Matt Damon ain't got nothing on me...

So, back in June, I was about to throw out some old, sprouting potatoes.  I asked Seb if he was interested in doing an experiment and he said yes.  We dug a short, shallow trench in the weed-infested corner of the backyard we call a garden, cut each potato in half and dropped them in.  We covered the trench back in and left them alone until today.

This afternoon we dug out a couple handful of mini potatoes.  I oven baked them and we all shared them as part of dinner!



And I'm not even the best botanist on Mars!

Trees, Dieting, and Investing

It's quite common to try to stump people with the old "Where do trees get most of their mass?"

But I only recently realized that when we lose weight, we lose weight the exact same "weigh":

CO2  >  O2

That's it, you lose those 10 pounds one atom at a time on the exhale just like trees get taller and thicker one atom at a time taking in the very carbon you're breathing out.

I've known the basic chemistry facts my entire life and yet the first time someone asked me these questions:
"Where do trees get their mass?"
and
"Where does the weight you lose go?"

I thought and answered other (dumb) things: "From their roots", "In your poop"

Goes to show, knowing stuff doesn't mean you really understand stuff!

Chalk another one up to the power of small things done regularly leading to big changes.

Isn't that the basic advice of investing and saving money? (put a dollar a day into the stock market and you will have about 600K in 50 years!)

So, take a deep breath, plant some trees, and start saving some money!

Proust, Ratatouille, and Neuroscience

Highbrow:  Proust's madeleine

Quotidian Reference:  That eponymous scene in the movie "Ratatouille":



Neuroscience:  Smell is the most primitive of the senses.  Think upon a single celled organism's need to hone in on a chemical gradient to navigate to a food source or away from a toxic source.  When a memory is associated with a smell, it bypasses all your higher brain functions and transports you back to the first time that smell was imprinted on you.  If something smells good to you, it will make you happy almost no matter what!

If you are around family or really good friends, how much of that lowering-of-the-blood-pressure, that almost immediate sense of satisfaction, might be due to some pheromones or other unrecognized-by-your-conscious-brain olfactory stimuli?

Why do mammals nuzzle and kiss their young all over?  We are all just imprinting our cookie and ratatouille smells with feelings of belonging and love!

A kiss is not just a kiss, is it?

Apology

Dear KP,

I feel I owe you an apology after you said I wasn't a "real" teacher a few weeks back.  I knew you didn't say that in a mean-spirited way, but I still gave you grief about it.  Last Friday, I thought of your explanation that you only meant I wasn't the usual-sort-of-teacher when in Astronomy I was having the students log into Itslearning to take a "test" of whether they could correctly click on my face in this picture of me and MC (it had to be done, seriously, it did!).  While they were logging in, Clash of Clans came up and the Hive startled chortling in amusement as all the boys started logging into their own game on their phones to check out my set up and making comments like "Not bad - but your walls are way too weak for that level castle." or "Can I join your Clan?"

As I reflected on that moment, in the moment, I thought "So, this is probably the kind of thing KP was referring to...."

Apologies for doubting your characterization of me!

Sincerely,
Mr. Ken Rideout

Slowly Pulling My Way

Turns out I've been teaching for 17 years now.  Wow!  Since most days I'm hanging with (and acting like) 17 year-olds, it's like I've been doing this job all my life!

So, you'd think I'd be better at it, right?

I've been trying to design a good pulley lab for all 17 years.  You know, the old block-n-tackle simple machine.  It's an easy concept but usually a real eye opener ("Wait, each point of contact of the string exerts its own force on the load?").


For years, I had kids measure the various forces with spring scales, then I had them measure them with Vernier force probes.  Then I had them measure the work done in lifting the same load in multiple ways.  Invariably, the students would get caught up in the slight imperfections:  something that should be a force multiple of 5 would come out as 4.8 or they would calculate the pulley system was 95 % efficient or something.  Then I set up stations they could walk up to and read off the forces so they couldn't mess it up.  It was never effective!

All I ever wanted was for them to experience the force multiplier as the number of points-of-contact of the string.

Finally, this year, I just strung up two block and tackle machines side-by-side.  One had three windings and one only had a single string.  I asked them to pull on both at the same time and compare how much force they had to exert while noting how each one went up a different amount.

One is three times easier to pull but only goes up 1/3 as much for the same pull.  No calculations or measurements, just a qualitative question or two.  Instead of frustration, I got "That was a good activity - I think I get it..."

Sometime a simple experience is the best explainer for a simple machine.

Imagine how good I'll be in another 17 years...

Back to School Night

So, every year we host the parents one night to run through their kid's schedule and meet their teachers.  The following day, I was checking in with my juniors about what kind of report they got about me from their parents when one junior (JW) told me about the following conversation between her and her mom:

Mom: "Well, I'm so glad you're the youngest and last child!"
Student: "Why?"
Mom: "I don't think I could bear to hear Mr. Rideout's How-I-Quit-Carnegie-Mellon-to-go-make-wine-in-France story one more time!"

Apparently I had taught both of her older brothers a few years apart several years ago.

I told her that my stories are like fine wines - they get better with age!

(I think she may have actually rolled her eyes at me when I said that - yikes! It's going to be a long year...)

Salade Waylancoise

When you pine for a Salade from Nice, but you have to make do with what you can find on hand:

Bonus Question:  Which one was for Irene and which one for me? 

(hint:  There's one key difference)