The Teachable Moment: A Feather

When I retired from college science teaching, I thought I would continue teaching in an informal capacity. I have continued to write books and blog essays (you are reading one). I also have two grandchildren who are at the discover-the-wonder-of-the-world stage of childhood. I thought that I would impart to them fragments of my vast knowledge about the world.

Of course that is not exactly how it worked. They (ages 7 and 5) have a nearly unlimited capacity to ignore whatever anyone is saying to them, even mid-sentence. What I had to do instead was to wait for a teachable moment, when they showed spontaneous interest in something, or could be led into it.

They were playing with their nature treasure boxes, which included pigeon feathers. (Pigeons make up most of the bird biomass of Alsace.) These particular feathers were fine and delicate. I said I had a story about feathers that my mother (their great-grandmother) told me. Lena immediately said that people used to dip quills in ink to write. But, I said, they had pens by the time my mother was a little girl. Instead, I told them about how my grandfather, their great-great-grandfather, used a turkey feather to put medicine on my Mom’s face. This is not what they were expecting.

My mother, as a little girl, got into the natural world in Oklahoma by brushing poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) against her face. Of course, her face swelled up dangerously. Her father went to town in his wagon (other people had cars, but not him) to get medicine, which was probably some ointment with mercury or something in it. He used a turkey feather to gently apply it to my mother’s face. It was important to not break the skin, which would leave a scar, and also allow bacteria to infect the skin. The in my granddaughter’s box opened up a discussion of infection.

And of allergies. Poison ivy is not poison. Urushiol, found also in poison oak (T. diversilobum) and poison sumac (T. vernix) is not poisonous. It just provokes a massive allergic reaction in most people. But not in everyone. Some people do not react to urushiol at all. One of the main characteristics of allergies is that they differ from one person to the next. I told them the story of the girl with a peanut allergy who died after her boyfriend ate a candy bar and kissed her. (I heard this on the news, but have been unable to trace a source for it.) Most of us do not have peanut allergies. But Lena knew a distant cousin, on the French side of the family, who did.

Urushiol does not cause allergic reactions in all mammals. Deer eat the leaves, and squirrels eat the berries. Horses can eat the leaves. The urushiol comes out in their sweat and you can get it on your legs from riding the horse. I do not know if dogs and cats can get poison ivy, since they are primarily carnivores; but if your dog runs around in poison ivy and then runs up to you, beware of giving the dog a hug.

But it was not just science education; it was also cultural education. An Asian species, T. vernicifluum, produces sap that is used in the production of Chinese and Japanese lacquerware.

All this biology education, just from a feather in my granddaughter’s nature box. She showed genuine interest and surprise. I could easily have missed this teachable moment, had I not been watching for it.

A Young Scientist and a Solstice

June 21 is typically considered to be the summer solstice (for some reason this year it was June 20). And 50 years ago on this day, this budding young scientist (age 9) decided he wanted to calculate the latitude of Lindsay, California, where he was growing up.

It was quite simple, really. On this day each year the sun is directly overhead at the Tropic of Cancer, about 23 and a half degrees north latitude. Therefore all I had to do was measure the length of a shadow cast by a vertical stick and do some simple trigonometry, and I was able to calculate how many degrees north of the Tropic we were. In order to get the vertical stick, I used a broken arrow embedded in mud, and used a protractor to make sure it was vertical. I had to do this precisely at midday, of course. I seem to recall my answer was pretty close to the latitude shown on the map.

This was an exciting thing for a nine-year-old boy. It was one of my earliest moments as a scientist. I was putting my faith into action: faith that the universe followed natural laws, and faith that humans could learn truths about the universe by measurement and calculation. This is exactly the kind of faith, and the kind of curiosity, we should encourage in children.

By the way, “solstice” comes from “sol,” the sun, and “stasis,” unmoving. The solstice is the day on which the sun appears to stop moving and reverse its direction, as viewed from the Earth.

The Price of Success

In my teaching and writing I have championed the idea of people getting outside to see the real world of nature: to walk in the woods, to hike in the mountains, to even get rained on once in a while, to see that the real world consists of trees, not of fake lumber-paneled boardrooms. This is especially important for children, who might otherwise grow up in front of a video game screen. My publicity on this point has not been mainly in an entry in my obscure (but good!) Encyclopedia of Biodiversity, and not as extensive as that of RichardLouv, but my message, like his, has been that people should take their kids outside in the woods.

Meanwhile, I like to walk in the silent woods and be alone. You can see where this is going. The more that people take their kids out in the woods, the less silence and aloneness I can enjoy in those same woods. As a matter of fact, I used to be able to drive to Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness and park in the lot and walk around the woods and bluffs. Now it is almost impossible to find a parking place there. Lots of parents and church groups and home schoolers take their kids there. And kids will do what kids will do. But at least they are not carrying electronic equipment with them and living in their internal worlds when they are out in the woods. And if I don’t like rambunctious kids, too bad. This is the price of success. I am happy to report that my aloneness in the woods is often disturbed by kids learning, at least a little, about nature.