Charlotte is a generous dragon. She flew to Norway to share her tomatoes with future generations of children.

Now, she is ready to publish her famous recipe for tomato sauce. She won't tell us what spaghetti she uses, but I think we should be grateful she will share her tomato sauce witih future generations of children. Her recipe for her tomato sauce will appear on May Day, May 1, 2008. In the mean time, we will try to talk her into telling us what spaghetti she prefers to serve with her tomato sauce.

It's all about energy, Dragon.

"Energy, schmenergy! Whatever...I don't like anything green except other dragons. I like hamburgers and French fries and coke. That's what I like!"

But you have to eat more leafy greens. And what about the Mediterranean diet?

"Leafy greens don't do it for me. They suck!." Dragon speaks his mind. "I could go for leafy French fries!"

Thousands Of Crop Varieties Depart For Arctic Seed Vault

What is a seed vault? And where is it?

What Does it Take to Clean Fresh Food?

School Gardens in the Farm Bill

A step in the right direction!

Breast feeding moms--listen up!

If this is so, then you could make sure you don't have a picky eater later on by....

House bill directs FDA to revamp food safety work

Compound In Broccoli Could Boost Immune System, Says Study

Tart Cherries Can Alter Factors Linked To Heart Disease And Diabetes, Animal Study Suggests

Global seed vault opens in Norway

To mark the opening, guests carried the first 75 boxes of seeds down a red carpet through the steel and concrete-lined tunnel to the vaults.

"Mommy, what's a vault? Why are we putting seeds in there?" What are you going to tell your child? Remember, remain optimistic for the child's sake. Tell him/her the truth with a positive spin on it.

Ancient Method, 'Black Gold Agriculture' May Revolutionize Farming, Curb Global Warming

Environmentalists Debate the Promise of Biofuels

Do the fuels make sense from an environmental and economic standpoint?

Evolutionary Biology Research On Plant Shows Significance Of Maternal Effects

Staying close to mother plant reminds one of 'community'.

Natural Pest Control: Tiny Pest-eating Insect Fights Fruit Flies

Intelligent pest control

Eating Your Greens Could Prove Life-saving If A Heart Attack Strikes

Mediterranean diet is heart healthy because of this one chemical in leafy green

Ethanol From Corn Cobs Isn't A Pipe Dream

...squeeze 27 percent more fuel from each acre of the crop.

Biodynamic Vineyard

A doctor grows grapes and notices how similar they are to humans

A treeless book !

It's an ebook! $9.95

StarChild Science: Teach Your Own

What are you going to do in your garden? Plant things? There's so much more to do than that. There's a whole bucketfull of things you can do with your child in the garden that allows your child to make important connections to the stars. Crazy? Read chapter 5 and make your own mind up! Judy Wilken MS

"Animal School"

We oftentimes don't realize how easy it is to damage our children's aspirations and feelings about themselves. Unfortunately, it is a very easy thing to do.

Academy Students Create Artwork Reflecting Excesses of Junk Mail

...biodegradable sculptures made of mailbox castoffs will provide a powerful call to action to the shocking fact 100 million trees are expired for junk mail in the United States every year.

New Insights Into How Natural Antioxidants Fight Fat

...helpful in reducing the risk of heart attacks, cancer, obesity, and other disorders.

Why You Should Care About the Farm Bill

This time around, sparks are already flying.

High-Quality Corn For Low-Input Farming Systems

Special corn just for organic chickens?

California Cerfified Organic Farmers

It is the farmers who are the backbone of our community's health. We at StarChild Science see these farmers as the most important farmers on the planet.

"Hey, you're burning my comfort food! I can't watch this!"

Mr. Dragon closed his eyes for the longest time, then opened them. "Just tell me why it's burning. Why! Why! Why!"

Useful Mutants, Bred With Radiation

“I’m not doing anything different from what nature does. I’m not using anything that was not in the genetic material itself.”

Caught In My Socks

"Mine look like boots," Chance yelled out as he watched his father's socks flop around over his tennis shoes.

"My feet are going to be too hot," Nissa complained as she struggled with a sock. "It won't go over my tennis shoe."

"Mine look like white boots." Serene turned to Joshua's friend, Jimmy, anxious to show him that her father's socks covered more than her tennis shoes. They reached all the way up of her legs.

"Oh, this is hard. I can't get these socks over my shoes," Jill complained. "I still don't know why we're wearing socks into the forest."

"Be sure to pull your father's socks alllll...l the way up your legs. We don't want you to loose a sock in the forest." I helped each child pull a pair of their father's socks over tennis shoes, new and old. "We might even be walking through a big berry patch. "

"We're wearing socks because berries don't go through our shoes as easily," Chance told us with the utmost confidence.

"How do we carry our berries, anyway?" Nissa asked. "I love berries and want to take a bunch home with me today.:"

"I have seed pouches for each of you." I gave some of the children large pouches and some small pouches for their seed collection. "Put as many different kinds of seeds into this pouch as you can find. And we will examine them under our microscopes when we return to our lesson area. Let's go into the meadow."

"Yeah," the children answered enthusiastically. Chance reached into his large pouch, measured the inside of it with his arm and announced, "I can put thousands of seeds in here. I'm going to fill it up."

"This meadow looks worn-out to me." Jill said as she followed us down to the meadow, the stiff stems of the summer grasses cracking under our feet like nuts in a fire. The common monkey flowers that she loved to pick just weeks ago had vanished and the only thing that was left were its small brown weather-worn, rough caskets full of many seeds. She looked around and tried to find a flower from the shooting star plant for her collection but that had disappeared as well. And the columbine flowers with all the honey bees and hummers around, they were gone too. When she looked around she found only sneezeweed, Indian paintbrush and lots of dandelions. She walked over to a large ollieberry bush and began picking its berries. "Come over here. I found the ripest berry in the whole meadow."She popped it into her mouth before any of us could see it.

"Look at that." Serene pointed at the small monarch larva feeding on a milkweed leaf. "A big fat caterpillar.""This little larva has so much work to do," I told her as I moved closer to the larva.

"It does?" Jill walked over to us and looked down at the small creature. "What work?"

"It has to make some important changes to become a beautiful butterfly," I answered.

"What changes?" Serene asked.

"It has to make body parts like wings and legs and eyes and other body parts before it changes into a butterfly. It will use the sugars and starches in the leaves of this plant to get the energy that is needed to make those body parts."

"Legs take a lot of energy to make," Jill told me.

"And wings take a lot of energy to make too," Serene added.

"It took a lot of energy to make my legs." Jill looked up at me to make sure I was looking at her legs.

"And it took a lot of energy to make my arms and my legs too." Serene added as she took her shirt off. "I'm boiling hot," she complained.

"Yes. You girls have very strong legs. I can see that," I told them as we continued to walk through the meadow, tasting ollieberries at leisure, harvesting the seeds of grasses, the flowers of sneezeweed and Indian paintbrush, until our seed pouches could hold very little more.

"I can't put these dandelion seeds into my pouch. They fly away too fast," Jimmy complained.

"My berries are as sweet as sugar," Serene told us with delight. "I want to make a ollieberry pie when I get home. I'll bet my mom won't have to add any sugar to the recipe " She ran in front of me to another generous berry bush, grabbed at some berries and carefully put them into her seed pouch. "I'm going to take this pouch home with me."

"As you collect your seeds," I raised my voice so the children behind me could hear, "remember that nature is telling us the same thing that she told us with magnetism and electricity, and with molecules and the elements. Oh, and of course, with light. She is saying, 'Between us two',"

"'There's nothing between us but energy and information'." Nissa grabbed at these words as quickly as she grabbed at the berries. "Energy and information is what is between us and nature."

"Yes, Nissa. Can you tell me what energy there is here with all these plants?" I walked over to a large berry bush at the edge of the meadow and continued with my line of thought. "And what is the information that is between us and nature right here, this morning, in this meadow?"

"Well," Chance wanted to answer for NIssa. "I think the energy here has something to do with seeds all right.

Maybe it is seed energy or something like that."

"Well, plants grow you know. And plants need energy to grow." Serene bit into another berry. "That's why my mom feeds me oatmeal and vegetables. I am growing. She says I am growing like a weed. Maybe the energy is growing energy." She popped the ollieberry into her mouth and forgot to chew it before she swallowed it.

We left the warm edges of the meadow and entered the dark lightcave. "Oh, look. We're going to go through the lightcave. Remember when we tried to catch light in this cave?" When Chance entered the lightcave he couldn't help wondering if there really was a way to catch light. He and his father have tried every kind of container at home but none of them worked so far.

"Yeah, light travels too fast for me to catch it," Joshua told him."I gave up."

After we walked through the lightcave we came upon a deer path that led deeper into the forest. "Come children. Let's go to another berry patch and pick more berries there." The children gathered behind me then followed me down the deer path and into a berry patch which was cloaked in shade. "There's lots of berries here too." We started looking for bright red berries.

"Look at Jimmy. Jimmy's face looks funny." Nissa called out, looked over to Joshua's friend and saw that he had just tasted a berry that was not quite ripe. "The berries in this spot are more sour than those in the meadow aren't they? I wonder how that happened," I asked as the children gathered around Jimmy and watched his face change as if a sudden storm was passing over it.

"I know. I know how it happened. They're just not ready yet. These berries haven't got enough sugar. That's all," Nissa answered.

"Sugar? Not ready yet?" I asked her.

"Plants need ..." Chance began lining up his ideas out loud. "Carbon dioxide and water to make sugar. Remember Nissa? Remember the carbon dioxide bubbles we made last time?" he asked Nissa. "Remember pouring the carbon dioxide gas onto a berry bush?"

"Oh yeah. And the water out of fire," Serene whispered. "That was so much fun. It was like magic to me." She reached for her shirt. "I need my shirt on now. It's cold around here. "

"Very good, children. And what else do you think plants need to make sugar?" I asked.

Chance looked all around then answered, "Light. Plants need light to grow. Everybody knows that."

"Look what I found. A Forget-me-not down under the berry bush." As Jimmy handed me a Forget-me-not flower, Jill came over to us and confessed, "I can't believe plants eat a gas. I still can't believe it. I never heard of such a thing as that before. And I told my mom and she never heard that before either."

"Neither did my mom," Joshua added. "My dad says he has gas when he eats brussel sprouts. He told my mom not to bring them into our house ever again."

"So, that sour berry that Jimmy ate was sour because?" I resumed the questioning.

"It didn't have enough sugar. I told you that already," Nissa was becoming impatient with my questions.

"And it didn't have enough sugar because?" I pressed on.

"Carbon dioxide?" Serene made a shy guess.

"Water?" Joshua yelled out from behind an ollieberry bush.

"Well, let's think about this for a moment. Let's think like a scientist thinks." The children stopped picking berries and began listening closely. " What's the difference between this spot here and a spot in the meadow where we found ripe berries with lots of sugar in them?"

"Well, the air is the same air here as up in the meadow," Chance began. "So the air is not different."

"And both spots are in the same forest," Nissa added.

"So you are saying that the amount of carbon dioxide in the air is the same in both spots?"

"Yeah." Nissa looked at Chance and they both nodded affirmatively.

"Now, what about the water?" I continued.

"Both spots are in the same forest. When it rains in the meadow it rains down here too. They are just across the road from each other. So the amount of water is about the same in both spots." Chance came in closer.

"If you were a scientist, Chance and Nissa, I gather that you would conclude that the amount of water and the amount of carbon dioxide are about the same in both spots. So the berries should be the same. Right? One should not be sweeter than the other. But, as a scientist, Chance and Nissa, you have observed that the berries are not the same. One is sweeter than the other and that sweeter one is up in the meadow. Not in this spot down here." The children turned and stared at both Nissa and Chance for the longest time. They looked at them in the same way as when Chance discovered the link between electricity and magnetism. When he discovered there was a connection between magnetism and electricity, the rest of the children went home and told their parents that Chance was a real scientist. They too wanted to be scientists and begin thinking like scientists. "Tell us how, not why the meadow berries are ripe while the berries in this spot are sour."

Chance looked around at each of the children, somewhat hesitant to add more to the discussion but at the same time eager to begin thinking this one out. "Well, this is not like the meadow." He looked up at the tall redwoods and continued. "The light is different." He threw out his first clue.

"What do you mean, Chance, the light is different? The sunlight that hits the berries in the meadow is the same sunlight that hits the berries right here." I challenged him.

"I know. But here there isn't as much sun as in the meadow. This spot is in the shade. Look. Look at all the trees. There's no trees in the meadow like here."

"Yeah," Nissa agreed. "It's shady here."

"Very good. I think you are now thinking like a scientist."

"It's hot in the meadow. I had to take my shirt off, remember?" Serene reminded me.

"So, when we are talking about plants it is the sunlight that is the energy that is between us and nature isn't it?"

"There would be no plants without sunlight. "Joshua looked all around him as if realizing this for the first time..

"And my bunny, Cinnamon, would starve." Nissa turned to a berry bush and began looking hard for a ripe red berry.

"Yes. Cinnamon would starve."

"Sophie, my turtle would starve too."

"And my horse would starve. Whisperjacket eats oats and apples and grass." Jill's face couldn't have been more sad.

"Everything would be dead." Serene bowed her head just at the thought.

"Come children let's walk deep into the forest and gather more seeds. " As we walked out of the shaded area I overheard Chance tell Jill, "Don't worry. If there's all this energy around here everything will be ok."

The sun warmed our backs as we found a deer trail to take us into the northern end of the forest. I quickly noticed a change of foliage as we descended. We were walking through narrow flat places full of ollieberry bushes and Bull Thistle when Jill stopped suddenly. She carefully pulled at the soft thistledown of a three foot tall Bull Thistle. "This is the purplest down I ever saw." She closed her eyes and continued stroking the soft down of the flower. The feel of it reminded her of her new baby brother's hair on his fully covered head.

After picking at seeds from yarrow, goldenrod, dandelions, fiddlenecks and shinny shooting star plants the children began noticing their socks. "Hey, my dad's socks are all dirty. Mom won't be happy about this. They are new." Jill began pulling at the seeds that were stuck in her father's socks and putting them in her seed pouch.

"Hey. Mine are all covered with seeds too." Serene squiggled her feet this way and that trying to shake the seeds loose from her father's socks.

"What is going on here anyway?" Chance did not care for this kind of surprise. It was so unexpected. It seemed to him nature had gotten the better of him and he did not think that was at all fun. "You didn't tell us this would happen," he scolded me.

"Now what are we going to do?" Jill asked us all.

"What can we do with those socks?" I asked them.

“Wash them before my mom picks me up.” Jill snapped her neck around, looking for a hose.

“Hide them before my mom picks me up.” Jimmy rushed to a dark place near a pine tree and stuffed his father’s socks into a clump of dry grass.

”I know. I know.” Nissa said through a broad smile. “I know what I’m going to do with my socks. I’m going to .....”

Global seed vault opens in Norway "It is the Noah's Ark for securing biological diversity for future generations." "Crop diversity will soon prove to be our most potent and indispensable resource for addressing climate change, water and energy supply constraints, and for meeting the food needs of a growing population," said Cary Fowler, head of the Global Crop Diversity Trust. Any of these articles in this chapter are here to help increase your child's awareness of what we are doing in the plant world. A five year old's impression of a bunch of seeds stored in a very cold place, inside a mountain? can produce some real interesting stories. Talk to your child about all the different kinds of plants you see everyday growing along the highwaya, in the cummunity garden and in the forest. Possible Fix For Global Warming? using algae to capture carbon dioxide   Red Light, Yellow Light and Green Light Foods “Mr. Dragon, I want you to look at that little boy consuming enough energy to lift 21.6 SUVs.” “Twenty one SUVs? I can't look. I'm eating.” “If he keeps eating like this he won't be able to lift himself up on the monkey bars." "I can't look. I'm eating. This is my comfort food. Besides, I'm not into monkey bars or SUVs.” "Well, what are you into then?" "Fire, baby. Fire!"   Evolutionary Biology Research On Plant Shows Significance Of Maternal Effects Could this mean nature already 'knows' the value of community? In times of violent global climate changes this finding is very significant!   Natural Pest Control: Tiny Pest-eating Insect Fights Fruit Flies These tiny pest-devouring insects are considered to be powerful "biocontrol agents" since they reduce the need for chemical pest management applications.   Eating Your Greens Could Prove Life-saving If A Heart Attack Strikes heart-healthy Mediterranean diet.   Ocean Plankton Reducing Greenhouse Gases By Using More Carbon Dioxide The world oceans are by far the largest sink of anthropogenic CO2 on our planet. Until now, they have swallowed almost half of the CO2 emitted through the burning of fossil fuels.   Biodynamic Vineyard "grapes are a lot like human beings"   What Does it Take to Clean Fresh Food? "So it's a 30-second, 50-cent investment."   Useful Mutants, Bred With Radiation — using radiation to scramble the genetic material in crops, a process that has produced valuable mutants like red grapefruit, disease-resistant cocoa and premium barley for Scotch whiskey.   Tart Cherries Can Alter Factors Linked To Heart Disease And Diabetes, Animal Study Suggests   There is an association between consumption of diets high in flavonoids and reduced risk of cancer and heart disease. Now this is something you can sink your kid's teeth into.   Dr. Rob Moodie of Australia at the Victoria Health Promotion Foundation.   Junk-food ads banned to beat child obesity Keeping the junk-food away from children will make you feel warm inside.This is an intelligent beginning. Candy companies stand to lose billions from our newfound sensitivity to the causes of childhood obesity. Look out Hersheys, Cadbury and McDonalds, to name a few companies who have reaped the benefits of our ignorance for too long! It's time to clean house! Like Gore said, "One can only attempt to create own's own reality for so long. Reality proper has a way of insisting itself upon you." This is so true especially with junk-food companies. They know better, but because of greed they hope to slip by as long as they can. Games up! As the saying goes, 'If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. Or, to put it another way, 'If everyting seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something'. Or maybe this is a little more appropriate, 'I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.' Teaching Kids the Science of Calories Just what do scientists do when they want to know how many calories are in a food? Can children really understand that there is energy in food? What kind of energy? Remember, in our ebook StarChild Science: Teach Your Own we talked about the flow of energy from one form and into another form? This discussion will help explain this article. Flight of the Bumblebee: Flower Choice Matters Knowing how bees do what they do can lead to increasing plant yields. And this is crucial as we enter The Year of the Environment. Many new jobs in science will open up because of this kind of question. If you can think like a bee, then you will be able to predict what flowers the bee will prefer in the process of pollination. And if you can do that, you can guarantee higher crop yields. Why do you think there are students in universities in this country that are thinking like this? Nations are facing starvation due to global warming. Nations like the United Kingdom, our own nation, the United States, and even Canada, want to understand how bees do what they do. We are all having to rethink our crop rotation, our seed quality, our production. Maybe genetic engineering isn't such a bad idea after all!   Pollinators Help One-third Of The World's Food Crop Production The next time you are in the vegetable and fruit aisle at your grocery store ask your child do find as many fruits as possible that are pollinated by bees. (These are the berries in this department) When you get home, look up pollination and bee to find out how the bee does this. This is an event your child will enjoy. Go out into your yard and see if you can find any flowers with bees on them. Look through a magnifying glass and watch the bee crawl around the flower. Notice his legs, how loaded they are with pollen.   Ethanol could leave the world hungry The United States is the world's laergest producer of ethanol. Biodiversity declining? Some bees rely on certain flowers. And some flowers rely on certain bees.

Ancient Method, 'Black Gold Agriculture' May Revolutionize Farming, Curb Global Warming "biochar" profoundly enhances the natural carbon seizing ability of soil. Dubbed "black gold agriculture, Academy Students Create Artwork Reflecting Excesses of Junk Mail Academy of Art University students’ show JUNK MAIL: FROM DEBRIS TO DESIGN features a cross-section of environmentally conscious works, ranging from sculpture to dozens of fashion designs.   Environmentalists Debate the Promise of Biofuels "Right now there's little doubt that ethanol is making global warming worse," Searchinger says. Thousands Of Crop Varieties Depart For Arctic Seed Vault Thinking ahead of global warming! School Gardens in the Farm Bill Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has included an amendment in the Farm Bill to authorize $10,000,000 to establish a pilot program for community school gardens.   Eat Fruits And Veggies While Breastfeeding And Baby Will Probably Like Them During their first exposure to peaches, breast-fed infants ate more and for a longer period of time, compared to formula-fed infants.   Ethanol From Corn Cobs Isn't A Pipe Dream The U.S. Department of Energy earlier this year awarded $385 million to six companies hoping to build the nation's first large biomass-to-fuel plants.   New Insights Into How Natural Antioxidants Fight Fat ...improving the symptoms of metabolic syndrome, a cluster of symptoms like obesity and high blood sugar that increase the risk of heart disease, the researchers said.   FOOD NEWS: Fruit Gleaning makes sense Try this around your community. Urban fruit gleaning helps everyone. It's a win- win agri-social behavior. Why You Should Care About the Farm Bill Here is a look at the farm bill's key elements and the controversies involved in them.   Flight of the Bumblebee? Experts Think So "It definitely could all come crashing down."   Clever Plants 'Chat' Over Their Own Network This research clearly reveals that the general image of plants is a poor reflection of reality. Who had now suspected that the majority of plants around us are constantly networking?   House bill directs FDA to revamp food safety work Among other things, the bill "expands to all states a program for fresh fruit and vegetable snacks in grade schools".   Lettuce, Leafy Greens And E. Coli Because of the increased scrutiny of the spinach harvest we are approaching a safer time to eat this vegetable. By asking many questions, we are now at a more aware stage of prevention of E.coli outbreaks. Still, don't ever assume spinach is safe to eat right out of the bag. Wash it yourself. Compound In Broccoli Could Boost Immune System, Says Study "Interestingly, to obtain the effects on the immune response, DIM must be given orally, not injected. It could be that the metabolism of the compound changes when it is injected instead of eaten."   High-Quality Corn For Low-Input Farming Systems Why would we want to boost corn's nutritional content while making it more compatible with sustainable farming systems. The reasons for this direction wiih corn crops is stated clearly in our Open Letter. Click on graphic to read letter. Written August 11, 2007 Italians facing pasta price rise ...price hike of 20% for spaghetti and fettuccine by the autumn for Italians who have long been accustomed to cheap pasta in their supermarkets.   Native hum Some are fuzzy. Some are tailored around the neck. And some have no fuzzies at all! But every one of these bees works hard and has a good work ethic.   Sacrificing Our Children to the 'Corn God' Ethanol May Not Be the Miracle It's Made Out to Be   GM potato trials given go-ahead "The possibility of a food crop from it is maybe 10 years down the line."   Is this stuff safe to eat? What's all the fuss about? How is genetically modified food faring now that organic food sales are mushrooming? Pollen's job, after all, is to move genes and fertilize eggs in other plants. PICKY EATER? What can you do to help your PICKY EATER To read more about childhood obesity go to our: Childhood Obesity page   The language of science is universal.

All right reserved - Judy Wilken MS - 2008

Animation of the dragon seen on this page is licensed to StarChild Science by "animated.gif(c)KittyRoach"