Day 56-57: In sickness and in health (Cedar Falls)

Again, we are so spoiled by the kind folks who take us in. Naomi and John whipped up some bacon and French toast (with real maple syrup) before we headed out to our sixth lesson at the Waterloo YWCA. 

The bike paths here are something else. Paved, but through forests and along rivers, we road 10 miles to the summer camp without cars for 9 of 'em. The kids at camp were restless but deeply curious. It was so fun to see them wake up and focus a little, as we started to talk about ourselves, our trip and our careers. It was raining (of course, we can't seem to catch a break with these lessons), but  the motors spun, and the back wheels spin weakly in the dimmed light outside. 

Favorite questions: does it hurt to eat GU packets; has anyone in your family been to space. Also it was really something to realize how small the world was to most of the kids. We asked them how far California was, and they responded with estimate between 5 and 30 miles. That's what really far away is for them.

After the class, we went back to Naomi and John's to try to get the ID thing sorted out. Took a break in the evening to check out the bike shop and Single Speed brewery (10/10, their IPA and their dark were both top notch). We went to their favorite Thai restaurant for dinner, then toured the university, where John teaches computer science. 

We packed up and were pretty much ready to go for the next morning. I was working on the blog in bed at 10 and had been feeling a little queasy. All of a sudden, it was like ten thousand little bugs trying to rip their way out of my stomach. Rachel had just told our hosts the story about what happened in the Alps: Rachel and I were backpacking around Mont Blanc and the one night we decided to camp, I woke up and threw up all over and in this pretty little French lodge. The next day we tried to go on but we ended up having to hitchhike to the nearest English-speaking doctor, two hours away. I was dehydrated and had a kidney infection, and it took another two days before I could hold down some noodles. That ended the trip quick. 

Anyways, Rachel had just told this story and I come out white as a sheet and then run to the bathroom. It was an ugly night, compounded by how scared I was I'd have an Alpian repeat. But I finally drifted off, and slept until 9 this morning, awoken by an appetite. We took it easy on food today, but so far I've kept everything down. Rachel kept on the hunt to replace her ID. We'll try for Cedar Rapids tomorrow. 

Day 25: Teach to the kids (Cambridge)

Woke up with the sun to go to Becca's school today. We've got to stop doing this four hours of sleep before teaching thing.

We were late getting to school but not for school. We had a full day ahead of us: all five of Becca's 7th-10th grade science classes and a technology careers class to wrap up the day. Each lesson went a little differently- we focused more on 3D printing applications in one class, on renewable energy in the next. We tried our a new demonstration Rachel came up with to explain how a solar panel works. Rachel definitely took the lead on today's, my stomach was still roiling from whatever had me going yesterday on the way to the hot springs. I feel distended, bloated, burned and nauseous. At least we weren't riding.

But they look cool

The kids were good, curious, at least willing to give us a shot. Becca had given us an extensive overview of her kids - many come from broken homes, most won't make it to college, as opposed to the two schools we taught at before. But the kids surprise you, always. Some of the ones Becca least expected to speak up did, like the kid with the mullet (they're bringing them back) who tweaked the bike and compared it to RC cars he'd played with in the past. 

Their tech class printed quite the pretty Sol Cycle! 

With just a lunch break to pause the day, we collapsed exhausted in Becca's classroom at the end of the day, and we all left early to go find a package my mom sent with extra sol cycle parts for the tech careers class, which 3D printed their own bicycles.

Tonight we dehydrated about 7 tons more food: mangos, strawberries, veggie tikka masala for another dinner (recipe below). Tried to make beat chips, those didn't go that well. Bagged veggies and quinoa for the road. I cleaned, sorted and packed, I can't sleep if I don't. We'll go with Becca to Cambridge tomorrow and head back down to Boise from there. 

Day 7: Wildflower, rainbow lightning (Chico)

We woke up and turned the alarm off and woke up and snoozed and woke up and rolled over and woke up and slept. Finally pancakes sounded too good to deny any longer, so we mixed up a couple’a batches of rice-milk-coconut-oil hot stacks with flavors like banana chocolate and matcha-green-tea-walnut. Chico just stole the first place farmer’s market straight out from under Davis (hey Davis Enterprise, what’s up with that?!), so yeah this town is crunchy.

Our host then taught us some Muay Thai as self defense -- like breaking punches with your elbows and shrimping, which can help you escape if someone’s got you held on the ground. 

After some writing and some sorting, we headed off to our second class at Wildflower Open Classroom, a charter school trying to give kids independence and freedom within their school day. 

The kids didn't know what to make of us at first - and actually it was more difficult to get the kids to work in groups than in the Sacramento classrooms. 

I worked closely with Owen, a shy kid at first. I’ve never had dimensional analysis open kids up, but he got out his happy calculator (a scientific calculator he could make a happy face on) and we sat together as he figured out how many miles per hour the Sol Cycle could ride. At the end of class, a kindergartener came up and asked Owen what he was doing. Owen took it into the sun and handed it to the kid and let him play with it while explaining the solar panel and motor, and the kindergartener’s jaw dropped and his eyes got all wide. When we went back inside, Owen pulled out this beautiful drawing of a character named Rosalina and told us he wanted us to take it with us on our trip; those are the moments that make teaching so worth whatever stress planning brings. 

That evening, our Warm Showers host Spencer showed us to the Chico’s farmer’s market, a hoot with lots of hollering when the sky turned to candy and lightning cracked. We made a run for it and ate damp pineapple, pork and veggie tamales under a construction awning. The sweet and spicy sauces were A+ bingo go time. Tomorrow: the mountains awaited.

Day 4: Huffin and puffin (Davis to Sacramento)

That 7 am wake up call. I ran to Ace to pick up some more screwdrivers (turned out Home Depot’s minis were too mini for our bicycles), and also some nuts, washers, bolts, and super glue. Rachel ran to 7-11 for coffee and we shoveled oatmeal down our throats for breakfast.

Even with a viscious headwind over the causeway we made it to Cal Middle School averaging 13.4 miles per hour. I lagged a little but Rachel tore through those four miles, a little neon light at the end of the windy tunnel.

The first class was … haphazard. We definitely could have prepared better for it, but it’s hard to know how to teach a class when you just walk into it, and you’ve got no background with the kids and no real idea of what they’ve been learning. Rachel chipping in -- it didn't help that NBC was filming our FIRST EVER LESSON. I got so nervous I started eating my own words for lunch, which don't taste as good as the brisket sandwiches we had gobbled down the day before. It felt more natural once we brought the class outside to start playing with the Sol Cycles, but the first ten minutes with the giant cameras plastered in our faces were really hard for me.

But there were a few kids that seemed to really take to the lessons. They asked these incredibly insightful questions, they tried, failed and succeeded in tinkering with the bicycle. And we’re realizing that this trip is going to be about those students. We won’t be able to reach every kid we shake hands with. But we’re hoping we can somehow, in whatever little way, inspire a few.

Monday was the last night of home for me. Picked up some more Sol Cycles at the Urban Hive, printed for cheap by Rocket Department. Spent a couple of hours being enlightened by Pheonix, this thoughtful and relentless lady who founded LEEF Education. She’s one of those people I’m incredibly lucky to have met; her ideas will sit with me and shape me for years to come. Ash, one of the co-founders of Code for Sacramento walked in; he’s back from Iran. And we stayed with Caleb, Tyler and Ben, who I met through Fer, in the cramped and homey one-bedroom apartment they share with some pigeons and some beetles. Caleb made some hearty Jambalaya with sausage and rice and veggies and spice and we curled up on rugs and in old sleeping bags and drifted off to sleep to the sound of the city.

Back to Racheland for a bit:

While Liz picked up Sol Cycles and hung out with Caleb + co, I went to finally get that new bike rack from Bicycle Business (they do bike camping trips every week! You should check it out if you live in the Sacramento area, or wait till we get back and I'll go with you). While I was in the shop I suddenly heard the mechanic holler from the other room "You guys on NPR?” Turns out a middle school science teacher spotted the Cycle for Science sticker on my bike and recognized us from our radio interview the week before! I chatted with her for a while about science education, and the awesome "Dinner with a Scientist" program that she runs for her students.

Next stop -- my lovely cousin Lily's house! Sort of my last night of home too. She whipped me up a delish smoothie (dates, almond butter, chocolate, flax seeds I think? I lost count of the ingredients). Even though she was in the midst of finals week for nursing school, she let me gobble up some of her time (I quizzed her with questions about cardiac arrest) and she even drove me to REI (the last REI till Boise!) to pick up bigger panniers for my new "nice rack." Thanks Lilz! Then I popped over to Caleb's to help Liz eat the Jambalaya.

"Be a Scientist"

Time for me to do my first batch of scribbling in this bloggity blog! Actually I think this is the first time I’ve ever written in a blog. And yesterday, another first – I taught in a middle school classroom for the first time.

Gulllp.

I’m volunteering in the pilot of “Be A Scientist,” an outreach program with theCommunity Resources for Science (CRS). A little plug for CRS – they are an amazing Berkeley-based organization that aims to connect scientists, educators and students and provide an array of resources to help excel science education. Er, I’ll let them say it:

“Our goal is simple: help teachers give students more opportunities to “do science” – to ask questions, test ideas, get their hands on real science activities. We need to inspire the next generation of thinkers, makers, problem solvers, and leaders!”

One of their most widespread programs, BASIS (Bay Area Scientists in Schools), brings scientists, mostly graduate students and post-docs from UC Berkeley, into elementary and middle schools to teach interactive, hands-on lessons. BASIS has had some remarkable success – last year (2013-2014), 500+ BASIS volunteers visited 416 Bay Area classrooms, presented over 100 different hands-on lessons, and reaching over 10,000 students. Teachers love it – each BASIS lesson was crafted to fulfill a specific state teaching standard, and they bring new perspectives to students about what science means.

Graciously, BASIS allows grad-school-procrastinators like myself go too. I’ve been visiting elementary school classrooms this year to teach interactive lessons on renewable energy. Last time we went to a third grade class. It was challenging to introduce the idea of renewable energy to the class, let alone the concept of “renewable” – we asked for examples of renewable things, and the students kept saying “shoes! Cuz you can go buy more!” We used a solar powered buggy demo, I guess a twice removed (since there are two more wheels?) cousin of our little infant Sol Cycle.

“Be a Scientist” is a bit different than BASIS. Rather than giving just one lesson over one class period, the same volunteers come into the same 7th grade class six times during the semester. Here’s the low down: every single student is designing, carrying out, analyzing, and presenting their own testable scientific experiment over the course of a month and a half. The idea is to introduce the scientific method to the students, coach them throughout the creative process, and relate it back to what we do in our own research projects. It was founded by Mary C. Wildermuth, a UC Berkeley Professor of Plant & Microbial Biology (stay posted peeps, we’re trying to line up a teacher profile with her!)

I walked into Mr. C’s classroom and immediately my eyes zipped around between dioramas of planets, bright posters all over the walls, and … to the gecko geckoing around in his gecko in the back corner! It was clear this teacher had worked really hard to create a comfortable, vibrant space for his students to learn at their fullest.

There were five other volunteers in my class. We started off giving quick overviews of our own research. I pulled the whole “I shoot giant six-foot lasers at stuff to make other stuff, KAPOWWW” line, and attempted to explain transparent conducting materials and their relevance in everyday devices: iPhones, LED disco dance displays, flat screen TVs, and – the ultimate, la crem de la crem – solar energy conversion. Other volunteers were from many different research areas, and talked about particle physics, nuclear physics, robotics, chemistry, biology, etc.

The students had so many o’ question. So many that the “quick” intro ended up taking up half the class period, leaving less time to break out into groups. Some highlights: “What is a grad student?” “How much money does Berkeley have? Does it get it from Football? Why do some schools have more money than other schools?” “Is chemistry, like, the stuff in your brain?” “Wait, whaaat is your name?” “Do you do what my mom does?” and one memorable one directed to me: “Do lasers make you blind, like, forever forever?”

For the rest of the class, I led four students in a discussion to brainstorm separate research projects for each of them. It was trickier than I’d thought. We need to come up with four experiments that are stimulating, challenging, and suited to the student’s interest, and the constraints are heavy – materials must be very cheap and the experiment must be feasible to complete in two class periods. The ol’ mentos and coke gag is off limits. And experimenting on animals is discouraged. So of course, my two most students immediately decided they wanted to work with mice (putting them in solitary confinement and in the dark!?) and with hamsters. Multiple. I tried to gauge what each of their general science interests were – neuroscience, computer science, electricity, and “um nothing” – and redirect these interests into testable questions not involving mice. We didn’t get too far, and the questions are very much under construction (just like the UCLA campus always is!) but here’s what they might be doing:

1. How does the power output vary between batteries made out of different kinds of fruits and vegetables? Why? Bonus project: how can we hook up these batteries to charge an iPhone? (this student initially wanted to charge an iPhone with mulitple hamsters on a treadmill – the teacher said we could do that if his parents provided the hamsters. I wished him luck)
2. How do humans react to being in darkness for varying periods of time? (We’re still having some trouble defining the dependant variables … this student wants to do this on mice, and is trying to pull the “Hey mom can you buy me seven mice” card. Again, sent some luck)
3. How does the electronic resistance vary in different materials? How does it change when you heat them up? (I might be able to bring some semiconductor materials from my lab… thinking silicon, some metals, maybe something I’ve synthesized… might change the thickness, might measure transparency to try to squeeze in a lesson on transparent conductors?)
4. What percentage of students can differentiate the taste of similar-textured foods when their sense of smell is eliminated? Nose-plugs are quite as hard to come by as hamsters, and are provided by the CRS. We’ll run the typical “potatoes vs. apples”, and come up with some others. We might use the same foods as the battery experiment.

I had a tough enough time talking with four students, and keeping all of their interest while narrowing each of their interests. At one point we had to take a break, and so we took the gecko out of its cage so I could explain the suction mechanism on its feet. After just a half hour of brainstorming, I was exhausted. Yet Mr. C used to do this same project every year for twenty years with NO help, in the same time frame. That means seven times as many kids as I was helping, and making sure each one of the 30 students has a project that is both exciting and practical. And then teaching six other classes of the same thing. That’s a whoppin’ 180 different science experiments.

Anyways, this was the first of six visits I am so excited to see how these projects evolve and I’m lucky to have the support of CRS throughout the process. I’m trying to drag Elizabeth along with me for a few classes (my avid readers: that’s where you come in! Start spam emailing Elizabeth to convince her to come with me! Okay fine, she has a super busy schedule because she just got into a bunch of PhD programs and has to, ya know, get flown all over the country so they can convince her to come work on piezoelectric devices…)

Sasha and Elise from the CRS are also oh so kindly helping us plan our Cycle for Science lessons – so stay tuned for many more CRS-related updates from ovah here!