Oh, tis a wondrous thing to be Irish, although the same could not be said earlier in our country’s history.  Many people do not know how unwelcome the Irish were here,  in those days.  We’ve since learned wisdom.

I loved to read about Beany Malone for so many reasons, some of which were the casual ways their Irish ancestry was a part of their everyday lives.

Click here for some cool St. Patrick’s Day experiments for you and your kids to do, stolen borrowed from the Master Magician Scientist, Steve Spangler.

For another foin Irish activity, why don’t you and your kids make a leprechaun trap and see what you catch in it?  And what’s a little green water between friends?

(This picture is by Tim Nyberg, a fantastic artist who draws awesome things for the Wittenburg Door, which is a wonderful thing in and of itself.)  (Don’t click the link if your corncob makes you walk funny.)

What is it supposed to be?

Why, it’s St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland, of course.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all. If you’re not wearing green, strangers are allowed to pinch you.

What’s that?  I can’t hear you.  Come a little closer. . . thaaaaat’s right.  Gotcha.

I repost this, adding a little here and there and subtracting a little likewise, each March 17, so if it looks familiar to you, you’re not crazy.  Well, not about this post, anyway.

Pogue Ma’Hone to you all, for you know why you deserve it even if I don’t.

Remove a marble from the vase, and it won’t be green; it will be clear.  It’s magic!

As long as the jelly marbles are kept hydrated, they’ll stay large and round.  If I let them dry out, they’ll revert to their teeny, tiny form and will barely cover the bottom of the vase.

It was Christmas, so I stuck some candy canes in the vase.  When I start bringing fresh flowers into the house, the jelly marbles will keep the flowers healthy far longer than plain water will. 

Now THESE jelly marbles are in a tightly sealed candy jar, so they will last pretty much forever.  I like the look of this jar so much, I’m going to keep it out indefinitely.  Notice how the green coloring has settled on the bottom of the jar?  If I shake the jar, all of the marbles will be green, but I think I’ll keep it this way.  I like its looks.

If you come over, though, I’ll give the jar a shake so you can see all the marbles turn green.

Later in the season, I’ll tell y’all how awesome jelly marbles are for gardening, and repotting plants.  Seriously, I don’t know how I ever got along without them.

Oh, yes.  I remember.  Most of my plants died from lack of watering.

Not any more, though.

Jelly Marbles. They’re awesome in every way.

P.S.  At Halloween, you can make ghosts with them.

Just think of all the lessons we can sneak in, with this activity! Holidays, following directions, scissor usage, where paper comes from, recycling. . . . I’m SO using this one with my summer program this year!

Thanks again, Steve Spangler. Teachers and parents can always count on you to give us wonderful ideas for our children.

In fact, it’s not just kids who love Spangler Science “stuff,” either. My college students have had their share of wonder, and I haven’t met an adult yet who wasn’t fascinated!

This “tree” activity is free and simple and fun and educational. Just make sure your children are old enough to handle scissors safely, and if they aren’t, let them watch YOU do it! That moment of making/watching the tree grow will help instill a sense of magic and wonder and desire to find out HOW and WHY and WHAT IF and shouldn’t those be a goal of any and every lesson?

This would be an excellent annual Christmas Eve activity, wouldn’t it. Why not gather up some of those old newspapers, grab a roll of tape and some scissors, and have some fun with your kids tonight?

I recommend that all teachers and parents sign up for Spangler’s Experiment of the Week; you’ll get a new experiment – every detail of it – in your inbox every week. Your kids will blow the Science Fair out of the water!

Did I mention that it’s free? All Spangler videos and instructions are free. Absolutely, positively, 100% free, and with no obligations to buy anything. Most online instructors, particularly the science guys, charge for their knowledge and experience, but Steve Spangler gives it away. Yes, he’s got an awesome catalog where you can purchase a lot of his amazing science toys and more complicated experiments, etc, but the bulk of what he offers our children is free. FREE.

I’ve met Steve Spangler. He’s the most enthusiastic and sincere instructor I’ve ever encountered, and his passion for our children’s understanding of and excitement for the wonders of the universe is unsurpassed by anyone in my considerable experience. Take advantage of what this man has to offer your family, my friends.

I stand behind every word I’ve said here. That’s considerable bulk, my dears.

Have a wonderful Christmas Eve. Make trees with your children. Hang ‘em from the ceiling! (The trees, not the kids.) Decorate them. Make party decorations. This activity is a great show-and-tell for your kids, too. Why not encourage your children to share what they’ve learned with other kids? Our children are bursting to learn and share, if only we give them the outlets!

No, not THAT kind of outlet. Keep their fingers AWAY from them.

If I tell you that my kitchen is now covered with newspaper trees, you wouldn’t be a bit surprised, wouldya. Nobody here was, either. In fact, the little neighbor kids are coming over here in a few hours to make trees with me. They’re used to me by now, but it’s still a surprise for their parents every time.

Science is awesome. Too bad most school systems don’t think so. But then, if science were important, it would be TESTED, now wouldn’t it. But you really don’t want to get me started on that. Not at Christmas.

Have fun! Post pictures!!! I’d LOVE to see your kids’ newspaper trees!

Teaching – done right – isn’t an 8-hour day. It’s not even a 12-hour day for some of us.

How many people would willingly put up with some of the stuff teachers have to put up with? I mean besides you uppity folk who throw summer in our faces, and who can’t understand why another adult would not appreciate the adorable way Corralleighna stomps her foot, scratches, and uses Uncle Daddy’s cuss words in that little baby voice when she doesn’t get her way? So cute.

Teaching- done right- is standup. Every time the bell rings, the teacher has a new audience. Each audience is different and must be approached and handled individually. The better classrooms are like an interactive Rocky Horror midnight showing; there is as much action from the audience as from the headliners. However, just as a good interactive audience knows when to sit quietly and wait for instructions or permissions, a good classroom knows when to do the same. Badly behaved audience members are escorted OUT; what a shame our badly behaved class members don’t get the same. But I digress.

Key word there:  interactive.  A demo is not interactive.  A demo is just a demo.  Students should be interactive participants, not deadpan watchers of a demo. (Unless the next step is interaction.)  Instruction, participation, interaction, and then the student does the demo all by himself/herself, with full understandingof what’s happening, and eager to show someone else.

To some people, such skills come naturally.  To others of us, these skills must be taught.

We all need a hero to keep going. Without these heroes, we have no proof, sometimes, that “it” CAN be done and done right and done so well we’re left gaping in awe.

There is that one someone in each profession who is so good at what he or she does, so awesomely absolutely good at it, that we think of this person as a kind of professional idol. A celebrity in our field. We strive to – not imitate, for that never works in any profession – but to use as a good example of what we are ALL trying to do. . . that person who has figured out how to do “it” right, whatever “it” might be. Every profession has an icon.

Here is mine:

Of course, you all probably already know that if you mix candy corn and salted peanuts together in a big bowl, you’ve got handfuls of PayDay bar goodness.

Peanuts are a meat substitute, and candy corn is pretty much fat-free (paraffin never hurt anybody) so really, a big bowl of candy corn and peanuts is GOOD for you.

Eat up.

Oh, and THIS IS HALLOWE’EN!

In case you are wondering, the word “Hallowe’en” is SUPPOSED to have an apostrophe in it. It’s an old spelling, but I like it so I use it.  I think you should, too.  It would help us all remember what the word actually means.

I learned it from the literature book my mother used when she was in the third grade.  I loved that book as a child, and I still do.  Wonder of wonders – and oh MY, how veddy, veddy politically incorrect – that book contained actual, honest-to-pete LITERATURE!  Yes, actual literature, not those stupid, insipid, limited-vocabulary travesties some teachers call “literature;” heck, I wouldn’t even call that stuff “stories.”  It’s most certainly not literature.

But that third grade book had excerpts from Peter Pan, and Les Miserables, and Little House in the Big Woods. That little schoolbook is why I read those novels when I was in lower elementary school.

Back then, schoolbooks were purchased, not rented, and Mom loved that book so much, she kept it, and re-read it many times.  Once I learned to read, so did I.

I don’t think I ever had a Language Arts book I liked well enough to want to keep, even if it had been permitted.  Watered-down abridgements are the devil, and I mean that in a truly satanic way.  And you really don’t want to get me started on “limited vocabulary” selections. Kids learn new words by exposure to new words.  No exposure = no new words added to one’s vocabulary.

No wonder so many of our kids today aren’t interested in reading for pleasure.  Our schools don’t give them anything worth reading.  Some of them graduate – or don’t – without ever having been exposed to a single interesting, challenging thing worth reading.

And this from someone who actually liked Silas Marner.

But speaking of Halloween, my favorite person, my mentor, my idol, Steve Spangler, will be on “Ellen” again tomorrow, Friday, Oct. 30!  Check your TV Guide for the time in your area, and be sure to watch!  Then go to his blog and tell him how breathtakingly beautiful awesome he was!

Here are some things Steve Spangler has done on “Ellen” in segments past; sit up straight and pay attention when he gets to those pumpkins – it’ll knock your socks off, if you’re wearing socks.  If you’re not, it’ll curl your toes.  If you have no toes, well, I cried because I had no shoes.

If you go thou and do likewise, don’t forget your goggles.

Remember: You simply MUST watch Ellen tomorrow – Friday – because Steve Spangler is her guest.

There will be a test. There will also be prizes.

I’m not kidding.

I’m hooked now on writing conferences.  Social media get-togethers have become my crack cocaine.  No longer do I have to cook my meth in my neighbor’s front yard, over an open flame in full view of passing state cops – hey, it IS Indiana, remember, and near the river to boot – for now I can get my high by mingling with and listening to smart people talk about blogging, writing, social media, and all things such as them there.  Not to mention honing my mad grammar skillz which have gone to poop pot in just these past few days of what might euphemistically be called “My Vacation.”

WordCamp got me hooked.  BlogHer made it worse.  Science in the Rockies helped me realize just how important social media connections can be; besides which, it was an absolute BLAST, and the most educational of all educational conferences I’ve ever attended. (Hurry and sign up for 2010!!)    BlogIndiana will give me a much-needed fix. (It’s not too late to sign up!)   And in October,  I’ll be getting my blogging high on in Las Vegas at Blog World Expo, the Big One.

Someone recently asked me WHY I was so keen to go to the Expo. I highly respect this person and have for quite a while, so even though I answered her directly, I’ll answer her here as well, and not merely by saying “please see above.”  Although I guess I just said that.   I will then add that even though the social media thang is a few years old, it’s still pretty much brand-new, and those of us who are addicted are hooked pretty hard.  Around these parts, at least, it’s impossible to find others with whom I can squee and ooooh and exchange points of view about social media and blogging and making all kinds of connections for my clients and doing the business thing with it and using it for things other than the “My babies are so beautiful this morning and I just HAD to tell everybody here” or “I’m having scrambled eggs this morning; what are you having” kind of communication, although such Twitters are interesting and informative to be sure.  There is also so much more to it than having a My Space and selecting the appropriately goth/sparkly/NASCAR/DisneyPrincess/Hogwarts/polka-dotted background and making the dizzying decision as to who will be your TOP FRIENDS this week.

Side note:  If you have a business and have no online presence, you’re losing out on a lot of connection  opportunities.  Get with it, old-timer.  Put down your slide rule, slip that cover over your typewriter, get a phone that isn’t fastened to the wall, replace your Windows 95, and hire somebody who knows how to make your existence known without shelling out tons of money.  Some money, thankyouverymuch, but not tons.  Seriously, you’ll save tons and get megatons back.  Hello, my email is on the sidebar.

Do you like baseball?  Then you’ll LOVE Ultimate Baseball: The Game.  Seriously.

But I digress.

School has already started for many of you. . . . nah, that’s another post in and of itself.  “Never mind.”

Writing conferences.  Come on, meet me there!  You’ll also meet JustHeather, and maybe she’ll take a picture of YOU with a pickle hanging out of your mouth!  If you’re lucky, that is.

Don’t be afraid.  I’m harmless.  I’m nice, really I am, apart from my terrible taste in pie, and. . . no, wait, that’s from Love Actually.

I am nice, though.  Harmless, nice, eager to learn everything I possibly can about social media, business, giving YOUR enterprise an online presence to be valued and envied, blogging, and looking forward to next week for many, many reasons.

One of those reasons is the people.  It would be really awesome if a lot of YOU were there.

Hey, Tumorless Sister, two words:  Project Runway.  Honest.

It’s almost 4 a.m. and I just got home.  Amtrak, you rock!  And, you’re cheap!  It was a winning combination I’ve never been able to resist.

Already I miss Fausta and Shannon; heck, I miss KARL!    Lindsey, I’m so glad I was able to deliver Hoss’s message; he made me promise, although I would have told you anyway because it – and he – were just so blazingly sweet, as are you.  Yvonne, you really ARE as beautiful as all the men in my family tell me constantly.  Sigh.

Adrienne, two words about our game of pool:   NEENER NEENER!  (Thanks, I LOVED IT! )

Busymom, this has got to stop.  Why don’t you just come to visit me in Indiana?  We’ve got years of hugs and conversation to catch up on.

Table For Five, I love you.  Period.

It was wonderful beyond description to see my Spangler Science peeps at BlogHer this year.  When you call to order stuff, please tell Julie, Alyssa, and Susan to come again next time!  And to get tiaras! They have to have tiaras.  We all need a tiara in our lives.

Em, I understand now why Fausta loves you!  I do, too.

I met and talked with the BlogHer scholarship winners, and they are all fantastic!

Oh, and Grace. . . my darling, wonderful Grace.  How can I tell you what you mean to me?  I can’t.  There are no words good enough for you.

Not to go into detail or anything, but it had been a long time since I was at a party cool enough to be busted by security.

Question:  Do I sound enough like an 8th grader?  No?  I shall try harder then.

Next year, BlogHer will be in. . . . .drum roll. . . . .NEW YORK!  I’ve never been to New York, but after next year’s BlogHer I will never be able to say that again.

As for the bunch I sort of let my hair down with. . . . um, what happens at BlogHer stays at BlogHer, right?  RIGHT?  Oh, please say I’m right.  Besides, I took a few notes about y’all, too.  And wasn’t it FUN!!!!!!!  I’d wanted to meet you for soooo long, and it was worth the wait because you all rocked. As for men with shaved backs, I like them.  Shaved, not waxed.  But I digress, for nobody wants to hear about that conversation, for it was just too dirty personal.  Right, Leslie?  Miss Nancy?  Fausta?  I’ve been boring all my life.

I go to BlogHer every chance I get for several reasons, and they are all good reasons:  BlogHer helps me hone my skills, and not just technically.  BlogHer unites – and reunites – me with friends I read regularly and love dearly and see at no other time or place.  BlogHer introduces me to new friends and new blogs to read.  BlogHer allows me to travel to new places.  BlogHer expands my heart and soul and mind in too many ways to mention.  BlogHer helps me remember that women can do anything men can do.  As my wonderful tango-ing friend Fausta can attest, women can do that  backwards and in high heels, like Ginger Rogers!  Heck, we can even pee standing up if we want to, and if the toilet is nasty, we want to. And, BlogHer tells me which big businesses are listening to me.

BlogHer gives businesses the chance to woo and win me with PROOF THAT THEY CARE ABOUT WOMEN.    A business that understands social media is a savvy business that will build a solid community of loyal customers.  Remember, the best advertisement is word of mouth, and a business that understands that the Blogosphere is the absolute BIGGEST word-of-mouth advertisement for its products/services will reap the benefits of such intelligent discovery.  Awesome samples never hurt, either.  I’m far more inclined to purchase something if I’ve been given a viable sample first.  Woo hoo, samples!  SWAG!  Oh, and there was all that free food everywhere.  Cute waiters with trays of skewered chicken and h’orderves, and people constantly asking me if I would like a glass of wine – duh – and bowls of nuts and m&m’s. . . and I think my months and months of dieting were put to the test and I failed it.  But it was all out of town so nothing counts, right?  Well, that’s how I rationalize it anyway.

I had my picture taken with the Michelin man for comparison purposes.

How much swag this year?  I couldn’t pack it and carry it, even on a train.  I had to box it up and let FedEx – which set up a kiosk at the conference because it KNOWS how to get our business – take care of it for me.

How many boxes of swag?

Four.  Four boxes of scintillating loot that I can’t wait to paw through.

Thank you, BlogHer.  I love you, and not just because you’re all purty.

P.S.  Shannon, I love you so much it makes my heart vibrate.  You know, like my phone in that special pocket.  Heh.

P.P.S.  I’m a nice lady with a dainty, lacy, moral turn of mind, but, dear ME, did you ever see a weiner that looked more like a WEINER in your LIFE?  I swear, I was laughing so hard during lunch on Sunday I could hardly, um, swallow.

Plus, it was almost a foot long.  But then, aren’t they all?

Elisa, Jory, and Lisa:  You did a breathtakingly fantastic job once again.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

(The crappy WiFi in the hotel was NOT your fault.)

Next stop:  BlogIndiana.  (You don’t have to live in Indiana to go!)   After that, the big one:  Blog World Expo!  Come on, BlogHers, sign up!

Better late than never. . . .

Mamacita says:  Anyone of any age who “hates science” never had a good science teacher.  With a good science teacher, a child will explode with enthusiasm the minute he/she runs into the house, and will talk about what he/she saw and learned all through dinner.  A good science teacher encourages students to get up and touch things and get messy.  A good science teacher will make things explode and then allow the students to make things explode.  A good science teacher laughs a lot, and knows how to play with science.  A good science teacher understands that mixing some science with some magic equals AWESOMENESS!  Good science teachers don’t use worksheets in place of action, and they don’t assign lots and lots of reading and fill-in-the-blanks and T/F.  (All of this applies to ANY teacher, by the way.)  Good science teachers help students create wonder and amazement, and show them how to explain it to someone else.  (Remember, you don’t really understand something unless you can explain it to your mother.   ~ Unknown.) (If your state standards forbid this, your state standards are not merely wrong; they are evil.)  (If your administration forbids or even discourages this, your administration is evil, too.)

If you are a teacher whose students don’t absolutely LOVE your class, you’re not doing it right.  Quite possibly, you’re not doing it at all.  This is harsh, but I do not apologize.  Get up off your keisters – both teacher and students – and stick your hands in it.  It’s sad and bad enough that there are teachers who don’t throw a lot of laughter and excitement and hands-on into their classes; don’t YOU do it, either.

And do not lose sight of the fact that what we remember while laughing, we usually remember.

1. Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science. ~Edwin Powell Hubble

2. No one should approach the temple of science with the soul of a money changer. ~Thomas Browne

3. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate. ~Henry J. Tillman (I LOVE this one!)

4. Nature composes some of her loveliest poems for the microscope and the telescope. ~Theodore Roszak

5. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. ~Mark Twain

6. The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I found it!) but “That’s funny…” ~Isaac Asimov

7. Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination. ~John Dewey

8. Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

9. The great men of science are supreme artists. ~Martin H. Fischer

10. The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. Without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria and there would be no music. ~Lewis Thomas

11. The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he’s one who asks the right questions. ~Claude Lévi-Strauss

12. Most institutions demand unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue. ~Robert K. Merton

13. There are no physicists in the hottest parts of hell, because the existence of a ‘hottest part’ implies a temperature difference, and any marginally competent physicist would immediately use this to run a heat engine and make some other part of hell comfortably cool. This is obviously impossible. ~Richard Davisson

14. In a manner which matches the fortuity, if not the consequence, of Archimedes’ bath and Newton’s apple, the [3.6 million year old] fossil footprints were eventually noticed one evening in September 1976 by the paleontologist Andrew Hill, who fell while avoiding a ball of elephant dung hurled at him by the ecologist David Western. ~John Reader

15. The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking. ~Albert Einstein

16. I have had my results for a long time: but I do not yet know how I am to arrive at them. ~Karl Friedrich Gauss

17. The way to do research is to attack the facts at the point of greatest astonishment. ~Celia Green

18. Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art. ~Will Durant

19. There is no national science just as there is no national multiplication table; what is national is no longer science. ~Anton Chekhov

20. In science it often happens that scientists say, “You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,” and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. ~Carl Sagan

21. The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. ~Eden Phillpotts

22. My mother made me a scientist without ever intending to. Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school, “So? Did you learn anything today?” But not my mother. “Izzy,” she would say, “did you ask a good question today?” That difference – asking good questions – made me become a scientist. ~Isidor Isaac Rabi

23. A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. ~Max Planck

24. The improver of natural science absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties: blind faith the one unpardonable sin. ~Thomas Henry Huxley

25. It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics and chemistry. ~H.L. Mencken

26. The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious – the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. ~Albert Einstein

27. The First Clarke Law states, ‘If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible he is almost certainly right, but if he says that it is impossible he is very probably wrong. ~Arthur C. Clarke

28. Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine. ~Arthur Eddington

29. It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science. ~Carl Sagan

30. I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reasons, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. ~Galileo Galilei

31. Science and art belong to the whole world, and before them vanish the barriers of nationality. ~Goethe

32. When people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together. ~Isaac Asimov

33. I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. ~Isaac Newton

34. There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth. ~Marie Curie

35. The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

36. After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked — as I am surprisingly often — why I bother to get up in the mornings. ~Richard Dawkins

37. The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them. ~Sir William Bragg

38. All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man’s life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom. ~Albert Einstein

39. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious. ~Alfred North Whitehead

40. Science is a great game. It is inspiring and refreshing. The playing field is the universe itself. ~Isidor Isaac Rabi

41. There is no adequate defense, except stupidity, against the impact of a new idea. ~ Percy Williams Bridgman

42. In Science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurred. ~ Sir William Osler

43. If anybody says he can think about quantum problems without getting giddy, that only shows he has not understood the first thing about them. ~ Niels Henrik David Bohr

44. Innocence about Science is the worst crime today. ~ Sir Charles Percy Snow

45. To say that a man is made up of certain chemical elements is a satisfactory description only for those who intend to use him as a fertilizer. ~ Hermann Joseph Muller

46. When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it is tied to everything else in the universe. ~John Muir (This is what I try to show my students with everything we do in class.) (The Universe is the great “6 Degrees of Separation” demonstration.)

47. Science is not formal logic–it needs the free play of the mind in as great a degree as any other creative art. It is true that this is a gift which can hardly be taught, but its growth can be encouraged in those who already posses it. ~Max Born

48. There ain’t no rules around here! We’re trying to accomplish something! ~Thomas Alva Edison

49. I am sitting here 93 million miles from the sun on a rounded rock which is spinning at the rate of 1000 miles an hour… and my head pointing down into space with nothing between me and infinity but something called gravity which I can’t even understand, and which you can’t even buy any place so as to have some stored away for a gravityless day… ~Russell Baker

50. So, what can you learn by using humor in the classroom and out there in life? . . . you’ll learn that it’s possible to tap into a kid’s natural sense of humor and awaken an enthusiasm for discovery and learning. . .you’ll realize that a rocket ship COULD travel to the sun. . . if you believe it’s possible. By using the power of humor to create unforgettable learning experiences, you rekindle a childlike sense of wonder – in both children and adults. . . . ~Steve Spangler

Six Degrees of Separation?  It’s what I do all day!  I connect the dots from topic to topic, from person to person, from place to place.  There is no such thing as something that isn’t connected to something else.  NOTHING exists  ONLY within the four walls of a classroom in a vaccuum.  No man is an island, etc. etc. etc.  Neither is anything else.

When your students ask you “Why do I have to learn this?”  you’d better have a good answer for them.  It’s a legitimate question.  There ARE answers.  If you don’t know them, why are you in charge of this classroom?

Use “Because some day you might be on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, and I’m counting on you sharing your winnings with me in thanks for the answers,” if you can’t think of any other reason.

Teachers have a tendency to keep all their discoveries and methods to themselves, when they ought to be sharing and coordinating and working WITH each other.

As for ISTEP Prep and Teaching Our Standards In Order. . . . . . .(scroll down)

Piss on them.

If enough people speak out, maybe we can change a lot of the absolute nonsense that’s being forced on our schools.

Learning is a lightning bolt, not a worksheet.

*Occasional exception made for those students who come to school only because the law requires it, and who exist only to disrupt and destroy.

It hasn’t even officially begun yet, but already I’m having an AWESOME TIME!  Steve and his staff are absolutely wonderful, and I know that the actual seminar will be fun, fun, FUN – not to mention enlightening.  I’m serious; everyone I’ve met has been fantastic.

In case you’re wondering why a college professor is interested in science toys and methods, let me first say that NOBODY is ever too old – or too young – to learn something new.  That holds true for me and for my students.

Also, there are so many things that can be done for students even at this level with some of Steve’s science stuff, well, you’d almost have to see it to believe it.  I’ve been using his Insta-Snow for a couple of years now to get a certain point across, and it WORKS PERFECTLY!

BE SURE TO GET THE REAL INSTA-SNOW!  There are several fakes imitations out there, and all they do is turn to mush.

Insta-Snow turns to SNOW.  A lot of snow.

If you sign up for Steve Spangler’s Experiment of the Week, you’ll get a free science experiment in your inbox each week and every part and particle of it is absolutely free. It’s summer, the kids are bored already, and some cool messy exploding fizzy bouncing educational science toys would be perfection on a stick.  Did I mention that the Experiment of the Week is FREE?  Tons of Steve’s stuff is free.

Unlike a certain other science guy who charges an arm and a leg.  Honestly, why would anybody go to that guy’s site and pay, when Steve’s giving it away for free?

Steve’s also not afraid to let people comment their true feelings, even if there’s an occasional offity; whereas, this other guy (name on request) won’t allow any comments except the good ones to be seen.  Coward.

There’s still time.  Science in the Rockies doesn’t officially start until Wednesday morning.  Quick, get out here FAST and join in the fun.

I”m serious.  It hasn’t even started yet and I’m having the time of my life.  These people are friggin’ AWESOME.

And tomorrow night, I’m going to see some precious Colorado friends!   Can’t WAIT!

Oh, oh, and in a few hours, I’m going shopping with Hula!

1. By the time most of you read this, I’ll be in Colorado at Science in the Rockies, having a fantastic time, learning incredible things, meeting amazing people,  and collecting unbelievable swag.  There are a lot of people in Colorado whom I love dearly;  CALL ME!

2.  My feet are killing me.

3.  It’s hard to find a little travel laptop mouse any more.  Thank you, Big Lots.

4.  My house is a mess.  I didn’t straighten it up before I left.  This fact does not bother me overmuch.

5.  I did run all the dirty dishes through the dishwasher, though.  I can’t abide a sink of dirty dishes.

6.  My husband will be subbing for me at the college.  We’re leaving in a half hour, so I really should get some lesson plans ready for him.  Ouch.

7.  This has been a lovely, happy summer so far.

8.  I have a potty mouth.  It’s a good one, too.  I was an English major.  This fact shames me, but not as much as it makes me giggle.

9.  I always worry that I’ll say something dreadful and make a roomful of people gasp and draw back.  See #8.  I do not want this to happen.  Ever.  Eventually, it will.

10.  I am very, very, very, very, very shy.  $%^&*()&%^&*())(*&^%^&*)(#$ shy.

2.