Chitons: Memories and Learning

A couple of weeks ago we went to California and we got to go to the beach.
We went tidepooling... or investigating around tide pools. I don't remember ever doing that before on the Pacific Ocean. It was really fun and I enjoyed using my waterproof camera.

Closed anemone without a pebble covering

Partially closed anemone with pebble covering, (they were usually covered with sand and pebbles when they were out of the water to protect themselves from drying out and predators.

Open anemone

Bivalves on rocks

Chiton (the green one in the groove or "home scar". They are a type of mollusk with 8 plates and they crawl around when the tide is in and eat algae and other stuff, (herbivores) with their "radula" (tongue) that is encrusted with magnetite. This means their tongue is very raspy and so they can eat stuff by rasping it off the rocks.

Here is a chiton so you can see the underside. (not my thumb :) )

Here is a snail that had pretty green flesh. Jeremy is good at finding stuff like this. I like doing stuff like this with him.

Here is a fish who really thought he was camouflaged but I got really close.

Swimming crab

Anyway, it was really fun and reminded me a lot of some books my Mom used to read to me by Holling Clancy Holling, particularly "Pagoo" which talks about tide pool life. It made me want to read it again.

Also I was fascinated by the chitons and had to do some research about them. They are weird little critters. I couldn't find out anywhere if they actually carve out little holes for themselves or if just by returning to the same spot all the time they cause a hole to form. Almost all of the ones we saw, and we found a lot, were in little holes.

Winter War

Storm swoops in

Snow's ally

Troops cover the ground

Lay siege to the world

Conquest

Snowmen rally

The honor guard

Sun's Herald charges

Clouds retreat

Snowdrifts fade

Honor guard stands alone

Storm's return their only hope

Unrelenting Sun

Water drips to ground

Snow's Defeat

​

The day of a big storm I was waiting at my bus stop, right in front of a carwash. Between customers (because people were washing clean cars while it was snowing????) one of the car wash attendants made this snowman. The next couple of days I watched as the snowman melted, and I wrote the poem above. I think it is really cool when creativity inspires creativity.

On Darwin and the Origin of Species from Someone Who Actually Read it.... Or Listened to It

I recently finished listening to the Origin of Species. In all honesty there were plenty of times where I kind of tuned it out, it isn't always the most exciting of books. However I was struck by a couple of things and I'm glad I listened to it.
First, it was really fun to hear Darwin refer to his contemporary scientists. Alfred Russell Wallace, Charles Lyell, Jean-Baptiste Lamark, James Hutton, Carl Linnaeus, and Frederic Cuvier were all mentioned as either contemporaries or relatively recent scientists. Many of these guys who's ideas are reviewed in most modern high school and college science classes were known by and sometimes pen-pals with Darwin. It kind of made them all seem a bit more real.
Second, this is a small thing, but I was surprised at how ambiguous the term "species" was. He talked frequently about how a species is supposedly a group animals that won't interbreed with an outcome of fertile offspring with another species. This is a definition we use today in introductory science classes. He then went on to say, that that definition is bogus. Fertile and sterile offspring happen within species sometimes (look at bees), and not between supposed species in other cases. He spent a long time explaining how the "definition" is wrong but we don't have a better one. The inaccuracy of the species definition is taught today in upper division science classes.... So if Darwin, back in the early 1900s, was talking about how the definition of species is bogus and we still agree... why do we ever even use that definition? 
Third, science was done differently back then. It was fascinating to hear of some of the "experiments" that Darwin or his contemporaries enacted. They were mostly more anecdotal and qualitative rather then quantitative facts. But with that being said you could tell that in experiments like these is where modern science has its roots. Also I was struck with the diversity of Darwin's knowledge. He is one smart dude. He talked in an informed way and often with first hand knowledge about geology, paleontology, biology, botany, entomology, husbandry etc. His examples to fortify his theory of natural selection ranged from ancient gastropods to parasitic ants to mule, pigeon, and plant husbandry to geologic strata. One of the more random but fascinating experiments was on seed germination, when the seeds are collected from dirt that was either attached to logs floating in the ocean, or mud caked onto duck's feet. The range of knowledge was phenomenal... Nowadays, scientists, by necessity a lot more specialized, but it was really cool to hear him talk about it.
Finally, how Darwin approached religion in the actual text was fascinating, especially because of all the hype about "Darwinism" and religion. He was always super respectful of religion, and when he did talk about it, mostly in the final chapters of his book, he focused on how his theory of natural selection really should not be conflicted with religion. I felt like he tried really hard to separate them. However he did make some cool comparisons. He talked about how gravity, perhaps the greatest natural law, is amazing and if God into that into place, why could he not have started natural selection. And if God started the process of natural selection and allows it to continue, and if we look at everything that has happened because of that, why is that not equally awesome, or even more awe inspiring then immutable creation? I agree! Another point he brought up, was that Galileo was persecuted severely be the Catholic Church for proposing a sun-centered universe, but in Darwin's day believing in heliocentrism and religion, even Catholicism, isn't a big deal. Darwin proposed that even if the doctrines or cultures of organized religions at his time sometimes seemed at odds with the idea of natural selection that someday they could be reconciled.
I'm not sure I'm going to make Origin of Species one of those books I reread every couple of years, but I definitely am glad I listened to it once. It gave me a better understanding of the history of science, as well as the implications of the theory of natural selection. It also made me respect Darwin and his struggle with organized religion, and it made me more grateful for the reconciliation I understand between religion and science, particularly evolution.

New Years the New Thanksgiving

Over the Thanksgiving holidays Jeremy and I were talking about Thanksgiving. I like the holiday, especially the history behind it but sometimes I think the way we celebrate it is a little silly.... But then again food isn't really my thing.Anyway I was just talking about how it seems to me from my uneducated point of view, that Thanksgiving was originally not just being grateful in general but being grateful for the outcomes that your own labor and the hand of providence brought about... In other words being grateful for the harvest because of the work that you put in and for what you were able to reap from it. I hope that made some sort of sense... anyway, I was trying to describe this and I was also mourning a little bit that this isn't really how we think of Thanksgiving anymore mostly because we no longer are farmers, when Jeremy said "isn't that what New Years is for?"
So, this New Years, I hope you are able not just to set some new goals but also be grateful for the things that you have accomplished in partnership with God.

This is what I accomplished.

Christmas: A time of Traditions

We set up a Christmas tree this week. It was really fun to see how it all came together.
I really wanted to have a live tree, which we got and smells awesome. It is set in my parents Christmas tree stand, with their star on the top. Jeremy claimed the right to wind the lights on. So he wound some colored lights that his parents had around it. We both prefer colored lights on Christmas trees. I also put my parents bubble lights on our tree, a tradition from my great grandma. Then we both hung our childhood ornaments as well as a few new ones on the tree. At the foot of our tree is a beautiful Christmas tree skirt that my sister made.

I go into all these details because I thought it was so fun how we were able to combine old traditions with a mix of some new ones, that might be our own someday.
That is one cool thing about Christmas, not only is it about connecting and reconnecting with friends and family around us but also with those that have gone before.

Facilitating Lifelong Learning

My dad always says that it doesn’t matter what you don’t know if you know how to learn. Knowing how to learn is a skill that is beneficial throughout life. Educators can increase students’ desire to be life-long learners by creating an environment of curiosity and facilitating involved learning.

The teaching environment is vital for student engagement. As a teacher’s assistant for various professors and classes, students approached me most frequently when there was ambiguity abut assignments. A clear syllabus or online portal with policies, assignments, dates, and rubrics decreases stress for students so that they can focus on learning and not on guessing what the instructor requires of them. In addition, instructor feedback on important papers and tests transforms grades into a learning experience rather than a decree of fate. Organization and feedback enhance the learning environment, but more can be done as well.

Growing up, my home was a learning environment. My mom would look up everything from William Henry Harrison to the Linnaean system in her encyclopedia set, while I begged her not to tell me what she discovered because I didn’t need to know for my homework. Now her spirit of curiosity has rubbed off on me and I recognize that questions from students and self can be the most impelling motivators. A classroom environment based on organization, feedback and curiosity sets the stage for long-term learning.

Life-long learning is encouraged through active teaching which requires students to understand reliable sources, make connections, and explore. As an undergraduate one of my professors assigned a text book that he had written. This made me realize that real researchers are not so distant as they may seem. When instructors assign readings and give lectures not only based on textbooks but also peer reviewed literature it builds students’ confidence in learning from the source, helps them understand what a reliable source is, and gives them an understand of how real research happens. When instructors encourage discussion and other projects that guides students to make connections it helps students remember and apply what they learn. Sometimes when giving tours of paleontology museums I compare extinct animals to Pokémon and suddenly the fossils come to life. Such connections, whether made by the instructor or by students, in groups or individually leads to increased engagement with the material and opportunities for exploration. In my high school physics class, we dropped pumpkins off the school roof to calculate that velocity equals distance over time. This personal experience with equations made the principles understandable. When students are able to explore for themselves, they are more likely to internalize the subject matter. When instructors provide original sources, and opportunities to make connections and explore it leads to active learning.

Learning is enhanced when instructors create an environment of stability and curiosity and then facilitate interactions with the material that is based on original sources, and students’ own application. This type of education can lead to life-long learning, so that when students confront the unknown, they have confidence in their own ability to learn.

Spirit of Curiousity

This is the mandible of Thomomys umbrinus aka a Southern pocket gopher. You can tell it is a 

gopher because of the small bump on the back of the jaw. The base of this bump starts at the "1" and it appears to be for the end of the incisor. Yes that tooth goes all the way back there. 

At work I often spend a lot of time inventorying and cataloging random bones. This can get really boring! but when I am able to keep up an attitude of curiosity it can be really fun. Before inventorying various rodent mandibles I could only recognize them as rodent, now I can tell gopher mandibles from marmots, pack rats, rabbits, and porcupines (granted those are bigger). The process of discovery was really fun and it made me excited to perform the inventory.

My problem is keeping that spirit of curiosity, because it is sometimes difficult to do, and then the monotony press in...