My life as a Scientist

The Blog Challenge this week fits me to a tee! What is your life as a scientist like? What kind of observations do you find yourself making? Do you have a wondering? Have you ever tried to find the answers?

As a life long learner I hope to model what we should all be experimenting with!
I am curious about Vernal Pools. Someday my friend Charlene and I will write a children's book explaining how important Vernal Pools are to all. I take trips to Vernal Pools, I photograph Vernal Pools, I practically live in a Vernal Pool.

I am co-teaching science classes at our High School. The science teacher is highly qualified in science, I am highly qualified in special education, we are a team. I have always wanted to use the Farmer's Almanac with a science class as one of the textbooks. We started out the project this past week. So far, so good. I want to thank the Farmer's Almanac for setting up an educational price for this project. We will have more about this in the upcoming months. There will be teacher materials, templates and student responses about our journey with the Farmer's Almanac. The Farmer's Almanac is a perfect science notebook. There is something for everyone, inventions, predictions, improvements, it sounds like the Scientific Method Live!

 snowflake from 2010-12-04 coakes photo, iphone

But, my favorite topic to study is snow! I have a snowflake lesson which incorporates symmetry, ice crystals, weather and history. My hero is Snowflake Bentley, and there is a terrific children's book about Snowflake Bentley you should read if you are interested in the history of snowflakes. I go out and ski in the snow, I shovel snow, I take photos of snow, I make movies about snow, I make snow ice cream and yes, I even get stuck in the snow.

Lastly, one of these winters I will take a trip to Mount Washington Weather Observatory for a Winter Edutrip! This is a trip to the extreme weather on our planet. Mount Washington has a great summit conditions page which I check every day in the winter and weekly during the other seasons. The reason I check the summit conditions is that I want to know what I will be skiing in for temperatures, wind and snow conditions. I am working on a spreadsheet to collect data so I can predict the weather at my favorite ski mountain, Sugarloaf Mountain. So far, I have not been really successful, it is a work in progress.

I can't wait to read the other science blogger challenges. You can check them out here.