[FRIAM] Earth School
Steven A Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Wed Apr 22 15:18:32 EDT 2020
Glen -
Good find... I wonder what the Flat-Earthers and the Creationists
version of this would look like? I have forwarded it to my daughter
who has an 8 year old and a 10 year old step (daughters)... it feels
like great "bite size" self-directed investigations of merit for that
age-group!
> https://ed.ted.com/earth-school
>> Welcome to Earth School! We’re embarking on a month of daily adventures – or Quests – that will help you understand and celebrate our natural world, while learning about how dependent we are on our planet. Now more than ever, we need to protect, nurture and care for Earth – so join us to learn something amazing every weekday between Earth Day (April 22nd) and World Environment Day (June 5th). Within each lesson, you’ll find fascinating resources compiled by Earth experts and ideas for getting involved in ways that count. Join us to learn more, create, act and share your journey (#EarthSchool) towards a cleaner and greener life.
From the (title) of the first lesson... my mother used to use the phrase
"I'm just going to go out in the garden and eat worms!"... today Mary
and I were giving our herd of 11 baby chickens (actually beyond toddlers
now to precocious pre-teens I guess) some "yard time". They went at
it right away (3rd time they have been out), looking under every leaf
and testing every tiny shoot. I was tempted to "release" a few of the
red wigglers from my vermicompost for them to "discover" but it
literally felt too much like "blood sport", something Rick deSantis
might approve as an "essential service", and appropriate for Northern NM
where Cock and Dog fighting has only been outlawed in recent history.
On the other hand I really DO look forward to watching the chickens earn
their keep if I get squash bugs in my garden this year. They seem like
the perfect predator-prey balance, though I guess I don't feel the same
about the coyotes and the owls... I suppose it is human to be
hypocritical in these ways?
I've an (ethnically) Ethiopian friend, now well into her 30s, who
immigrated to Australia at age 6. Her father was a Harrarian leader who
had been on the embassy staff from Ethiopia to Cairo, so she had lived a
pretty comfortable/protected life in the embassy compound. Their first
home was in a small town outside of Melbourne where the majority of the
students were very white and whose families were suspicious of this
"brown family", but her first-grade peers took her under their wing and
among other things, taught her how to find and eat "witchety grubs" at
the intersection of playground/bush. At some point, she found/ate one
in front of her (very Muslim) parents who were *appalled*. She had
already been taught all about Halal (like Kosher in Jewish culture)
foods and eating but there was not clear direction about these grubs,
and it started an ongoing rift in the family as her father was
ethnically Harrarian where eating insects was generally considered OK
while her mother was Arabic with roots in Yemen and Morocco which
apparently was *split* on which bugs were ok, and which ones were not.
In any case, neither parent thought it was "befitting" for her (or her
classmates) to be eating grubs, but apparently decided to go with
"benign neglect" and when she quit talking about it, they quit asking.
They moved into a suburb of Melbourne not long later and she had the
culture shock there that *nobody* ate witchety grubs on the
playground! She is now a computer professional married to a Sufi Sheik
who Surfs and they travel the world widely... I don't know if she ever
eats witchety grubs... I'll have to ask.
- Steve
More information about the Friam
mailing list