America the Beautiful

We just returned from a 2-week trip across the country.  Well, to Missouri and back, anyway.  We saw snow, rain, slush, and a little sunshine now and then.

We Americans were certainly blessed with beautiful views and places to build our homes.  Williams, AZ has stately conifers covering mountains short enough to climb on a day hike.  Tucumcari, NM is in the middle of vast plains and prairies.  They've been broken up with barbed wire fences, but the view is still amazing.  The Missouri Ozarks -- a place I know well -- has gorgeous rolling hills, secluded glades, and the dense woods I grew up playing in.  In southern Oklahoma, a series of lakes reflect the setting sun.

I feel privileged to see these places.  Let us appreciate them, and others like them.  

Green. And why I need it.

I grew up in a very green place.  Well, except for in August when the grass has all died.  I didn't understand when visitors, often from the West, would exclaim "It's so green here!"  Now, I live in the west and I have come to understand not only their amazement, but my need for this color.

I LOVE the outdoors.  Mountains, oceans, lakes, rivers, prairies, all of it is beautiful to me.  As I sit on beautiful Catalina Island, surrounded by a glassy ocean, it has finally occurred to me why green is so important.  I need to know that there is undeveloped land.  The ocean is beautiful, but as of yet, we haven't figured out a way to exploit its real estate.  Everything else about the ocean, well that's a different story.  So, living in the mountains around Los Angeles has meant that I am surrounded by millions of people.  And where there is green, there aren't any houses.  This is refreshing to me.

It is so important, in fact, that when we were looking to move about 18 months ago, I knew that I needed a house with a view of the mountains.  As lovely as an ocean view would be, I need the mountain view.  I need to know that we have not yet claimed every square inch of ground for ourselves.  I need to see it.

My favorite color is blue.  But I need green.

A place for my thoughts, and my first ramble

I decided I needed a place for my thoughts on nature, environmental issues and conservation after being inspired (yet again) by a long-time mentor.  This blog will serve as an outlet for all the science-y things that don't belong on our family blog.  It is also the beginning of my online professional persona.  Anything that isn't my own opinion will be properly cited so that you can read and interpret for yourself the same information from which I drew my conclusions.

For as long as I can remember, I have loved being outside.  I don't love humidity.  Or bitter cold.  But, I am still drawn outside.  I leave my windows open as much as possible.

I didn't always love science, though.  In fact, until I had Mrs. Judy Stout teach me life science in 7th grade, I hated it.  She was the one who showed me what was amazing in the world.  Up until that point, my teachers didn't like science, so I didn't either.  We took turns in school studying from our science book and our health book.  Health was incredibly boring, so I equated the draw of science with the draw of health.  There was none.  Then there was Mrs. Stout.  She clearly loved science, and let it show.  In doing so, she changed my life.

Why is it that science gets the shaft?  Sadly, too few of our nation's elementary school teachers like or even understand science.  Students are not oblivious to this fact, so they tune it out as unimportant.  On top of the personal indifference toward science of many teachers, the new emphasis on reading and math as indicators of student learning and achievement simply pushed science curriculum from the back burner to next to the stove, trying to steal a little warmth where it can.

Further compounding the problem is the general dumbing-down of education.  I only have experience with textbooks in California, and only through the 4th grade, but I have been sorely unimpressed.  The 4th grade books seem to be the worst so far.  I'm going to also include the California Social Studies(1) book here, because it covers quite a bit of geology and geography, since those topics tie in so much with California's history.  Both of the books for 4th grade are severely lacking in explanations.  For many phenomena, there is simply a description, rather than a definition or cause stated.  So much in these books is vague, it is a wonder that any student comes away with a clear understanding of the topics at hand. An example from the science book(2): "Minerals are natural, nonliving substances that make up rocks."  Is there anyone out there can tell me what a mineral is, besides simply describing where you might find it, just by using this definition?  I thought not.  And from the social studies book: "California's coast has a mild climate because the Pacific Ocean warms the air in the winter.  It cools it in the summer."  This is fascinating!  So, being near the water means the weather is nice?  I wonder how that happens.  The book never says.

As a TA in the biology department at a Cal State, I saw the students who learned from books like these.  The result is not pretty.  In the three courses for which I taught the laboratory portion, I gained new insights into the poor state of education in California.  Some examples: a pre-med student was determining the gender of the fetal pig he was about to dissect.  His conclusion? "Our pig is a female.  It has nipples."  I looked at him and asked, "Do you? Come up with a better diagnostic."  Another example: I was instructing a class on various types of plankton.  Plankton are not exactly easy to picture, nor are the numbers of plankton in the sea.  I tried using the white cliffs of Dover, England, as an example of the vast numbers of coccolithophores that the sea supports, but all I got were blank stares.  I was shocked that not a single student had any idea what I was talking about. 

The state of science education is of particular concern to me.  I see too many examples of improper decisions being based on faulty science, or the mis-understanding of good science.  "Green living" is exploding in popularity, but most people don't understand the effects changes that they make are/will have.  Biofuels are a perfect example of this.  No one argues that fossil fuel consumption is harmless, but so few understand the impact biofuel production has.  Corn is a very harsh crop; it depletes soil quickly, and the stalks provide little nutrients even when they are left to be plowed into the soil.  Additionally, the rate of return on energy put into biofuel production is less that that of conventional fuel production.  Frustratingly, the CO2 emissions are not vastly different between the two, either.

This is not to say we shouldn't try to come up with new methods, products, and fuels.  However, the poor understanding of science (not to mention statistics!) leads to bandwagonning and then cynicism when an idea turns out not to be the golden egg.  In fact, the only way to come up with new solutions to old problems is to fully educate our children.  Without an understanding of the basic science as well as the old solutions, there is no way a person will be able to form a usable, testable hypothesis.

I don't know all the answers.  I may not know even one answer.  I do know that we are short-changing ourselves and our students by not expecting them to be able to understand complex concepts.  If they are presented in appropriate ways, even young students can understand how the Pacific Ocean keeps California warm.  I want to get involved with the textbook committees in California.  The students here deserve so much more that what they've been given.



1)--. 2007. California vistas: our golden state. Macmillan/McGraw-Hill: NY, NY.
2) Hackett, J.K., R.H. Moyer, J. Vasquez, M. Teferi, D. Zike, K. LeRoy, D.J.T. Terman, G.F. Wheeler. 2008. California Science, 4th Grade. Macmillan/McGraw-Hill: NY, NY.