A Sad Day for Fish - A Good Day for Learning

It was a sad day for fish at Velma Jackson on Wednesday. I should have been tipped off by the water in my refrigerator. In order to be green I usually put water from the tap in my water bottle rather than buying more bottled water. I have done this every day at VJ since August 08. On Tuesday I drank the water and spit it out it tasted so bad - I thought someone had played a trick on me and put something in it or it was some liquid I had put in there for sampling. (It is a biology refrigerator - there are orange slices for the fish, cherry seeds chilling for six weeks before planting, frozen mice for the snake and my lean cuisine and water bottle) What I found out later was the "bad" water was from too much chlorine. Instead of just tossing it and drinking out of the other water bottle which was fine I should have investigated.

Before I tell why it was a sad day for fish, a little history will be helpful. When I started at VJ last year I was so excited about having a fish tank in my room and a greenhouse attached to my room. When I came to school to get things ready for school, the fish tank was disqusting, the water had evaporated below the recycling filters and was an ugly brown. Somehow three fish managed to survive without being fed all summer. One of the janitors and I spend the better part of two days cleaning the tank, putting in new filters and getting the
three fish settled (only one survived which I called survivor). During the course of the year I managed to beg for some money for more fish and for filters that needed to be changed every three weeks. My students adopted the fish quickly and took on their daily care of feeding and triweekly filter change. Later we got a syphon tube to clean out the water every month. There were lots of interesting dramas along the way including the time Ayonna brought 22 guppies to join our fish family. In a matter of moments there were only six left for the nine fish in the tank acted as if they were never fed. In a few days even the larger guppies were meals on fins for the cannibalistic fish. As you can see hours of care were given to get our fish group just right. As of Wednesday there three koi including a one eyed wonder that intrigued all who saw him, one oranda, two black moors, and one now very large algae eater.
When a got a little more money I bought a new oranda on September 5 and happily added her to the tank. On September 6 she was resting in peace in the stomachs of her carniverous mates. Lesson learned - those Koi will not tolerate any more goldfish, thank you.

On with the history. Over the past summer the janitors kept the fish tank in good order by feeding them, changing the filters and adding water as needed.
The students this year have taken on their caretaking role gladly along with Mo Jo, the hamster, Sister Isaac II, the bald python, and Benita who we now think is Benny, the bearded dragon, and the plants in the greenhouse. I was so impressed when some students came by my room while other students had gone to a fundraising basketball game that was a part of the homecoming actiivities - they wanted to see the animals and decided to take care of the siphoning the tank and refilling it. Like we had done many times before we siphoned the water, dumped it outside - one five gallon bucket at a time, and refilled the tank. Little did we know that we were adding toxic waters and sending them into certain death. I saw them turning upside down and swimming crazily and hitting the side of tank and laying on the bottom - it was awful and I was helpless. All those hours of love and care were floating on the top the next day.
I reported the bad water and found out students had been doing the same. The water inspector came out and found out water made the chlorine detection tablets turn bright red.

Another lesson learned - test the waters for chlorine. I am definitely a lifelong learner.

By Thursday, I managed to get some perspective. I scouted around for some perservative and specimen jars and saved five of them for further study and put the two duplicate species in the compost heap. This was a good lesson in the cycle of life and death and water purification.

Friday brought more challenges. I kept a colleague's class third block so she could see her sick uncle in the hospital. I showed them all the animals including the fish in specimen jars. I lastly came to Mojo. I have picked him up for the kids many times (mostly girls are attracted to him and want to hold him). These five guys wanted me to pick him up which I did - it takes some time to chase him down in his cage. I was holding him and talking to them and the next thing I knew I felt a sharp pain on my index finger - Mojo had lashed out at me with those cute little teeth and was holding on with gusto - I gently let him down into his home and went to the sink and washed and soaped my hand and put on some alcohol. Without knowing I had modeled for them my cardinal principal - love the animals or leave them alone. They wanted me to punish Mojo - it was clear I wasn't - he was just protecting his turf.

Finally I went outside to my oasis to have lunch and nurse my wounds and my losses - the beautiful pond I had worked on (see earlier blogs) was popped up in the air and all the water was in a mudhole underneath with the pump. Another day at VJ. While others were getting ready for the homecoming parade outside, I bailed a about 40 gallons of water out of the hole using the pump and as much ingenuity as I could muster. An hour and a half later the pond was all cleaned out and back in place with the fountain flowing again. Another lesson learned - turn off the pump at night if a storm or vandal redirect the fountain - all the water goes somewhere else and the pond tub is empty.

I am glad it is the weekend.

Another Day at VJ

This was the week when I got confirmation that for whatever reason I needed to be back at VJ. Students who failed my class last year still come by for support and encouragement. Students I do not even teach come by to see Zoo 122. Students I do teach seem at least moderately interested in learning. And to put all that in boldface, many of my colleagues are interested in our ongoing caterpillar research and in teaching and learning. Some of us get together socially. All in all as one colleague said I get up and look forward to coming to work – most days I can say that.

I keep all of this in perspective because many days involve a lot of unnecessary obstacles and I just say, “another day at VJ.” A good example was Friday. A substitute had been arranged for my classes so I could do a tutorial for the students who had not passed the biology test last year and would do a retake on Monday. I had asked for the only interactive classroom on campus so the students could do a variety of activities besides all lecture and paper and pencil practice. When I got into the room the computer and LCD projector were not hooked up and the interactive board no longer worked. I chased down the technician to hook up the computer, which he did. I then had to find and install some speakers, get the attendance officer to unlock the bookroom so I could borrow a ladder, climb up the ladder to adjust the LCD projector so it would show evenly on the board and not on the lower wall and floor, and chase down resource books, etc. When I was atop the ladder adjusting the LCD projector the principal came in to check on how things were going and, of course, I said just another day at VJ.

The story of the week though was Ms. Taylor almost running into my room first thing Monday morning. “Mr. Banks, we saw what I thought was a snake in the grass this weekend, but Debriana (her six year old) and her playmate insisted it was a caterpillar.” I realized it was probably the viper like caterpillar and showed her a picture from Dave Wagner’s book, and she exclaimed, “That is it except it was orange.” I asked her if she brought it and she said no. After two or three days of reminding her she said it had formed a chrysalis and asked if I still wanted it. I, of course, said yes. She was really disappointed that she did not get a photo of the fifth enstar caterpillar but there will be others I hope. I wanted to take her picture but she said I should take Debriana’s since she and her friend found it. She appears as the story of the week with the chrysalis that does its spontaneous “shaking” as a defense mechanism.

Or maybe the story of the week was getting recognized at the School Board meeting for being an Earthwatch participate. I asked my buddy, Mr. Hamblin, to go so I would not be by myself, and he graciously took time to meet me there. Dr. Robinson, our assistant principal was also there and made sure I felt welcome and at home and made sure the superintendent’s secretary took a picture of me with the superintendent. Here we are:




To top off the week here are a few photo ops of Mojo, the hamster, Sister Isaac II, Benita, kids measuring and graphing the growth of their tomato plants, etc.

Students come in to check out the one-eyed koi in the class aquarium.

Decarlos graphs.

Ozihous and Brian pretend to water.

Mia measuring.

Nicholas installs shelf unit.

Montrell and Benita.

Kenya tends to sister.

Sister II bracelet.

Dewanius zoos mojo.

Mojo mugs.

Mojo mugs again.

After Twenty Days Back to School

Early on I decided that I really needed a special place to retreat and to renew - my friend, DG, called it an oasis - I like that. After getting a student to dig the hole (previous blog) and getting the pond and pump in place and water gently running, I discovered a leak that drained the pond overnight. Intent on getting this oasis active I went and bought another pond. I should have talked to my teaching neighbor, Mr. Ollie Hamblin, one on the best teaching colleagues in my career. He is working on his National Board certification this year - I wish him well. Besides being a great math teacher he is an excellent mechanic and body man. He said the first pond could be repaired much like a rubberized plastic auto bumper. Here he is meticulously cutting and shaping the repair (then he sanded) and "welding" the hole with an old pot I salvaged from the greenhouse.




Next up is one of my botany/zoology students from last year, Dominique White, who comes to my class before school and during her office monitor time to help set up the greenhouse and take care of the classroom zoo. She was the first to greet our new snake, Sister Isaac II (last year's snake disappeared in February after we neglected to put the books on top of the cage and was found by complete surprise on the last day of school in May by Ms. Washington who hates snakes - SIster later died in the summer since no one's mom would let them bring her home and Mr. Day's(the janitor) water was not enough to overcome the heat). We have a better plan this year.





Sister II poses.

And this year we do not have to wait until December for Botany supplies, they are here. Students have planted tomatoes and are measuring their growth and watering.



Chris measures the cotyledon height to plot on his bar graph.



Destiny and Michelle tend to watering.

My physics class this year is getting off to a good start even though there are only five - but they are really trying. They are not used to the rigor, but they are showing they are up to the challenge. Here they are calculating the density of coat hangar wire using mass and volume by water displacement.



Shiquita tries to get it just right.



Kierra and Arshunti figure the best way to get displacement.



Jon and Alicia collaborate on mass. (we will get digital balances some day.)

And lastly, my staff development presentation on Tuesday this week about my Earthwatch trip was very well received.
Here are the pupas of our first two caterpillars.




The science department's differentiated instruction presentation with my technicolor lab coat, with folks modeling and using de Bono's six thinking hats for critical thinkings, with a drama "dance" with symbol cues, and finally with an exercise adapted from an NPR story using only six words to summarize our teaching careers went very well also. (Some posts will follow with some of the teacher's work along with a link to the original story.)