What makes a good assignment? Maybe one that is interesting enough to make you decide to take part in it with your students. Well if that is the case, this initial "about me" post for the blogging assignment must be good! It is Sunday afternoon and I decided to get some grading done and updated the PLN and Blogging project. I'm figuring that having a post to share will make this easier so I decided to join in. I wrote the majority of this post in 2013 hence the short beard picture. I figured I would leave it. Who knows, if the mask mandate stays you might be seeing it again soon.
Now I have to figure out what I do that you might be interested in. Family comes to mind right away, but I will probably share enough stories about them as the year goes on that I can skip that for now. So basically that leaves Canada, music, teaching, and books. Believe it or not, teaching is a passion and I invest myself in it completely. Not only do I teach biology and environmental science, but I also teach graduate courses on technology to teachers through a company called Eduspire. Of course, since you are in my class right now, you probably don't want to hear me talk about teaching...
Adult loon bringing fish to the surface
Young loon with fish
How about Canada? My grandparents starting going to Canada when my mother was little. Eventually, they purchased land there and built a cottage (a long story shortened). Every year I spend as much time there as I can. This year was a bust as the border has been closed. It is quite depressing as it is the first summer without the lake in 46 years! It is my favorite place on Earth, think superman's fortress of solitude. I loved my grandparents and visiting the cottage they built means so much. Now that they are gone it definitely makes you feel close to them just being there. I hardly ever fish, but I love to grab my camera, go out in the boat, and try and take some amazing pictures. Loons are my favorite subject. Their calls drifting across the lake late at night are just beautiful. I included two rare pictures I took over labor day many years ago of loons bringing fish to the surface to feed their young. The picture of the cottage is from the fall right as the leaves were starting to change color.
Cottage - Early fall
I also love to play music and have played in bands off and on for most of my life. Right now I play every Sunday for the worship team at my church. Probably my favorite band I ever played in was a blues band. Blues is great music if you just want the ability to open up and jam. Against my better judgement, I included a clip of a blues band I use to play with playing at the Blues Society of Central PA's Treasurers Picnic. This song is a slow blues, but those are the tunes you can stretch out and jam on... :)
Finally, I got turned onto audiobooks a few years ago. Before that, I never read and audiobooks opened a whole new world of literature to me. I can't believe what I was missing before. If you don't like to read highly suggest you try them out. They have them at the library. If you do read, let's talk literature sometime, I am always looking for a great book to "read". Friend me on Goodreads and recommend something or check out what I am reading...
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
As we start the last project for the year, it is a good time to revisit the six core academic values I included in your syllabus. They are:
Inquiry - What questions can we ask?
Research - How do we seek out powerful answers to those questions?
Collaboration -How do we make answers deeper, richer, better?
Presentation - How do we share what we know?
Audience - Who do we share our work with?
Reflection - How do we step back and learn from what we have done?
Your audience for this project will be your classmates. We will be posting our final products into a workshop activity in Moodle. You will be required to watch each others product and grade them using a rubric. Make sure to leave good comments for your classmates. This will help both you and them with the reflection piece.
Now, I gave you some questions to answer for this project. Do not let that keep you from developing your own as you research. If your research sparks a new question or avenue of discovery follow it. Keep in mind we are looking for “powerful” answers to the questions. Check your sources and dig a little deeper. Don’t be afraid to use the tools at your disposal and try and reach out and actually interview or talk to someone in the field you are researching. Remember that collaboration is not dividing and conquering. If each member of your group works independently on different sections it will be hard for you to get a good flow to your project. Plus, better ideas and solutions are discovered when each member of the group helps with the research and shares their thoughts and ideas.
Lastly, I am looking forward to being impressed by you and what you can accomplish.
You might be asking yourself why I am revisiting this
blog, especially since we ended the blogging project at the end of second
marking period. Well, to be completely honest, because I am currently taking a
graduate course at MillersvilleUniversity that requires it.
As always, I like to be completely transparent with you and make sure you
understand why we do the things we do. So, as you are sitting there thinking
that I am only doing this because I have too, ask yourself why your teacher is
taking a graduate course. Hopefully you understand that I am doing this so I
can continue my own education and bring something new back to the classroom. I
know I am not perfect, even though you might think so (chuckling to myself here),
and that there is a wealth of knowledge out there that can make me better at
what I do. How can I expect you to become a life long learner, a student that
wants to learn, if I do not walk the same journey and model it for you? So as
you revisit this blog from our past, keep in mind that this is more than just a
grade for me. It is a way to demonstrate to you that I value you enough to
spend my time researching, learning, and trying out new things in order to
serve you better. That said, I hope you spend you last few days with me
continuing to do the same!
Couldn't resist including this very cheesy video about life long learning...
In class we have been discussing evolution lately. Specifically, we have discussed Darwin's mechanism for evolution or natural selection. Basically we can sum up natural selection in five points; nature produces more offspring than can survive, the environment is hostile, there is variation among offspring, some traits provide organisms with an advantage, and each generation has more offspring with the beneficial traits. In order for natural selection to work, the organism with the most beneficial trait has to reproduce and pass that trait on to it's offspring. Imagining that there are many ways in which an organism can do this, I think you will be surprised to consider the one highlighted in the article 'A Toad-Eat-Toad World,' and other Tales of Animal Cannibals by Natalie Angier. Yes, you read the title right. How about ensuring your right to mate by consuming (literally) the competition.
Angier tells the tale of cannibalism in several different species, focusing initially on the cane toad. Now you may be asking yourself, "how can this benefit the toad in terms of natural selection?" Three possible "motives" for the cannibalism are described as follows:
Tadpoles feasting on the eggs will speed up their own maturation. Eggs are packed with nutrients, so think of it like a high energy drink.
If the eggs are allowed to hatch and develop they will just be producing future rivals for food, shelter, and mates. By sitting down to dinner with a relative (evolutionarily speaking), the tadpoles are eliminating the competition before it exists. Truthfully, even of the eggs came from the tadpoles mother, who knows what male actually fertilized them. The fact that their mother has little discretion in choosing her mates means they are not dining with on a full blooded relative.
Since the cane toads produce a toxin that most other animals can not eat, the eggs become a food source that is not available to other species.
So how does this relate to natural selection. Keep in mind that at it's foundation is the idea that organisms with beneficial traits must pass them onto the next generation. In order to do that, they must reach a reproductive age and produce offspring. Through cannibalism, they are essentially eating their way to their mates hearts.
The cane toads are an interesting species, and not just because of their family dinners. Cane toads were introduced into Australia in 1935 to control the cane beetle. As with many introduced species this has turned out to be a disaster. With very few native organisms that prey upon the cane toad they have quickly overpopulated and reduced the populations of other organisms with which they compete. Needless to say, they did little to stop the problem for which they were introduced. Especially since the cane toads can't jump high enough to eat the beetles living on the cane stalks. I suggest reading the Wikipedia article about their introduction to Australia for more information.
Watch the following video to see just how Australia is dealing with the problem of this introduced species:
I'll end with this... would you believe that there are people that actually lick these toads because of the hallucinogen effects from their toxins? The same toxins that are the reason they have very few predators in Australia. Toxins which can potentially stop your heart! Of course you would, people do dumb stuff all the time. Well toad lickers, there might be hope for you yet! Bart Currie from the Menzies School of Health thinks he might be able to find a treatment for the poison in the slatey grey and keelback snake venom. After all, these snakes can consume the cain toad. Even if he does, how desperate and low must you be to have to lick a toad to have fun. Hopefully, cannibalism will not be necessary to ensure these people don't pass their genes on to the next generation.
As we have moved through the beginning stages of studying environmental science, a recurring topic has been our ecological footprint. We watched the movie The Human Footprint and saw first hand just what our individual impact is on the Earth. This movie provided a visual of the stagering quantities of goods and services those of us living in the United States consume during our lifetime. We have also discussed the very real fact that developed countries use 75% of the world's resources even though we make up only 20% of it's population. What does that mean exactly for the 80% of the world's population that live in developing countries? Essentially, that in order for us to maintain our lifestyle of privilege they have to remain poor. Is that fair? What can be done?
The inspiration for this post came last week while I was browsing Twitter posts about education. One post directed me towards a pretty unique video. The video was for Sarah McLachlan's single World on Fire. The song itself is very inspiring. According to McLachlan, "The song is about trying not to feel paralyzed when we see all that is wrong with the world, and remembering that even the smallest gesture can make a difference - corny but true." The video was made with donated labor, and as you can tell from watching, very little in terms of flash and glam. The most poignant part of the video is the captions and pictures interspersed throughout. The video gives the standard rates for various production costs and then explains how the money was actually spent. After watching the video, you can learn more about the motivations and inspirations by visiting this page on the Media that Matters website. It says so much that McLachlan used her wealth to make a difference rather than make an over the top music video. One that would have probably diluted the meaning of the song anyway.
Of course this isn't the first time that Sarah McLachlan has used her star power and unique voice to support a great cause. Most of you will probably remember this commercial she did to fight animal cruelty.
There is no doubt that McLachlan is doing great things, but what about us? We make choices everyday that impact our world and it's resources. A year ago I stopped using plastic water bottles. No longer am I buying those thirty packs of spring water from the grocery store on a weekly basis. Instead I am using an incredible water bottle made by Thermos. I normally only need to add ice three times a day, and regardless of how many times I fill the bottle, I always have cold water. Of course, it is easy to make mistakes. I bought the fish the other day in the cafeteria for lunch. I asked them to put it on a plate for me instead of a tray to avoid leaving the cafeteria with one of the lunch trays. Thankfully there was a diligent environmental science student there to point out the errors of my way. The plates unfortunately end up in a landfill, where as the small effort of returning the tray saves this needless waste. I will not let that mistake happen again!
In addition to the small ways we can reduce our ecological footprint, there are other ways we can help as well. I thought this was a great time to explain why my environmental science students are required to follow the Sustainable Thoughts Blog. Michael Despines, the blogs author, is a former graduate of Hanover High School. Through this blog he shares his thoughts on moving towards a sustainable future in the United States. He has also developed a wonderful lecture, The American Dream, The Worlds Nightmare, which he delivers to high school students, college students, and I assume basically anyone who will listen. He is amazingly well traveled and has led a pretty amazing life. I strongly suggest my environmental students spend some time looking at his blog for inspiration as they look for topics that interest them about environmental science. Additionally, Mr. Despines is also an incredible photographer. Along with his advocacy through writing, I am sure his photography also inspires his viewers to treasure this wonderful planet. I will leave you with a current image from his photography website and a question. How are you reducing your footprint?
“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” - Steve Jobs, Standford Univerisity’s Commencement Address
Without a doubt the world lost a leader of innovation and creativity this week with the passing of Steve Jobs. He was responsible for bringing us the personal computer, the mouse, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad and many other "magical" technologies. So many of which have inspired us, helped us learn, organized us, and simply made life that much more enjoyable. Apple is a company that has provided us with many amazing products, ones that have had amazing impacts on our everyday life. How have those same products impacted our environment? If you visit the Apple website you will find a page devoted to Apple’s environmental footprint. Being an Apple fan, and of course an environmental science teacher, I am happy to say that once again Steve Jobs is a leader in the things that matter. Apple has seen a growth in revenue of 74% since 2008, however their greenhouse emissions have only grown by 57% during this time. They are also the only company in their industry to exceed the ENERGY STAR specifications. Apple has gone to great lengths to use less materials in their products, remove toxic substances, manufacture responsibly, reduce packaging materials, make energy efficient products, use recyclable materials, and create products that last longer.
Steve Jobs set out to create products that consumers love. There is no doubt that he was successful. In addition to providing us with wonderful products we love to use, Apple has continued to look to the future and manufactured products in an environmentally conscience way. Giving us the products we want, from a company in which we can be proud.
At least that is the picture painted by on Apple’s website. In April 2011, the website Appadvice.com published a story in which Greenpeace accuses Apple of being one of the worst environmental offenders in the tech industry. Greenpeace ranked Apple dead last in their reliance on coal, claiming that 54% of its energy is obtained from this dirty energy source. In contrast, the article later quotes Jonathan Koomey, a project scientist for the End-Use Forecasting Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, as saying that downloading music over buying it on a CD reduced emissions from 40 - 80%.
There is probably little doubt that Apple is not as entirely environmentally friendly as their website would have you believe. Of course when you take into consideration the raw materials no longer needed to create audio cds, movies, and books we can now enjoy as digital media, Apple has certainly changed the way we interact with and enjoy the things in life that move us. Maybe this is one more way that Steve Job’s has made the world a more enjoyable and environmentally friendly place.
Watch this old but inspired Apple TV ad from a long ago campaign. Should Steve's picture be included in the mix?
What makes a good assignment? Maybe one that is interesting enough to make you decide to take part in it with your students. Well if that is the case, this initial "about me" post for the blogging assignment must be good! It is Sunday afternoon and I decided to get some grading done and updated the PLN and Blogging project. I'm figuring that having a post to share will make this easier so I decided to join in. I wrote the majority of this post in 2013 hence the short beard picture. I figured I would leave it. Who knows, if the mask mandate stays you might be seeing it again soon. 
