Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

My finished crazy-quilt sweater thingy that I'm entering in the Lake Farm Park Quilt Show!

-5 degrees this morning, which is warmer than Friday which was -10! We only have about a foot of snow.

One week accomplished and only 11 more to go for Spring '09 semester. All this week's classes went well. The students enjoyed the "crime scene" lab and their chance to figure out "who done it"! (Most of them shouldn't sign up to be detectives!). The lab was called 'The Case of the Missing Plant Press a.k.a. microscopy and plant cell structure'. The goal was to learn how to properly use the microscope, dissecting scope and learn basic plant cell structure and organelles. An additional goal was to practice deductive thinking and learning to support their statements with data (a real challenge for some!). The case they had to solve involved 7 plant suspects (Tommy Tomato, Mr. Potato Head, Flora Plantae, Gym Pine Tree, Ella Elodea, Gary Grass and Ollie Onion) who were 'rounded up' in the vicinity of the destruction of a plant press. A note was left at the crime scene signed by the 'PLG'
(Plant Liberation Gang) claiming responsibility with the letters cut from a newspaper. The suspects were carrying various newspapers, scissors, razor blades and serrated knives and left debris, fibers, tissue and pollen at the crime scene. Students were given various tools such as labeled sample fibers, test cardboard to try out the various cutting implements to compare to the destroyed plant press pieces to figure out which implement was used in its destruction, and demonstration scopes with ID tissue (with various plant organelles) and pollen samples to compare to the tissues and pollen found at the crime scene.