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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. |
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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 "the first step in a fundamental food-safety transformation at FDA."Compound In Broccoli Could Boost Immune System, Says Study
Tart Cherries Can Alter Factors Linked To Heart Disease And Diabetes, Animal Study Suggests
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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
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 Im not doing anything different from what nature does. Im 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." "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." "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." "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."
"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."
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 fathers socks into a clump of dry grass. I know. I know. Nissa said through a broad smile. I know what Im going to do with my socks. Im going to .....
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" |