A Blog for my Son about Why Bats are Awesome (as an Antidote to a New Lego Game)

Hi Phoenix!

I’m sure you already know how amazing bats are, since you often include them in your pretend play, and since you just chose a black bat finger puppet for your souvenir on our recent visit to Fenner Nature Center.  But, just in case you happen to play with someone who owns the new Lego ‘Heroica’ Game in which bats are portrayed as monsters (http://www.batcon.org/index.php/media-and-info/latest-news/635-hey-lego-bats-arent-monsters.html), I want to show you 5 reasons that bats are NOT monsters.

1.  First, here’s a photo of Mama during her field research in college, holding a big brown bat (found in Michigan as well as all over America).  Do you see how tiny the ‘big’ brown bat is compared to us humans?  Does Mama look frightened or happy & excited?

2.  Watch this adorable video of an orphaned fruit bat being rehabilitated.  You will see how he loves to nurse and cuddle, just like any other mammal baby!
http://www.batworld.org/lil-drac/

3.  Most bats eat the bugs that bother people and farmers. This newspaper article talks about how bats help plants – & has a link to an interesting ‘Bats on Parade’ Slide Show.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/science/04batsw.html

4.  Bats pollinate foods people like to eat.  Say thanks to the bats for mangos, bananas, avacados & more!  Bat Conservation International (BCI) has made a pretty brochure showing which foods bats help:
http://www.batcon.org/pdfs/stories/PollinatorBrochurePagesWeb.pdf

5.  Bats help tropical forests grow!  The Lubee Bat Conservancy describes how in this page (see ‘Bat Foresters’).  You might also want to check out the Mega Bat & Micro Comic Book 🙂
http://www.batconservancy.org/kids-and-teacher-bat-resources

Booty-Luging or How to Sled on the Cheap

Does your budget not stretch to sleds this year?  Here’s an idea for having a blast with your preschooler in the snow.  During this afternoon, the Talking Heads refrain ‘Having fun, with no money…’ kept running through my head.

Anyway, to the photos.  As you can see below, we had a beautiful blanket of snow in Michigan this weekend.  Awesome packing snow for a ‘Snow Mama’.

And great snow for Luge Run building.  By the time we finished building the Luge Run below, the temperature had reached about 40 degrees.

This made the top layer of snow nice & slick, so you could slide down on your back at a fairly rapid pace.

Phoenix’s face tells how he feels about sledding with no sled :-).

 

“Lego-Caching” Part II

This week my 4-year-old son & I had another fun Lego-Cache Discovery Hike :-).  But before we searched for the second Lego Mini Figure I buried on a solo hike, Phoenix kept his promise & accompanied me on a rock-collecting walk.   Knowing how my boy likes his nature gear, I made a wee rock-collecting kit in his old preschool backpack with a cool fold-out magnifying glass, a Rocks & Minerals ID book bought a local nature center used book sale & a recycled clear plastic egg carton for sorting out his stony treasures.  He LOVED to magnifying glass & carried it the entire hike.  We gathered about forty interesting specimens & had a fun sorting session at home afterwards.
A couple days later, Phoenix was super excited to use TWO maps during his second lego-caching adventure.  He used the first map to find where the first lego-cache had been hidden.  At that point, I handed him his second lego-cache map which led him further afield, up a double hill:

He was able to navigate based on the map all the way to the lego-cache area!

Then I snuck in a wee navigating nature lesson by revealing my secret weapon, the Cool Tool.  This is a very nifty field tool which folds in various ways to produce

a Compass…

A magnifying glass…

& even binoculars!

We had an interesting conversation about how to find North (need to let the red side of the compass needle point to north) AND he figured out which direction home was – East!

Of course, on the way home, my innovative son found yet another use for his Cool Tool – it’s a Clone Phone which he used to field calls from the army of imaginary Star Wars Clone Soldiers which follow him everywhere and have lots of problems they need him to heroically solve.  (Some kids have one imaginary friend – my son has his own army! Even more surprising since he’s never seen a Star Wars film yet since I’m trying to follow his preschool’s anti-violence policies. ) The photo below shows him just arrived in our home and still taking calls from the clones who were lost in the field.  He helped them navigate home by encouraging them to go East :-).

“Lego-Caching” or How to Entice a Preschooler to Explore Outdoors in Michigan Mid-Winter

Have you ever struggled to convince an otherwise healthy kid to explore outdoors in the Michigan winter?  My 4 year-old son used to love running around out back of our home in the old stone quarry (now re-grown with emergent plants) during the Spring, Fall & Summer.  But Winter has been a bit more challenging!

I’ve tried various means of encouraging him, including looking for deer antlers, looking for turkey tracks, following squirrel tracks, scat-sleuthing – even making a Nature Adventure Backpack, with magnifying glass, rock ID book, notebook & pen with his name on them, a plastic egg carton for sorting & special snack included.

My latest plan is Lego-caching.  This is a kid-friendly adaptation of geo-caching & involves burying a lego mystery figure packet somewhere in the woods, then drawing a ‘treasure map’ for him to follow:

Did it work?  YES – the following video series shows the discovery part of our adventure.  And what’s best is that even with the lure of the Lego figure to open at home, my son STILL took time to find & identify turkey tracks, squirrel tracks, deer tracks & wee bird tracks on the way home.  A sneaky way to teach him naturalist skills, but effective!

1.  Setting Out to Find Lego Cache
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyyFMklp9jA

2. First Steps in Following Lego Cache Map
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwWmVOHqMww

3.  Looking for Lego Cache
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bt8PfPWKLc

4.  Finding Lego Cache!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zWh1B_7Mhg

After the above video was filmed, Phoenix noticed several tracks on the way home, which he enthusiastically stopped to investigate.  He saw wild turkey tracks – which he was proud to be able to show me the direction they were walking.  Below he notices deer tracks.

Finally, Phoenix spots squirrel tracks, which he at first thinks are dog tracks ‘because you can see the claw marks – so they can’t be cats!’  Then he notices that the tracks stop at a tree & guesses they must be squirrels jumping onto the tree instead.  We follow one set of tracks all the way home to our bird feeder.

Let’s Create an Eco Elementary School in Lansing!

To start where we finished at 1.30am – What would it take to create an Eco Elementary School in Lansing?

Here are the steps I recommend we follow:

1. Find ‘we’! Since I’m just now starting to look for an elementary school for my son, this is a completely new realm. But I’m guessing if I could convince the PTA at a local school – either Pleasantview Magnet School or Woodcreek Science & Technology (STEM) Magnet or perhaps the Wexford Montessori Magnet – to convince the school staff to start the Eco-Schools process – then we may have enough people involved to see it through.

2. Find a willing school & staff – Again, I’m a newbie & not sure how to do a search process. Should I just focus on the magnets or open the search to the entire Lansing School District? That’s 34 Schools! (@http://www.lansingschools.net/pages/Lansing_SD)

3. Join NWF’s Eco Schools Program @ http://www.nwf.org/Global-Warming/School-Solutions/Eco-Schools-USA/Become-an-Eco-School.aspx

As an environmental educator, I do like the NWF Eco-Schools program’s focus on 3 strands: (1) Greening the school building (2) Greening the school grounds & (3) Greening the curriculum and student experience.

The 7 steps to becoming an award-carrying Eco-School (http://www.nwf.org/Global-Warming/School-Solutions/Eco-Schools-USA/Become-an-Eco-School/Steps.aspx) I copied into my previous post, but I will re-iterate them here – & perhaps discuss them in more detail in a next posting:

1. Establish an Eco-Action Team
2. Perform an Environmental Review / Audit
3. Develop an Eco-Action Plan
4. Monitor and Evaluate Progress
5. Link to Educational Curriculum
6. Involve the Entire School and Larger Community
7. Create an “Eco-Code,” or a Mission Statement

4. Support the school in it’s path to Eco-dom! Is anyone with me here? What could we do to support a willing school??

If anyone is interested in creating an Eco-School in Lansing, please respond below!

In Search of an Eco Elementary School in Ingham County

http://www.nwf.org/Global-Warming/School-Solutions/Eco-Schools-USA.aspxWhat would an eco or environmentally elementary school entail?

Just as I switch into high gear in the choice process for finding an elementary school for my son, Phoenix, who turns 5 on Cinco de Mayo, I find out it is National School Choice Week http://www.schoolchoiceweek.com/.  A somewhat capitalist approach to education, ‘choice’ seems to attempt to improve schools by allowing parents to choose which school they attend based on preferences rather than geography, thereby forcing ‘bad’ schools to improve if they want to attract any students – or close.  I’m not sure if I agree with the philosophy behind the concept, – or that it encourages parents to drive their children to a more distant school rather than walk to the closest school – an environmentally unfriendly option!

However, now that it’s the turn of my son & myself to choose, I find myself avoiding the local elementary school with it’s reports of bullying and evidence of some decay in the peeling paint on its doors and rust on the walls in favor of the magnet schools in South Lansing http://www.lansingschools.net/pages/Lansing_SD/Magnet.   My son loves theatre, dancing, singing, music – so much so that we communicate more by song, pantomime, and pretending than by regular speech.  My strong sense is that he would learn best in an atmosphere which supported and encouraged and integrated these interests.  So Pleasantview Performing Arts Magnet is an option, with the Montesorri magnet as a second choice.

BUT – as an environmental scientist and an advocate for the truth that it’s only by spending time outdoors connecting with nature that children later become protectors and champions of our planet – I wish there was a choice for an eco school in Lansing – or even Ingham County.  If anyone reading this post knows of such a thing – please do correct me & tell us the name of this school!

So I will wrap up by returning to the question with which I began: What would an eco or environmentally elementary school entail?

First my draft list:

1.  Plenty of time outdoors – in a varied natural setting including forest, organic garden, prairie, recycled or natural product play equipment .  Plenty = at least a full hour/day
2.  LEED qualified building
3.  Environmentally practices by staff including reduce, reuse, recyle
4.  Organic vegetarian school lunches
5.  Strong science program including naturalist skills and encouraging citizen science
6.  Program ties in the arts with science/sustainability
7.  Sustainability taught in full manner including concepts of environmental studies, arts, & economic justice

For comparison, Below are the 7 steps required to become an Eco School via NWF:

http://www.nwf.org/Global-Warming/School-Solutions/Eco-Schools-USA/Become-an-Eco-School.aspx

1. Establish an Eco-Action Team
2. Perform an Environmental Review / Audit
3. Develop an Eco-Action Plan
4. Monitor and Evaluate Progress
5. Link to Educational Curriculum
6. Involve the Entire School and Larger Community
7. Create an “Eco-Code,” or a Mission Statement

Finally, as an example of what could be, I offer this link to what I thought my son & I were moving to – I only scanned the site & it was after we had already moved that I discovered this fantastic sounding school is located in Forestview in Durham, North Carolina, not Lansing, Michigan. Alas.  Perhaps a question for another blog:  What would it take for a school in Lansing to create the kind of inspirational environmental science education evident at http://www.forestview.dpsnc.net/Science.html ?

PS:  At least the magnet schools will run a bus out to our home, so while not as eco-friendly as walking, at least my son could take public transport!  And thank goodness for that, otherwise I might have to end this blog – or change its name.

Wanted: An Environmental Preschool in the Lansing Area

If anyone reading this blog knows of an environmental preschool in Ingham County, please leave a comment.  Based on my research for this blog article, I have not been able to find one, but will instead write about the closest thing going:  Michigan State University Child Development Labs (CDL), Haslett Campus. 

 The CDL is a play-based, research-based preschool which has been operating in East Lansing (& now Haslett) for 80 years.  It is unique in the realm of early childhood education in that staff is taught a method of ‘emotion coaching’ to encourage positive social relationships among children.  The CDL also promotes balanced development in children encompassing aesthetic, emotional, intellectual, language, physical, social, construction and pretend play.  http://hdfs.msu.edu/cdl

 Both branches of the CDL (in East Lansing and Haslett) emphasize the importance of outdoor play daily – in all weather but the most extreme.  However, the Haslett branch has the further benefit of being located in a lovely natural setting which has inspired an environmental ethic to the teaching.

 My son Phoenix started his summer session at the CDL a bit nervous about ‘bugs’ (since we had an ant infestation problem in our old apartment which resulted in one grim night where I found ants literally crawling on him in bed!).  However, the patient, innovative and fun approach for the Insect Theme used by his teachers at the CDL has resulted in him declaring that his favorite insects are ants – & in his asking me to buy him an ant farm of his very own.  He cautions me and his family & friends not to step on ants or ‘squish’ any bugs & even has us catching and releasing mosquitoes in our new house. 

Side note:  Simple Mosquito Catch & Release Method
(Supplies needed: one children’s insect net & one dish towel)

1.     Slowly approach a mosquito sitting on wall & place net gently over it
2.     Pull out net slightly to give mosquito space to fly into net
3.     Swing net quickly off wall & drop dish towel over top of net
4.     Release mosquito outdoors

 This method is actually easier & less messy than the traditional ‘hunt & swat’ method most Michiganders are taught!

 To find out how the teachers at Haslett CDL helped inspire this transformation in my son’s attitude towards insects, I chatted with them about their methods.

 Ms. Brower, the head teacher, who has been teaching under 5’s for 30 years, likes to focus on what children can see, touch and surround themselves with in teaching them about the environment.  Throughout the year she focuses on the seasons and changes in nature – introducing children to animals in their direct environment.  Summer session is all about insects because it’s such a good time to find them outside.  Brower notes that at ages 4 & 5, children need simple, interactive, hands-on activities with frequent references to how insects compare to children’s own experiences.  She also believes that it’s important for children to play outside without specific goals – just to be out in the sun & breathing fresh air is vital, particularly for many of the children in the program who live in apartments for whom their only outdoor time is at preschool. 

 This summer’s activities have included …

1. A nature walk on a short forest trail to catch insects in special safe plastic holders with air-holes & magnifying glasses built in    -photo-   followed by a popsicle party and hill-rolling
2. Special songs and dances about insects (Head, Thorax, Abdomen – to the tune of Head & Shoulders)
3. Insect related artwork & paintings
4. Insect themed stories such as the Grouchy Ladybug & the Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle
5. A special visit by a pet tarantula
6. A find the anthill  hide & seek game
7. Lots of insect construction puzzles and games
8. Watching caterpillars form chrysalises & hatch into butterflies
   (The class cared for Painted Lady Butterflies purchased in an online kit! Likely @ http://www.thebutterflysite.com/rearing.shtml)

 Ms. Leveille, an assistant teacher, who aims to teach elementary school, also appreciated the science-based approach at the CDL.  She believes that successful environmental education for this age group requires concrete, hands-on activities where children can ‘see it for themselves’.  Although she herself has some ‘issues’ about spiders, she has done a great job repressing her reactions so children are free to form their own – hopefully positive – opinions about insects and arachnids. 

 A short interview with my son, Phoenix about his experiences at the CDL this summer leaves us with this final quote: “I loved watching our class butterflies grow from caterpillar to chrysalis and then releasing them outside!”

 http://ed101.bu.edu/StudentDoc/current/ED101sp09/cbelden/Video.html
(from an un-labeled anonymous Boston University student project)

Many thanks to Phoenix’s teachers – Ms. Lin, Ms. Moore, Ms. Foster, Ms. Brower, Ms. Garzia, Ms. Leveille,  Ms. Hawes, Ms. Wojcik – and any others whose names I may have forgotten (there is a very high teacher-to-student ratio in CDL classes). You all do a wonderful job – thanks for making Phoenix’s first year of preschool such a success 🙂 !

Lansing Public Library Storytime CoverItLive Blog

<iframe src=”http://www.coveritlive.com/index2.php/option=com_altcaster/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=e56e06a8ef/height=550/width=470&#8243; scrolling=”no” height=”550px” width=”470px” frameBorder=”0″ allowTransparency=”true”  >Lansing Public Library Storytime!</iframe>

 

Why Libraries are More Important Than Ever

From reading this blog (https://trixibeeker.wordpress.com/), you may have noticed a running theme. But just in case it’s not obvious enough, I will unveil the mystery this week to help form a link to this week’s topic: Blog theme = children & the environment.

The title of the blog “Ecohome on a Shoestring” refers to my longstanding attempts to build an environmentally friendly homestead for my son while living on the limited budget of a single parent. I just found out yesterday I’ve been hired to teach 2 environmental science courses as an adjunct faculty member at Lansing Community College, so things may be looking up financially, but frugality will still need to be a theme for many years while I pay off student loans, of course 🙂

So what do libraries have to do with my environmental focus? To engender in my son an environmental ethos will require that he is literate in all required forms of the day – print, audio, video – and all the online versions of communication available now & in the future.

Libraries today are vital not just because they provide access to books (and cds, videos, articles – & all of the online electronic versions of these), but because they promote literacy, citizenship AND teach us how to FIND the information we need in physical & virtual worlds.

What libraries provide for minimal tax costs:

Libraries are not just about the books (although these days they provide ebooks, articles online & paper, music, videos…)

They are about one of the world’s best kept secret resources – librarians! Librarians shelf & organize library resources of course, but they also…

– Answer any question you care to ask about any topic

– Teach you how to find your way in an increasingly complex online world

– Teach you how to find information quickly, efficiently & accurately

– Promote freedom of info

– Promote literacy for all

– Promote reading in kids

– Offer free homework help

– Provide career hunt resources

– What would you add to this list? There are MANY more I’m sure J

This week I was privileged to use the CoverItLive ‘in-the-moment’ blogging software to report on my son’s preschool story hour that he attends nearly every week at Lansing Public Library:

Lansing Public Library Storytime!

Top 5 Reasons to Raise a (Mostly) Vegetarian Kid

USDA's New ChooseMyPlate Icon

This week the US Department of Agriculture replaced the old, complicated food pyramid with a simpler plate icon which, according to this 2nd of June article from CNN, is aimed at ‘encouraging Americans to eat a more plant-based diet’.

This news inspired me to compile the following ‘Top 5’ list of reasons to encourage your child (& yourself!) to eat more along the lines of vegetarians.

1. It’s healthier for your kid

There are many obvious health benefits to a vegetarian diet, such as that it’s typically lower in fat, calories, and includes more whole grains – but, if you’ve been raised in a meat-oriented family you may need to carefully educate yourself (and your child) to ensure you are getting the right range of nutrients.

The Kidshealth Website provides a clear and concise explanation of the benefits and caveats of a vegetarian diet.

A posting from the Fitness Tips for Life Site reveals that it is actually pretty easy to get the nutrients we need on a veggie diet.

Finally, Wisegeek assures us that yes, it has been proven repeatedly that a veggie diet really is healthier.

2. It’s healthier for the planet

While living in Scotland, the Guardian became one of my favorite newspapers due to its educated, colorful prose and well-reasoned reporting.  It was fun to find a recent article by Jonathon Safran Froer debating whether eating a vegetarian diet really is healthier for the planet. I’ve heard much from various sources over the years about the idea that lower on food chain means more food for all, & less chopping of forest for cow grazing land, however Froer provides statistics supporting the ‘more food for all theory’ but also notes that tofu products may use even more arable land!

In another Guardian article, Lord Stern considers the ‘cow fart = increased global warming’ theory which argues that the methane gas produced by cows is a contributing factor to greenhouse gases.

Slate’s Brendan Koerner continues along similar lines in his essay, citing “bovines are responsible for roughly triple the methane emissions of the American coal industry.”

3. It’s safer

Although the press often reports e-coli found in fresh produce (such as in a New York Times article from 10 June 2011: “Germany Says Bean Sprouts Likely E.Coli Source”, ) it less often mentions that the e-coli actually originate in the cattle we raise for food and that the e-coli found in the fresh produce got there from accidental runoff from cattle farms.  The “I Really Like My Food Website” explains why it is not raw vegetables that cause E. Coli, but the problem lies with how the vegetables are fertilized and/or watered.

The Mayo Clinic also offers this short description of how e-coli contamination occurs, while The Family Doctor Website describes the e-coli contamination process in more detail.

4. It’s educational

Providing an all or mostly vegetarian diet offers some unique learning opportunities. For instance, kids learn about healthy eating and even help craft the menu at the first magnet school to offer only vegetarian school meals in the USA.

Raising a vegetarian child also offers opportunities for teaching about the humane reasons for avoiding consumption of animals as food. For instance TeachKind organization promotes ‘Meatless Mondays’ as a way to improve diets and encourage ethical thinking in children and schools.

Also, a fun vegetarian-related educational project is to teach a child how to grow their own vegetarian food is to help them create a pizza garden.

5. It’s cheaper

An exploratory trip to any grocery store will illustrate that it is cheaper to buy plant-based foods such as rice & beans in comparison to red meat (when you calculate how much you’d need to buy to feed your family). However, Scott McCredie’s article at MicrosoftNetwork points out that the health benefits may lead to long term medical savings as well.

Meanwhile, LearnVest Website created a handy comparison chart about how much typical meals might cost for the average meat-eater, fish-eater, vegetarian, and vegan.

Does all this mean that every American needs to stop eating all meat all the time?  Well,  the word ‘mostly’ in the title of this post was deliberately included as a nod to reasonable approaches.   Even America’s first ever vegetarian school allows parents to pack meat in sack lunches.  And what’s my family’s approach?  Well, I became a flexible vegetarian after a brief stint as a vegan showed me that an extreme diet can actually disrupt family & friendships.  The occasional chicken nugget that my son eats won’t kill anyone – except for the chicken, of course.

PS:  Here is a link to my Storify Story of the Week about my 1st Experiences in a Tweetchat The Storify Report discusses my experiences as well as aggregating the tweets sent during the chat, so I won’t re-invent the wheel here :-).