SLIMEs

Now here is something I don't think I have encountered before but could be very interesting to use in the classroom. In the last 10 years or so they have found what they call SLIMEs - subsurface lithoautotrophic microbrial ecosystems. This is an assemblage of bacteria and fungi that live deep in the earth's crust in igneous rock (they live two miles or more below the surface). They form an independent ecosystem on the surface and obtain their energy from inorganic chemicals. What a way to show the diversity of life as well as its ability to adapt to any and all environments. Definitely builds off the whole extremophile discussion. Just noting this here as I read The Future of Life.

More resources

I told you I couldn't stop. So here are the newest resources I want to make sure I have read before the school year begins:
A citizen's guide to Ecology - While reading my Teaching Secondary School Science book they say one of the purposes of teaching science is to make scientifically literate citizens, reminding me of this book about ecology and what every citizen should know and understand.

The Future of Life by E. O. Wilson which I started to poke through, page 5 and 6 covers extremophiles and it starts with a letter to Thoreau which of course makes me think I should read Thoreau ( I am doubting I will have time but it may make for something I could talk to the English teacher in my Small Learning Community about reading some passages from, something we can address together).

Finally, I should go back over the Beak of the Finch and look on the web for teaching strategies for this book.

Collecting resources

One of the things that I can get wrapped up in, resulting in me not completing projects, is phase one: Collecting resources. I love collecting resources, I read article after article, which leads me to more and more articles. I can spend all my time on this and not get much else done. So I am going to work on that in the next few weeks to make sure that I am progressing and not just collecting.
Until then - I have downloaded the last 3 years of American Biology Teacher magazine, the last year of Trends in Ecology and Evolution, grabbed some books off my shelf - Cadilac Desert, Guns, Germs and Steel, Teaching Secondary Science and Intelligent Thought. I want to make sure that before long I buy Collapse and Omnivores Dilema.

With these resources and a summer stretching before me, hopefully I can plan a hell of a year for next year.

Well time to read something!

New Job, New Start

So, today I confirmed that I will in fact be hired as a biology teacher at a high school in Phoenix. This means I have a summer to figure out exactly what I plan to do to teach these 10th graders a little bit about biology. Exactly what I am going to do and how I am going to figure it out is the purpose of this blog. I am planing on recording my activities and discoveries as well as my progress as a biology teacher on these 'pages'.

Wish me luck

My first resource is about the recent discovery of the diverse aquatic life found in the Antarctic (from the Guardian).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2081455,00.html