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...

Questions and Observations

Nearly every work day I walk past a replica cast of a giant sloth skeleton. It's pretty impressive, and it is one of the more popular exhibits at the museum.
The other day I came across a large mammal scapula in the museum collections. The animal it was from wasn't identified so I thought I would give it a shot. I googled some mammoth and mastodon scapulas and then realized I had no idea what a giant sloth scapula looks like, despite walking past a beautiful example almost every day! So the next time I walked by, I actually took a closer look.
This experience made me realize two things about questions. First, one reason why questions are so important is because it causes us to actually slow down and make important observations. Second, it is easy to see things (skeletons/objects/problems/infrastructure) as single entities and only when a question comes along do the individual parts become visible.

Perfect for What?

A couple of weeks ago I went with Jeremy to his ecology class. It was fascinating. They talked about various types of photosynthesis (who knew there were multiple types?) and how they were each good for different situations. They also talked about other evolutionary trade offs. I was struck how different animals and plants were perfectly adapted... for their environment. They were all different and all perfect for their situations even though they still have pros and cons. The desert version of photosynthesis keeps plants from loosing water but it makes it so the plants have to grow really slowly, while other types of photosynthesis make it so the plants can grow fast but if they also loose more water.
Sometimes I think it is easy to get caught up in trying to be perfect or wanting the perfect.... something. But the thing is there is no one situation and therefore there is no one perfect solution. Therein lies the beauty. You can be perfect! for your situation.

Mesa Verde Two

​So like I said we went to mesa Verde and it was amazing but.....

It was frustrating too. A lot of what I learned about mesa Verde in school was about you're there was a lot of violence in the region at the time, but every ranger we talked to denied this, telling us that that was old information and that there is no evidence for violence.

So when we came home I did several google scholar searches and even contacted my college professors, (professional archaeologists) who have studied the archaeology of the area. Everything I looked at said or alluded to the violence of the area. My professors said the same thing, even suggesting that the very presence of the cave dwellings was a proof of violence. They they ended their emails with tactful sentences about political correctness and politics causing the Park service to blatantly lie about the state of things.

I know revisionist histories are a thing but it is still disturbing to find it for yourself. and why? Why is extensive scientific evidence so feared? Who cares if someone's possible ancestors were fighting? Every one has ancestors who fought, who were violent. I like to tell people about how one of my ancestors was the first white man hung in the America's for murder. And when people claim offense for truth being spoken (or at least the most likely scientific evidence) I think the warning bell has gone off. Instead of teaching falsehoods to the unsuspecting to assuage their feelings we should be helping people be resilient enough not to take offense at all.