Komodo dragons

Today's Google Doodle honors the 37th Anniversary of Komodo National Park.

Komodo Island, Indonesia

This is especially exciting because in Summer 2015, I had the great joy of visiting Indonesia's Komodo National Park to see komodo dragons in person!

Komodo dragons are the largest lizards alive today.  Adults typically weigh around 150 pounds, with lengths of 7.5 to 8.5 feet (though there have been individuals that grew over 10 feet long!).  Scientists believe that komodo dragons are similar to large lizards that were more common millions of years ago.

Komodos have an impressive sense of smell.  They use their forked tongues to sample (and chemically analyze) smells in the air.  Under the right conditions, komodo dragons can detect prey up to 2.5 miles away.  Their eyes are tuned to detect movement.  This is important for hunting.  When the hunt is successful, an individual may eat a single meal of 50 to 80% of its body weight.  To assist with this feasting, the stomach stretches easily and the jaw opens unusually wide.

Don't try this at home!  Komodo dragons are dangerous and will attack humans.
This photo is mis-leading.  I am really a very safe distance away.  

Look at the claws on this guy!

From the Inside Out

from our Priority Montessori Inner Earth nomenclature

We are learning about the layers of the earth . . . by building a small model from the inside out.








from Guest Authors S.A., 3rd grade; O.S., 2nd grade; C.H., 1st grade:
Yesterday, we learned about the different layers of the earth.  They are the crust, the asthenosphere, the mantle, the outer core, and the inner core.  The crust is the outside layer of the earth.  It is a thin layer with rocks and dirt.  The asthenosphere is right under the crust.  It is a thin layer too, made up of melted rock.  When the magma comes out of volcanoes, it is called lava.  Next is the mantle and it is a thick, mostly-solid layer.  Then comes the outer core.  It is right outside of the inner core.  The inner core is the middle of the earth.  It is a solid ball of iron.  


Today, students worked in pairs to make Layers of the Earth necklaces.

(We used Sculpey Bake Shop oven-bake polymer clay.)

We began with the inner core.

Next, we wrapped yellow around the inner core to represent the outer core.















We covered that with a layer of orange to represent the mantle.




















Over the mantle went a thin, thin layer of brown to represent the crust.  This was followed by thin pieces of blue spread over about 3/4 of the Earth to represent the hydrosphere.

Spheres were carefully placed in trays labeled with student names and stacked to take home.  After a short stint in the freezer, they were ready to be cut into hemispheres, revealing the layers.

I used a toothpick to drill a hole across the top of each half, and then baked them at 275 degrees Fahrenheit for about half an hour.

I then threaded each hemisphere with narrow ribbon to make a necklace.

Ta-da!

There's a Book for That!
How to Dig a Hole to the Other Side of the World by Faith McNulty
The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth by Joanna Cole

There's also a cake!

Celebrating Earth Day with Artist Boat

In honor of Earth Day, Artist Boat offered a sampling of their programs today for free to teachers.  I couldn't pass up an opportunity to spend a beautiful morning kayaking and creating art along the Coastal Heritage Preserve in Galveston.  We were rewarded with sightings of Roseate Spoonbills, Brown Pelicans (a conservation success story), a Great Blue Heron, a Great Egret (catching a fish!), and a Cormorant.

Artist Boat is a fantastic non-profit that educates the public about our coastal ecology by combining kayak exploration with watercolor artwork.  It's a brilliant combination!  Strapped to each tandem kayak is a plastic box containing two sets of non-toxic watercolors and two boards taped off with watercolor paper.  Sometime during the trip, we stop our kayaks for a brief art lesson and then pull out the art supplies to create a watercolor right in the kayak.  Making art pushes us to slow down and look at nature more closely, to pay attention in a different way.

Through grants, Artist Boat has also acquired land along the coast, which they are working to restore by planting native coastal grasses and removing fire ants, red ants, and other invasive species.  In addition to their kayak adventures, Artist Boat also does some land-based hikes, habitat restoration, and field labs that include water quality testing and seining to identify the wildlife in the shallow coastal waters.

I've had several opportunities to participate in trips with this amazing organization over the years: A "Headwaters to Baywaters" professional development series on our watershed, a professional development and team-building day organized by my school, and a birthday celebration I organized with my family.

Just two weeks ago, I participated in another Educator Kayak Adventure offered free to teachers in collaboration with FotoFest.  For this adventure, we kayaked across Lake Charlotte (in Cedar Hill Park) and through the Cypress Swamp of the lower Trinity River region.

Consider taking a public Artist Boat kayak adventure with your family!  It's a great way to get outside and learn about our local coastal habitats!
Then, visit the new Hall of Texas Coastal Ecology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science to learn more!

Pandas and parasols

A certain red-headed substitute was spotted heading into my classroom this morning.




















It's a curious thing.  Every year around this time, I find myself in need of a substitute.  Fortunately, Ms. Frizzle, driver of the Magic School Bus and science teacher extraordinaire, is always up for the challenge.  She has some unusual (and somewhat demanding) barter requests.  She will substitute for my class on Halloween if I will convince my seamstress and shoe-designer to work their magic.  Seems like a fair trade to me!





This year, inspired by my summer Fund for Teachers fellowship in Asia, she insisted on a new Imperial China dress complete with dragon fabric.  "The children will love the dragon fabric," she pointed out in the fabric store.  And she was right, of course.  By all reports, they did.

The Friz is a firm believer that the details are important.

Shoes would not be complete without pandas attached.
(Visit the Museum of Natural Science to see "Pandas: The Journey Home," an outstanding National Geographic documentary about the Wolong Panda Center in China.)






Earrings--a Chinese calligraphy brush and a golden fan (that actually folds open and closed!)--were a must to round out the ensemble.

Happy Halloween!

Got milk?

In every ger we visit, we are welcomed with milk products.

Once seated inside, we begin with bowls of milk tea.  Cow milk tea, yak milk tea, horse milk tea, reindeer milk tea.  Whatever the family herds, they seem to find a way to milk.

Today we visited a camel-herding family, . . .

and you guessed it!  

We were welcomed with camel milk tea











and some very sour (unsweetened) camel milk yogurt,













along with sugared pieces of crispy flat bread.



And I got to milk a camel!

After I spent some time photographing our hostess milking the camel, she noticed my interest and invited me to try.  To milk the camel, especially if you're as short as our hostess, you stand one-legged with the bucket balanced on your elevated knee.

Now that I am a more experienced exotic-animal dairymaid, it was easier to get a stream going into the bucket right away.

Next, it was my turn for a camel ride through the sandy dunes.  Camel Time!  Notice that these are Bactrian camels with two humps (versus the one-humped Dromedary).  The ride is a little easier because the rider is nestled between the two humps, but it’s a tad unsteady hanging onto the front hump as the camel lurches forward to get her legs under her to stand.  

We rode out into some beautiful dunes with Chris joking about my camel’s “droopy humps.”  They were much more flexible than I expected.  Keenan pointed out that it is a little like having a joy stick-operated camel. 

At one point a young boy came up behind us and shouted something, and my camel began to run.  Our camel herder host quickly put a stop to that, but it was a breathless moment or two as I held onto that hump for dear life.  

Not only are the camels used for milk and transportation, but as temperatures rise, the camel's shaggy wool sheds in clumps.  In the summertime, it is pulled out in handfuls and used for a variety of purposes.

Our hostess demonstrated how to make rope, pulling the wool to “card” it as you might sheep’s wool and then twisting two pieces at the same time as twisting them together.  































She made it look effortless, but my attempts were decidedly clumsy.  





We also watched her use the fibers to make a thick, sturdy felt.  She began by laying out the fur in strips—first horizontal and then a layer with strips in a vertical direction.  

 She then placed a thin piece of fabric over the wool and wet it and added soap, scrubbing and scrubbing  

 and then rolling it and wringing it out. 

It produced a very nice layer of felt—much bigger pieces of which are stitched together to make the walls and roof of a ger.

How did you celebrate the Fourth of July?

Students, I am eagerly awaiting your guesses about this mystery country Fluffy and I are visiting.  Read the posts, put the clues together, and make a claim (based on evidence).