Windowsill Gardening

Red white and blue for Independence Day!

What a whirlwind. I can't believe that after 39 years I have officially retired from teaching! But don't think that retirement is going to slow me down...In fact I have a host of hands on learning and teaching opportunities already scheduled! The week after school, I taught a three day course to teachers on developing Makers Labs in their schools. We made hands on projects. We visited two Makers Labs in our area. We had fun while learning.

Not sure what a Maker Space or Makers Lab is? Check out our free download that walks you through the philosophy of it.

After this course, these teachers plan to initiate Makers Labs and Maker Spaces in their school buildings.

I also participated in a Fourth of July Celebration for 60 students at a local school to learn about Thomas Jefferson and the tinkering and inventing that he did. Then we made hydroponic planters from deli containers. The kids went crazy over them! I painted theirs red white and blue to fit the theme.

Check out how quickly this lettuce is growing! These photos were taken just one week apart!

Freaky Flipping Friday!

Here I am on Freaky Flipping Friday! where we flipped the class and students do a science presentation! These girls enlightened us about the chemistry of an egg white facial (with a bit of yolk!). The egg was on my face and the yolk was on me!

Some of the other presentation topics included Radiation from Hiroshima and how Leukemia was more frequent after the bomb; and a demonstration how to disassemble an iPhone and replace a cracked screen. My eighth grade students are phenomenal this year. They just soak up knowledge and rise to the challenge that they are given. They are curious and creative kids.

Winter Wonderland

Snow before Thanksgiving!

About two inches of snow fell this weekend. I'm not a huge fan of winter. I'm really not a huge fan of snow. But...I'm trying to remain positive about the impending winter {Impending? Seriously, winter is here. It's 15 degrees right now with a "real feel" of NEGATIVE 2. Stay positive. Stay positive.}.

I don't do well in winter. The cold. The darkness. The snow. I'm popping some vitamin D as we speak.

To make the most of this weather, I'm bundled up inside our cozy house with about six layers of clothes {did I really grow up here? It's times like these that I'm positive I'm not a native Wisconsinite!}. Since I can barely move because of the layers, and I'm most definitely not venturing outside, I am focusing on something fun inside.I drew a set of 37 Winter Wonderland Snowflake clip art for personal and commercial use! Check it out HERE! I had so much fun with my new touchscreen notebook. As a lefty, I've always struggled with illustrating using my mouse. The touchscreen has opened a whole new world for me! It's really exciting to design naturally. I'm amazed at how much more quickly my work goes!

Winter Wonderland Snowflakes

Off to warm up with a hot cup of tea.

~Jolene

Sleep Tech Visits Middle School Science

We are studying the nervous system. We had a Sleep Tech visit and explain how she reads and interprets brain waves and diagnoses sleep disorders. Students volunteered to be hooked up as if they were receiving a sleep study.

The classes realized the importance of sleep and being able to function at the highest levels of physical and mental states. And also how the lack of sleep plays an important role in creating diseases within people.

Every Classroom - A Makers Space

What can you do with plastic bag ropes? Why not make a bridge!

I taught a Makers Space workshop yesterday to introduce the Maker Space concept to interested teachers. I led with a powerpoint presentation on the importance of hands-on learning and creative thought. We viewed TED Talks by Sir Ken Robinson and Gever Tulley. 

I led the teachers on a tour through our own Makers Lab and gave them some practice in hands-on learning in just a few of the areas that we do in our Makers Lab. I had the following stations for the teachers to tinker in:

• Copper tape circuits
• Foam cutting
• Soldering
• Spaghetti bridges
• LEGO EV3
• Brushbots
• Truss bridges
• Reverse engineering
• Snap circuits
• Sphero
• Plastic bag ropes
• Hacking an old computer

I also sent the teachers home with a CD packed full of some of our most popular products on Teachers Pay Teachers to help them get their own Makers Space running.

Are you interested in creating a Makers Space in your classroom? Check out our free resource to help you get started! 

Aquaponics in Makers Lab - We've Got FISH!

We started lettuce and spinach just over two weeks ago. We have micro-greens ordered. When we see some growth, I'll get some photos posted!

Our other big news is that last Tuesday we picked up our tilapia fish for our aquaponics set up. We started with 44 fish this year. At the moment, we've only lost one!

Last year a week into our introduction, we had lost about 10 fish. We've made improvements this time around to prevent the losses we initially had last year.

Once of the changes is that we cycled the water longer with ammonia this year. I also think the clay pellets had old bacteria still embedded. When we brought the system up, I believe that the bacteria rejuvenated and is managing to break down the ammonia better.

We also had an great Makers Lab moment, which you can see in this photo (the fish are too tiny to capture a good photo right now, but this is the day we put them in!). We were having an evaporation issue and we need to add water every day. Our aquaponics system is on the opposite side of the classroom from our sink. We were running a hose across the floor (tripping hazard), rolling and unrolling hose each day (time consuming), and when we rolled hose there almost always was water spilled across the floor.

With a little finagling, we ran the hose up through the drop tiled ceiling and across the room. Now the hose stays in place, we save time, and have a safer and cleaner Makers Lab! 

Makers Lab: Train Table Update

For the past several weeks our construction crews in the Makers Lab have been busy building by first connecting two tables, then attaching styrofoam to the tables, and using a hot wire knife to cut and shape pieces of styrofoam for two large hills on our train tables.

The first hill (the one you see above) is Holy Hill on the top of which sits Holy Hill Church a landmark that can be seen for many surrounding miles. We've also planned and sketched the roads and railroad tracks as well as Friess Lake.

We also have students working on constructing scale trees, foliage, and a replica of the Holy Hill Church. These are all to scale. We used Google Earth photos, saw the length of a car in the parking lot, we extrapolated the length of the building from the length of that car.

In the photo above, a student is applying plaster gauze to form the contours of the hillside.

The second hill will be a local ski hill complete with a chalet and a working ski lift (we hope!). All this will be done in N-Scale.