...

We got smacked last week--I still step over a downed line when walking to school, and the curbs are lined with life-like tree limbs. Just seeing all these leafy zombie branches edging the asphalt gives me an odd joy. I wonder if other biology teachers feel the same way. The storm was a great reminder why trees scurry to drop their leaves in the ...

If you want to kill a child's interest in astronomy,buy her the biggest piece of glass you can afford the first hour she expresses any interest in the stars. Make sure it's got a computer-guided star finder, and that it ''talks'' to her as she explores the skies. Better yet, have her log onto a remote telescope where she can ''guide'' the scope to ...

We're winding down. Tomorrow I will wander over to the windowsill, pluck a few snowpeas who know only our classroom, and eat them. I will remind the students that their breath was combined with water, using the energy of the sun. Communion without fanfare, a miracle unrecognized. And if a few students leave class this week, our last few days ...

Thanks to The Violet Hour for pointing me in Michael Leunig's direction. ''I [Richard Lawrence] specifically asked Leunig about the copyright implications of this and he replied that  he derives great pleasure from the knowledge that people send his 'toons, poems and prayers to friends all over the world.'' --Richard Lawrence, curator of ...

Our crocuses bloomed today. A tiny horseshoe crab, smaller than my thumbnail, crawled out of the Delaware Bay. The day lilies are rising again, like Phoenixes from the snow's ashes. All of this is more real than the nonsense that passes for discourse in the education world. I can still close my classroom door (though I rarely do) and tackle ...

We're a few weeks away from the crocuses. They know the sun is coming back. I do not know how they know but they do. Soon green fingers will break through the corms. Meanwhile, my clams have settled in for the winter. Not deep, maybe 2 or 3 inches deeper than July, but still deeper, clammed up tight, waiting for the water to warm. Deep for a ...