Myth Makers: Stories in the Stars

For the past five years, the Louisiana Art and Science Museum has invited my Myth Makers or Roman Technology students to run hands-on history activity stations at a First Free Sunday event. My students, ranging in age from 10 to 16, view this opportunity as a way to share what they've learned over the past year with other kids. The museum views it as a way to bring in patrons who love hands-on activities for their kids. I view the event as a way to promote the classics. I've been so lucky to have this event sponsored by the Classical Association of the Middle West and South's Committee for the Promotion of Latin and Greek through its Bridge Grant. The grant form is easy and quick to submit, and the committee is extremely responsive to funding requests.

This museum, with its mission, "seeks to enhance the understanding and appreciation of art and science for general audiences and students by presenting unique, educational and entertaining experiences that encourage discovery, inspire creativity, and foster the pursuit of knowledge." Local industry usually sponsors the free attendance, and they love to see activities that connect with STEM subjects. During one such year, we led participants in mixing ancient Roman concrete since a chemical company was sponsoring us.

In the first few years, we focused on Roman technology class activities like mosaic designing, writing on papyrus with authentic ancient inks, firing tiny catapults, building and testing small bridges, and assembling Roman arch kits. In our first year, over 800 people attended the event. Last year, we focused on Egyptian archaeology as the museum celebrated 50 years of its authentic 3rd-Century BCE mummy. We decoded hieroglyphics and mummified apples. We also partnered with the Louisiana Division of Archaeology whose archaeologists offered sand-art stratigraphy! 

If you'd like more information about how I train my students for this event, you can watch this webinar. After every event, the students and I discuss GLOWS and GROWS of the event, and last year, the students decided that they wanted to do a "myth con," or an event that centered ancient Greek mythology. When I offered this idea to the museum, the staff loved it. Before we knew it, it morphed into a collaboration with the Highland Road Observatory as we celebrated International Astronomy Day. One of the museum directors came up with a way to tie it all together; thus, STORIES IN THE STARS was born.

In the first weekend of May, we held our event, and almost ONE THOUSAND people showed up! My students devised a way to represent as many gods and goddesses as we could through hands-on activities. 

Here's what we offered:

Welcome Station - participants picked up a passport that guided them through the stations. If they brought it back completely stamped, they won a prize.

1. Weave with Athena - participants tried weaving on small frame looms. (See more info on teaching your students to weave with this lesson.)

2. Design a crown like Hera's - participants built and decorated paper crowns. (Don't sneeze at these paper STEM challenges. I can't emphasize enough the importance of being able to manipulate paper and tape - they are super simple materials that can yield impressive results. Don't believe me? Check out Godwin Morris' Engineering With Paper Website. In the event that you'd like to take your crown-making to the next level with a STEM challenge, check out this blogpost from earlier in the year.)

3. Write with Hermes - participants wrote on papyrus with oak gall ink. They got to keep their stylus and papyrus. Check out these writing lessons for more info.

4. Build a Trident with Poseidon - my students pre-folded materials so that participants could easily put together this simple paper trident.

5. Fire a Catapult with Ares - our classic popsicle-stick catapults are easy to build, fun to fire, and memorable to take home and continue to safely annoy family members. Check out catapult lessons here. I don't have an awesome shot of catapult firing, but instead look at these AMAZING works of art done by my students that we used as signs at each station.

6. Construct a Bow with Artemis and Apollo - my students designed this little bow out of dental picks and rubber bands with q-tip projectiles! And it worked great!! (If you're interested in archery, check out this STEM challenge on ancient archers.)

7. Taste a Pomegranate with Persephone and Grind Some Grain with Demeter - participants got to try tasting pomegranates while they listened to the story of Persephone and Hades. They also tried their hands at grinding grain with a simple mortar and pestle.

8. Forge a Necklace with Hephaestus and Aphrodite - participants made simple paper chain bracelets and necklaces. (Interested in making this activity into a simple STEM challenge? Read here.)

9. Listen to a Story at the Fire with Hestia - one of my students read from a storybook about constellations. SO MANY children sat down to listen to her. AND a local TV station interviewed her about the event. You can hear her talking about halfway through this clip.

10. Party Pics with Dionysus - several of my students wanted to dress up as Greek gods and goddesses to walk amongst the mortals. We had a starry background and props for cute picture ops. Poseidon counted over 100 pictures requested of him!

During the event, I had SO MANY adults (many of them parents there with their children) ask who my students were, what school they attended, and how to get into the "Myth Makers" program. This is EXACTLY what we want! I also had my students asking to see the exhibits in the museum. The kids won, the museum won, and classics won. 

AD ASTRA: Classics in Space

Years ago, when I was teaching at my previous school, the 8th-grade science teacher learned about a program called NearLink, associated with NASA somehow. To be honest, I don't even remember what it was about, but she asked the other 8th-grade teachers to develop cross-curricular activities that could be incorporated into the space science lessons. Once done, the kids got to visit the Louisiana Art and Science Museum for a hands-on mission. I thought it sounded super cool, and even though I was a Latin teacher, I committed to finding a way to incorporate Latin into space. It ended up being an amazing rabbit hole experience for my teaching because I didn't realize I'd find so much stuff!

It started with my discovery of the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature by the International Astronomical Union. This organization, founded in 1919, oversees the naming of planetary features and new planetary bodies. Its gazetteer is a wonder of words - it shows all the named features of every planet, moon, asteroid, etc., and explains where that name came from! It was here that I discovered that all the planetary features of the moon are named in LATIN!! And that the moons of Jupiter are all named after the female victims of Zeus.

The Gazetteer led me to look into the mythology-themed naming of NASA missions. During that research (and trust that it was hard - the internet was just getting going in schools when I was doing this work), I found another fabulous resource: an entire book called Origin of NASA Names where I learned why early NASA engineers oddly chose the name "Apollo" for missions to the moon.

NASA artists included mythological images on some of their patches as well. The NASA Mission Patch Book has pristine images of all the patches and an explanation from astronauts of why they designed them the way they did. There's even some careless Latin on one! (Apollo XIII with "ex luna, scientia")

But hands down, the coolest classical connection I found to space was the art of Robert McCall. I had visited the Louisiana Art and Science Museum one day around the time of our school project and saw the most amazing, otherworldly paintings in an exhibit that featured his art. In many of his paintings, I saw classical columns, temples, obelisks, pyramids, and even famous ancient Greek scientists. I learned that the artist had painted the murals in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and had done patch artwork for NASA. Since I couldn't find his art online, I called the museum to see if they had more information about the artist. When I told the museum director about my classics in space project, she asked if I might want to talk to the artist himself. What?! I thought. "That would be amazing!" I remember squeaking out to her over the phone. She called the next day to tell me that he had agreed to speak with me, and then she gave me his phone number. I called him with such trepidation, but it was thrilling to speak with him. He answered my questions thoughtfully and even offered to send me some slides of paintings. And he did!! I still have those slides to this day.

I presented the lessons I created for the NearLink unit at the 2000 annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South in Knoxville, TN, "Ad Astra: Using Latin in a Cross-Curricular Unit on Planetary Nomenclature." There, I was approached by an online company that wanted to publish the project on its Website. It eventually won an award for creativity. Then the local newspaper, the Baton Rouge Advocate, called to interview me about the award and project. It yielded a large full-page interview with pictures of the students' work - they designed mission patches and wrote Latin mottos for the mission. 

The new Artemis missions have caused me to reminisce about that project so many years ago. Maybe it's time for a revisit! In case your students are obsessed with Artemis and the new moon missions, I've put together this list of resources. Please use it and enjoy the magic of classics in space.

Hands-On History: Leeches Are Cute!

Never did I EVER think I would see a leech in real life. I mean, I know they exist and what they generally look like, but I never thought I would see one in the wild. Welp, I was wrong. AND, I saw not ONE but SEVERAL leeches. Before you think, "Where did Nathalie travel to THIS time?" I saw these leeches half a mile from where I work! In a neighborhood lake that we all have access to!

The lake down the street from our school

But let me back up and explain. Last summer, the Pontchartrain Conservancy, a Louisiana non-profit working to protect water in the southern part of our state, reached out to local schools looking for partner teachers for a project called FLOW, or Facilitating Learning in our Watershed. Since we would be discussing water as a general concept in my Hands-On History class, I thought it would be a good fit for us. And I know you might be thinking (as I was), "But Nathalie, what do YOU know about coastal science or water quality?" It's a fair question, but here's the thing: the nice people at the Conservancy train teachers to lead their students through the lessons. In December, I met with my trainers to practice water testing at a local lake, and I learned so much!

Scientists use several tests to determine the health of a body of water. They take the temperature of the water, test for pH levels, and look at turbidity (how murky the water is). Not surprisingly, these tests can help determine if the water is safe for creatures to live in. My students really enjoyed trying out all the specialized tools for these tests - yep, the Pontchartrain Conservancy supplies all the tools for your students to use. In testing for dissolved oxygen, they had to go through a bunch of steps to make the proper determination, and they really felt like scientists while doing it. But by far, their favorite activity in this unit was taking walking field trips to our neighborhood lake to dipnet for macroinvertebrates - the little critters that live in the water. Some of these cuties are more tolerant of pollution than others, and by identifying which cuties are present, one can tell how healthy the water is. 

Dipnetting requires the use of a net on a very long handle. One of my students immediately became the dipnetting expert. He dipnetted for everybody. He then dumped the net contents into our ready containers of lake water (so the cuties wouldn't be shocked by not being in the water). The students then used books and charts of macroinvertebrates to identify the cuties they had captured. We had gone through this process a couple of times to be ready for our co-teaching day with a member of the Conservancy team. We found lots of mosquito larvae and dragonfly nymphs. But nothing could prepare us for what we saw on that co-teaching!!! Leeches!!! The cutest tiger leeches you've ever seen! They were tiny because we think they were still babies, and they had stripes which helped us to determine that they were probably tiger leeches (...makes sense being so close to LSU. LOL) We were simply AMAZED that we had located leeches so close to human habitation. I was so dumb to think this!

A baby tiger leech near my pinkie finger

Leeches are actually pollution-tolerant creatures. They can put up with a lot, evidently, including thirty curious 8th graders and two nosey teachers disturbing their daily routine.

Possibly a dragonfly nymph

After all our testing, we determined that the lake near our school is pretty healthy. Could we drink it? No, and that led us to learning about the Southern Hills Aquifer, the source of drinking water in Baton Rouge. Most students think we get our water from the Mississippi River, but we don't. Using a lesson from my Roman Technology class that explores how the Romans used different sources of water for different purposes, we learned about the threat of salt-water intrusion into our fresh-water aquifer and how to bring awareness to this problem. We invited geologist Jesse Means from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality to visit us and demonstrate how aquifers work with his special model. My students enjoyed being the aquifer controllers.

We ended our study of water quality with a field trip to the nearby Center for Water Studies at LSU's Water Campus where we saw the GIANT interactive Mississippi River model, a mix of physical features and projection. If you teach science or social studies in Louisiana, you need to take your students to see this model. OMG. It was truly eye-opening to see how the river works to add and take away sediment, and how engineers are trying to correct some of the erosion and sinking of coastal lands that is taking place in Louisiana. Our field trip was sponsored by the Pontchartrain Conservancy as well.

We finished up our tour with a quick walk to the Mississippi River to see the old port near the Horace Wilkinson Bridge. It fun and educational to watch the huge barges and tugboats going by as well as the traffic on the bridge.

Our last lesson in this unit focused on Indigenous boats of Louisiana and a famous shipwreck off our state's coast. Our favorite archaeologists from the Louisiana Division of Archaeology came to visit! Josetta LeBoeuf and Karla Oesch talked about the now-famous Red River dugout canoe that will finally be displayed in National Wildlife Refuge in Bossier City. They also mentioned the cargo of a Spanish ship called the Nuevo Constante that was sunk by a hurricane near Lake Charles in 1766. They led the kids through a cool hands-on lesson about identifying the age of wood by the use of tree rings (dendrochronology).

This unit forced me to learn outside my comfort zone and teach some important material about the water that is around us all the time that we don't think nearly enough about. Even though I won't be teaching Hands-On History as a class next year, I plan to carry over many of these lessons into my Roman Technology classes during our aqueduct unit. Thanks to the Pontchartrain Conservancy for funding this work! We learned so much.

Myth Makers: Mythological Mardi Gras

This is finally the year!! I'm writing a Myth Makers unit on the mythological origins and imagery of Mardi Gras, plus incorporating an environmentally sustainable STEM challenge. (Not from Louisiana and need to brush up on the basics of Mardi Gras' origins and traditions? Read this National Geographic article.)

When I married a man from New Orleans, I became a frequent Mardi Gras reveler, enjoying many, many parades every season for the past 20 years or so. And I noticed immediately the plethora of classical connections, from the names of the krewes (Orpheus and Bacchus to name just two) to the float themes and decorations. Mardi Gras has deep roots in classical culture, not always the brightest aspects of it, but I knew that my Myth Makers would enjoy making some connections.

I also noticed that Mardi Gras is MESSY. The sheer volume of plastic used in throws such as cups, bags, trinkets, and of course, beads, was astounding to me. In fact, during a cleanup of the gutters in 2018 after a flood, the city of New Orleans cleaned out 46.5 TONS of beads along a short stretch of street! I've witnessed it myself - after a parade finishes, the streets are littered with plastic everything. Street sweepers come through and rid the pavement of tripping hazards for marching band musicians, but where does all that plastic go?

When I found out about a program called Plastics on Parade: Cultivating Responsible Parade Culture in Louisiana, I immediately started thinking about how I could get my students involved. Funded by a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency through LSU's Dr. Jennifer Cook (a Girl Scout sister of mine), the program teaches kids about the environmental impacts of Mardi Gras and challenges the students to consider more sustainable solutions.

What we've done so far:
1. Investigate the names of Mardi Gras krewes for classical connections: my Myth Makers (all 66 of them) had to choose a classically-named krewe to research and discuss with a friend. The link above contains my list of them, but I know I missed some already. Since I'm hoping to make this an on-going project, I'll add as I learn of more or new ones.

2. Learn about what Mardi Gras plastic does to the environment: In this presentation, the students learned about sustainable initiatives such as Verdi Gras and companies that market and sell sustainable throws. I highly recommend their clickable presentation called "The Path of a Bead." It's full of jaw-dropping facts such as...did you know that Mardi Gras beads are made from plastic pellets called "nurdles," many of which are manufactured right here in Louisiana in one of the most carcinogenic processes in the world? Those nurdles are then shipped to China where companies produce cheap beads that are then shipped BACK to Louisiana for Mardi Gras.

3. Learn about LSU's Dr. Naohiro Kato and his team: A team of biochemical engineers at LSU has produced algae that can be dried and 3D printed into Mardi Gras beads. Some designs even have seeds built into them!

4. Discover the history and iconography of doubloons: These cheap aluminium coins are a collectible Mardi Gras staple, and they are full of classical myth connections. The students learned basic coin terminology, explored doubloon examples from many different krewes, and then sketched them. Side note: I had a ton of fun researching the history of doubloons - these are my favorite Mardi Gras delights!

5. STEM Challenge: The students have been tasked with developing three sustainable cardboard throws: a doubloon, a beaded necklace, and a signature throw, depending on the krewe they've chosen to design for. They are working in teams of three so that they each work on ONE item, but those throws have to match in theme and look. 

Thanks to some grant money for this work, I was able to purchase some ChompSaws for easy and safe cardboard cutting, and the students are loving them so far. I can't wait to see what they create!

When we're done with the challenge, we've decided to write letters to their krewes to suggest more sustainable throw alternatives. As I've told them, it will be up to the next generation of students/THEM to change how we run Mardi Gras. I KNOW they can do it!

Myth Makers: All Hail the Queens

My Myth Makers have been hard at work this year getting ready for their Pegasus National Mythology Exam. Part of that prep work, of course, is reading and listening to all the stories, taking notes, and practicing their knowledge. But the other, FUNNER, part of the Myth Makers class is MAKING. This year, I've developed two new STEAM challenges that the students really enjoyed so I thought I'd share them here.

THE INCREDIBLE CROWN PROJECT: A few years ago, I wrote a STEM challenge in which the students had to design and build their own scepter to represent their personal god/dess power. You can read more about that project in this blog post. The kids loved it, but it took up a LOT of space in my classroom to store the projects. Some of these things were as tall as the students with multiple and moving parts. So this year, I thought I'd scale down the idea while still sticking to the theme of royalty and focusing specifically on Hera, queen of the gods, often demonized as the "jealous" wife of Zeus when in fact, she's more of a victim of his bad behavior. The project asks students to create a special crown for Hera, symbolizing her status. Because she was too busy to join us for a fitting, Hera had designated ME as her model. THAT detail really got some eyerolls (as I expected), but they totally used me as their mannequin. LOL

You can see the guidelines in this document. I started by demonstrating to the students how to fold a simple paper crown - this video explains it well - that would serve as a strong base for their designs, and they practiced using scrap paper before they began their actual project. It's super important to always start STEAM challenges by instructing the students in some basic skills, such as how to fold paper effectively. I know it sounds crazy, but some kids don't know how to make really flat, crisp folds. I'll never forget this incident from a couple of years ago: a new science teacher came over to my classroom to discuss an idea he had. He was going to use paper airplanes in his lesson, and I stopped him immediately, asking, "Are you sure the kids know how to make those?" He thought it was a ridiculous question, but he ended up having to rethink his lesson on the "fly" when, indeed, the majority of his students knew nothing about paper airplanes. It's a good reminder that, in today's world, teachers should not assume that students have the same experiences with making and building that our generation did. Years ago, during a lesson with arch building block kits, an 11-year-old told me he had never used building blocks before. Making is not the norm anymore!

The students worked in partnerships to make their crown designs, and some of the finished designs blew me away with their artistry!! These makers literally had paper, tape, scissors, and markers to make these things, and they totally delivered amazing works of art. After time was up (some teams worked until the very last second just like in Project Runway), we cleared a runway through the classroom, and I modeled each crown. One student asked if she could be the "commentator," and it was hilarious! As I worked that runway, the students wrote reflections on their work and the work of others (see page 2 of the linked document above). After it was over, I displayed the crowns easily by flattening them and stapling them to a bulletin board in my classroom (a plus if you have observers who like to see students' work). Can I just say how marvelous some of these were?! One team actually created paper peacock feathers that hung down from the back of the crown and shaped a paper bird on the front. It was stunning! Hera would definitely have wanted to wear these.

THE NUPTIAL NECKLACE PROJECT: The kids liked making crowns so much that I decided to keep going with the theme of adornment. Using Hephaestus as our maker model again, I challenged the students to make a necklace for Aphrodite. In the story of the mismatched love of Hephaestus and Aphrodite, he crafts many beautiful items for her, including a golden girdle (or belt) that makes her irresistable. Before the challenge, I taught the students two methods for designing their necklaces: paper chains and paper beads. They had lots of supplies to choose from, including glossy magazines and colorful papers. Some chose the simpler paper chain method, but others didn't shy away from making paper beads. These are beads made from long, triangular strips of paper that are rolled up on a stylus and glued to close them. There are so, so many tutorials online and so many materials that can be used to created these. But once I taught the students the basic methodology, they were off and running, taking the method into whatever direction they wanted to. Using the engineering design process as we do with every project, the students worked in teams of three and began with a sketch. After sketching their designs, they got to work on making and creating.

As always, they completely "ATE" this project (as they say). One team went deep into the relationship of Hephaestus and Aphrodite. They made shackle bracelets because they felt as though he was trying to restrain her from being with Ares. 

I modeled the necklaces in another fashion show, and they wrote their reflections (all linked in the document above). They learned a lot about Hephaestus, making, collaborating with partners, and had fun doing it all.

When I design maker challenges, I'm reminded of Dale Dougherty’s writings (he sums them up in this TED Talk). In case you don't know, he's considered by some to be the founder of the Maker Movement. “Makers are playful, resourceful, and experimental. They not only help themselves, but they help others. Makers do well because they can adapt to change as self-directed learners, but they are also agents of change. In this movement, makers are setting their agendas and asking others to join them.” I encourage my students to be MAKERS on a small scale because I'm hoping to inspire them to do BIGGER things later in life. They need practice!

Hands-On History: Our Soil Mates

I had the most horrifying nightmare last week about WORMS. I was in San Francisco attending the annual joint meeting of the Society of Classical Studies and the Archaeological Institute of America to present as part of a panel on using experimental archaeology in the classroom. I had been invited to talk about using STEM challenges in the classics classroom. The night before the presentation, I went to sleep worrying myself over it for no good reason. I've given countless presentations to large and small audiences, teachers and the general public. I should NOT have been worried, but I was. (You can see my presentation here, and my scripted notes here, in case you're wondering.)

I woke up a few hours later in sheer terror. In the dream, I was talking to an old friend of mine when I casually nudged the bottom of my lip. When I looked down at my finger, there were worms all over it! I ran to a mirror and found a gaping hole right under my lower lip where worms had evidently been living for a quite a while because there were a lot of them. I gasped in horror wanting to look away when someone deep down inside me said, "You've GOT to do this." I reached into the hole and pulled out a gigantic worm and smushed it with my fingers. That's the moment I woke up, reeling from the ever-so-real feeling of worms living in my face. I couldn't go back to sleep so I looked up dream interpretations about worms. And judging from the search, a LOT of people are having this exact same dream, and I was shocked at the supposed meaning: worms in your skin or body represent worries eating away at you, and how you deal with them is significant. If you're pulling them out in the dream, that means you are taking control of your concerns and conquering them. In light of my worries about my presentation, I guess that makes sense.

But then I remembered another reason I have worms on my mind. My worm babies!!! The worms in my classroom decomposing our lunch waste! I was worried about them not getting enough food for the past week with my being in San Francisco for the conference. This past year, I've been teaching a class called Hands-On History, an outdoor learning class that has covered lots of random ancient wisdom including gardening. Through my National Geographic fellowship cohort, I learned of a granting opportunity in the fall with a small non-profit organization called Let's Go Compost. Led by Lauren Click who signs off on emails "wormly," they help classrooms and Girl Scout troops learn about vermicomposting and its benefits. The grant provides a vermicomposter, lessons on the benefits of composting, a book about vermicomposting, and a gift card to purchase worms from Uncle Jim's Worm Farm. I signed up so quickly, thinking that my students would LOVE this opportunity. Well, forget my students - I don't care if they love the worms or not because I ABSOLUTELY AM IN LOVE WITH THESE WORMS. This project has been my absolute favorite this year for so many reasons.

1. Worms in the mail! As soon as our worms arrived in the mail, I had to put them into the vermicomposter to chill out. They were discumbobulated from being in the mail for 48 hours. The directions said that some of them would try to escape due to confusion. I also had to make sure that I darkened the room so they would feel at home in the dark dirt. I took them to school the next day and set them up there. Some of my students were absolutely horrified and refused to even look at the worms, much less hold one or sing to them (as I frequently do). Others were delighted and asked if we could name the worms. What a great idea!! Thus, the students filled out a Google form with names like "Mr. Beast," "Messi," "Phillip Raymond Carmichael, Jr.," "Sigma," "Drake," "Poseidon," "Cherry," and "Wormy Wormington III." And we frequently refer to our "soil mates" by their names: "Do you really think Chappel Roan, Dumbo, and Tha Destroyer are going to like that avocado?"

2. Worms are fascinating. They don't consume the food waste that we deposit in the composter because they don't have mandibles. They actually consume the bacteria that grow on the decomposing food, but they like certain food bacteria more than others. They LOVE pumpkin bacteria the most! When we discarded a small jack-o-lantern in the composter, it was like the worms had decided to have an all-night rager with free booze and a DJ. These worms were all OVER this pumpkin! We've also been finding worm eggs and pregnant worms, which means that our worms are happy and well-fed. Worms are mostly self-sufficient, and they won't overpopulate their space.

3. Food waste is a huge problem all over the world. My students and I have learned so much about food waste since we got our soil mates. Farmers and consumers throw away food for many reasons, sometimes just for cosmetic ones, like bruises on apples. I had watched my own students throw away cafeteria-prepared food by the plateful, and it disturbed me that all that potential and eventual dirt was being discarded in large plastic bags, slowing down the decomposition process. In addition to vermicomposting, we also used some of our grant money to purchase large compost tumblers to take care of our larger food waste. With just the kids I eat lunch with every day (about 30 per day), we've clocked anywhere from 2 to 5 lbs of food waste per day.

4. Greens and Browns For composting to work well, you need to even out the green (food scraps) and brown (plant matter like grass clippings and leaves) material that goes into the composter. I've learned so much from the Compost Coach, a wonderful book by Kate Flood, a compost enthusiast. Knowing how easy it is to do now has made me sad that not more people do it.

5. The Harvest After a couple of months of feasting, our soil mates had produced enough castings for us to harvest and use in our garden. And if you're thinking that castings are another way to say "worm poop," you would be correct. The students were not super interested in this aspect of the process, but it would have been hard for them to do in such a small space so I took the lead! I harvested about half a gallon of castings which, unlike traditional compost, needed no time to cure. In fact, the very next day, we used the castings to plant a winter crop of onions in our school garden. The kids are doing an experiment to see if the castings are actually more beneficial for the plants than regular potting soil.

I've enjoyed taking care of "my wormies" so much that I listed them as one of my inspirations on a "vision board." In early January, I was invited to an "Envisioning Party" at which we used old magazines to render some aspirations for 2026. I love the letter W so I tried to write goals that all started with W. Of course, worms start with W so I had to include them. They are a reminder that the earth's tiniest creatures are super important to the success of life on earth. They really are sooooo Wonderful!!

 

Hands On History: Digging in the Dirt...for a Different Reason

My new Hands-On History class has been a really amazing experience so far. It was supposed to be mostly about archaeology with as much outdoor learning as we could get in the 90 degree heat of Louisiana fall. But the class has not been entirely what I exactly expected it to be...in a good way...? We have been keeping a garden - 8 mini-gardens to be exact.  Gardening was supposed to be a side venture to keep us occupied when I got too busy to research atlatls or basket weaving, but it's turned into a nearly full-time activity. And here's the best part...the students absolutely LOVE it.

Our small school garden began a couple of years ago when my Roman Technology students decided that they wanted to try gardening the ancient Roman way. We did a lesson on Roman herbs and seasonings and then grew some to flavor the cheese we also made. It was a fun little activity, but the two small garden beds I had were not enough for all of my students to engage with. Enter my father, an amateur carpenter with a generous spirit, who made wooden grow beds that are raised to waist height for easy tending. He crafted 8 more beds to be used by my Hands-On History class this year.

At the beginning of the year, the students divided themselves into two-person teams that would each tend to one side of one garden bed. After a bit of research, they decided what to plant, how to plant it, how to care for it, and how and when to harvest the crops. The #1 choice of crop was cucumbers. Because the weather in Louisiana is so hot still into October, the students also decided to grow lettuce. 

Every day of our class (every other day on our A/B day schedule), we start by eating lunch outside under the shady oak trees of our campus. At the end of lunch and recess time, we collect composting materials from the students' lunches. From the picnic area, we walk slowly back to my classroom, passing by our garden beds. There, we dump compost into our large compost tumblers, check on the frog that lives near them, and then water and tend our gardens. I bought simple plastic watering cans so they could also take care of watering their beds. On every visit to our garden, they scurry around filling their watering cans and looking through their gardens. Imagine the thrilling "OHs" and "OMGs" I hear when students discover a slug or leaf-footed bugs or the bees attracted to the wildflowers we planted nearby. It's so delightful to hear delight being expressed so excitedly.

Near pandemonium broke out when the cucumbers started appearing. And OMG, did these seeds make some cucumbers! They must have been Superman or Wonder Woman seeds. Not long after cucumbers and lettuce started appearing - seemingly by the day, the class discussion turned to the question of what we would do with the harvest. One student suggested that we make pickles, and nearly the whole class erupted in excited agreement. We live in a pickle-obsessed world right now so I wasn't too surprised. At first, I was a little worried because I have watched my mother, the cucumber contessa, make giant batches of pickles every year of my life, and I knew that true shelf pickles are a HUGE project that I wasn't sure I could conquer with a class of 30 students. But then I remembered what I learned from TikTok: anyone can make fridge pickles with vinegar and sugar in 15 minutes! So I bought some mason jars, taught the kids to safely cut up our cucumbers, and we have been enjoying our pickles at lunches.

Pickles and first lettuce harvest!

Since the garden has become nearly all-consuming (and I know very little other than the basics), I've asked for some help. My principal has been wonderful enough to send me to the LSU Ag Center's Seeds to Success fall conference where I learned all kind of helpful information about school gardening initiatives. But I've also found some kindred spirits in my colleagues. One of Glasgow's new teachers, Mr. Troy Chapman, teaches ag business so they have begun joining my class for some gardening activities. He and I really like working on projects together! Another of my colleagues has extensive experience with school gardening from his previous position. Mr. Kory Holmes taught ag science at Istrouma High School until it closed last year, and he misses his school gardens. Now teaching math at Glasgow, he has guest taught classes on soil testing for my students. I appreciate both of these gentlemen so much for their help and advice!

Next up, onions. Or that's what we think we'll be growing for our winter crop. After that, it will be potatoes and then strawberries, or at least, that's what I've been told by the students. In a world where students spend the majority of their school day and everyday lives indoors in the USA, I'm so glad to be able to offer students an outdoor learning experience that connects them with nature and healthy food.