Hard Lessons

I worked as a substitute science teacher several days this month experiencing the full spectrum from hospitable to hostile environments. I went to two public middle schools, let’s call them schools C and F with ratings in GreatSchools.org for school C scoring 7/10 and school F scoring 3/10. These summary ratings are based on “four ratings, each of which is designed to show different facets of school success: the Student Progress Rating or Academic Progress Rating, College Readiness Rating, Equity Rating, and Test Score Rating.”

For background, I've taught as a substitute teacher at several schools including in New Mexico, Colorado and beginning in March 2022 in North Carolina for WCPSS. I've taught approximately 35 school days in the Apex and Cary areas consisting of 27 assignments in middle schools and 8 assignments in high schools with my focus on math and science although I've also worked in other classes including special education.

Substitute teaching at school C, ten days so far, is consistently awesome. The administrators, teachers, and staff are friendly, helpful, supportive, and great educators. Four science classes per day with 25 to 30 students per class; some classes are quiet and some are very noisy. The students are mostly cheerful, making an effort to learn, and respectful. However, the resources are very scarce and are mostly provided by the teachers for their classroom.

When an eighth grade student asked me “How do fossils form?" I described the process but needed props. I didn’t see any rocks or fossils to show; so improvising, I found an old CD-ROM that could represent a fossil (see photo). Imagine the thick, red science textbook as a slab of billion year old granite basement rock. Over time, rocks erode, rivers and lakes form. A green paper plate represents a lake with mud on the bottom. The animal, disguised as a CD-ROM, is roaming around the area and falls into the lake eventually getting buried in mud. Only the hard bony parts survive and calcium gets replaced by silica contained in the groundwater turning the bone into a fossil. Then the lake gets buried in sand, dries up and sedimentary rocks form on top, each page of the book representing a rock layer. Maybe the buried fossil parts are found later in an outcrop, road cut, or in drill rig cuttings. We discussed other ways fossils form and it would be great to show real samples of a preserved insect in amber or a piece of an intact wooly mammoth that fell into an icy lake.

This is one example of creative, spontaneous lessons that keeps substitute teaching fun. We did a class review of landforms and geology before they took a test which the teacher assigned and I later found out the classes did very well; I also learned that I should be very selective as to where I go to substitute teach.

At school F…

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Dr. Mahmoud Sherif

Why does the United States attract millions of international students? America offers some of the best educational and research opportunities attracting students from around the world. About half of doctoral degrees are earned by international students according to the Center for Immigration Studies. For high-tech STEM fields the percentages are higher. The most prestigious award is the Nobel Prize - can you guess how many recipients came to America from other countries? The numbers are staggering:

“Immigrants account for approximately 35% of U.S.-affiliated academic Nobel Laureates, reflecting their critical role in driving American excellence in research and innovation. Approximately 44% of immigrant Nobel Laureates in academic disciplines attended U.S. institutions for their highest educational degree.” (Institute for Immigration Research)

Who knows among us today who will be the next Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, or Nikola Tesla? International students coming to study and work in America are essential resources that we must respect and support with the hope that they can stay and continue to support American innovation.

I’m very grateful to be a colleague and friend of Dr. Mahmoud Sherif who now lives and works at the Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee. He earned a Ph.D. at the University of Delaware in geochemistry and is originally from Cairo, Egypt. Here’s a link to his LinkedIn profile.

I learned about his exceptional work in 2019 when I supported the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the occurrence and treatment of naturally-occurring radioactivity in Middle Eastern - Northern African groundwaters. If you’re interested in these efforts, please see my three related blogs describing trips to Jordan in 2018, Saudi Arabia in 2019, and the IAEA headquarters in Austria in 2020. For the Jordan trip, I gave this slide presentation to the 9th International Symposium on Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material.

Specific to the research that Mahmoud performed, here’s a great article from the University of Delaware’s UDaily in 2016 stating: “doctoral student Mahmoud Sherif is studying the origin and distribution of natural radioactivity in the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System in Egypt.”

More recently, Mahmoud and I supported the IAEA with examining geochemical data from Northern Africa to address concerns about radioactive groundwater and he took the lead on preparing the technical report.

Currently at FSU, he’s working for the National MagLab’s Center for Rare Earths, Critical Minerals, and Industrial Byproducts where the largest, high powered magnet in the world is located. Mahmoud is working in the field of gamma spectrometry to measure radiation from natural and engineered materials.

Mahmoud wrote to me this week and said, “I am currently working in the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory as a postdoc. I have established a very good gamma spec laboratory here. I am also helping establish a gamma spec unit in other places in the USA.”

I look forward to staying in contact with Mahmoud on all his vital research and academic adventures!

8th Grade Science Sub

Yesterday, I taught four science classes to approximately 100 eighth grade students at East Cary Magnet Middle School. The mission of the school is to be a Center for Global Studies and World Languages and motto is Unity Through Diversity. As school year just began last week and the teacher needed to attend a training, the students are getting an introduction (or reminders) on topics including laboratory safety, definitions including density and buoyancy, and the scientific method.

I didn’t expect the homeroom and “Global Scholar time” students to continue staying for the core 1 science class lasting a total of two hours! The students didn’t have much independent homework or class work to do so we had lots of time to share stories and compare interests. Many students shared they like sports, dancing, music and computer games. Given the mission of the school, I asked what languages they speak and some of the responses included: English, Spanish, German, Japanese, French, Russian, Arabic, Hindi, Mandarin, and Tagalog. Luckily for me, all the students are fluent in English. I said they are also learning to speak Science and to consider it like a foreign language that they need to learn the lingo and start with the definitions.

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Dinotext

This past Thursday I serendipitously worked as a substitute teacher at Apex Friendship High School. This winter waking up early on cold mornings became more difficult so normally I’ve been lazily sleeping past 7 am. Perhaps my dog was barking Thursday morning so I woke up around 5 am and spent the first hour chanting 1108 names of the Divine Mother. Then I felt a strong urge to check the Wake County Public School System jobs listing. There’s a critical need for substitute teachers and I noticed about 20 job openings for that day on just the narrow list of schools in my area. A day of “subbing” pays between $120 to $135 depending on qualifications.

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Empowering Moms to Lead!

Celebrating Mother’s Day 2020!

Trust Our Moms to Take Control

Let Them Drive and Tell Us Where to Go.

They Know Love Without Condition

Let’s Vote for Moms Who Are the Real Pros!

Moms Brought Us Into This World

Moms Nursed Us When We Were Young.

They Healed Us Back to Health

Their Love Gave Us the Greatest Wealth!

Moms Showed Us How to Cook and Clean

Taught Us How to Dress to Impress.

Moms Pay the Bills to Make Ends Meet

Taught Us to Read and Write for Us to Progress!

All Moms Deserve More Recognition

Including Last Names Adams, Curie, Gandhi, Gates and King

Remember Abigail, Marie, Indira, Mary Maxwell and Alberta

Treasuring Moms Makes Our Hearts Sing!

Moms Are Teachers and Heads of School

Mom’s A Governors and Also A Wife.

Moms Build Gardens And Write Poetry

We are So Grateful to our Moms for Life!

5th Grader Memories of the Praying Mantis

I frequently support the local charter school as a substitute teacher for grades 2-12 including the 5th grade. We see Praying Mantis insects around Grand Junction and a 5th grader told me they are weird and fast.

When I was in 5th grade over 50 years ago, I thought the Praying Mantis was a very cool, religious insect. We saw many of these insects in the fields around our school. I recall asking the teacher what do they pray for? She said the females like to eat the males so it depended on which sex was doing the praying!

For more interesting facts about the Praying Mantis, see the ThoughtCo. website.

Learning from Where You Live - Join the Conversation!

This past week many visitors to this blog are coming from Hebei, China (located southwest of Beijing) and across India. Seeing where readers live takes me on a journey to wonder if things are getting better or worse? I found a 2017 article in Forbes comparing environmental issues in India and China with India leading the world in deaths from air pollution while China’s policies are working to improve air quality. Here’s an excerpt:

“In 2015, 1.81 million or 28% of the 6.5 million air-pollution-linked deaths worldwide occurred in India. China saw 1.58 million deaths. The report illustrated that globally, air pollution accounts for twice the number of deaths than those linked to AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined, and for nearly 15 times as many deaths as war and all forms of violence. The majority of air pollution-linked deaths are due to non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, respiratory tract diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer.”

“The study found that nearly 92% of pollution-related deaths occur in low and middle-income countries. Children face the highest risks because small exposures to chemicals even during pregnancy and in early childhood can result in lifelong disease, disability, premature death, as well as reduced learning and earning potential.”

A 2018 article in the New York Times states China made great improvements to reducing air pollution smog and particles in just four years:

“Although most regions outpaced their targets, the most populated cities had some of the greatest declines. Beijing’s readings on concentrations of fine particulates declined by 35 percent; Hebei Province’s capital city, Shijiazhuang, cut its concentration by 39 percent; and Baoding, called China’s most polluted city in 2015, reduced its concentration by 38 percent.”

“Of course, air pollution levels still exceed China’s own standards and far surpass World Health Organization recommendations for what is considered safe. Bringing all of China into compliance with its own standards would increase average life expectancies by an additional 1.7 years (as measured in the areas where data is available). Complying with the stricter World Health Organization standards instead would yield 4.1 years.”

If you would like to join the conversation, please post a comment or send an email to info@conserve-prosper.com

February 2nd Groundhog's Weather Prediction Accuracy

Today, quite unusually,, Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow predicting an early spring! The Pennsylvania groundhog’s family has been making these predictions for 133 years! When our son was young we learned to sing the song to remember this event:

I’m a Little Groundhog, short and stout.

February 2nd I come out!

If I see my shadow, they will shout,

Six more weeks of winter no doubt!

It’s a fun song for kids and might stimulate their imagination for animal instincts and nature. Also, for the whole family the Bill Murray-Andie MacDowell 1993 movie repeatedly is a fan favorite!

But for rational adults, how accurate are Phil’s predictions as compared to actual temperature results?

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is part of the Department of Commerce which includes the National Weather Service. Not only do they provide life-saving, super critical data for all of us everyday, they’ve also compared Phil’s historic predictions to actual temperatures! Here’s some groundhog history:

“Groundhog Day originates from an ancient celebration of the midway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox—the day right in the middle of astronomical winter. According to superstition, sunny skies that day signify a stormy and cold second half of winter while cloudy skies indicate the arrival of warm weather. “

Surprisingly, Phil’s saw his shadow to predict longer winters 104 years and did not see his shadow to predict early spring 18 years. In the past 10 years, Phil’s been correct only 40% of the time but that is like batting .400!