Question Your World - Question Your Coffee

Did you have any coffee today? A lot of people did. The United States moves about 400 million cups of coffee every day! Everything from intricate gourmet coffee to the basic cup of plain coffee. Even the basic cup of coffee is still very complex, holding over 1500 chemicals! The most familiar is caffeine, of course. It takes caffeine about 30 minutes to be fully absorbed by our bodies. Once in the bloodstream, it actually does enhance thought process and the body's capacity for physical activity.

Also, coffee contains antioxidants. Actually, Americans get more antioxidants from coffee than any other food or beverage!

Several studies have suggested that coffee may even reduce the risk of various diseases such as type 2 diabetes, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's!

For more coffee info check out this link: COFFEE also, check out some coffee-health-facts here, MORE COFFEE!!!

Pizza Garden

I've just returned from visiting our first two of five Richmond Public Schools participating in the Science Museum of Virginia's pizza garden. Today, John B. Cary Elementary and Maymont Elementary planted basil in their classrooms. When they've finished their SOL testing in early June, they'll visit the museum to transplant their seedlings into our on-site pizza garden. Bellevue Elementary, William Fox Elementary and Linwood Holton Elementary will also participate in this endeavor. Third grade students from these schools will be planting hot peppers, tomatoes and green peppers respectively.

It is the museum's hope that this project will inspire a new generation of gardeners. This project will hopefully allow kids to see where everday food items (such as pizza) come from. Perhaps it will even inspire some of them to pay more attention to their diet as well! I had several students tell me today that they had never grown anything from seed, so it's very exciting to be a part of that "first" in their lives.

Something From Nothing

This spring, I've been tasked with creating a one-acre farm for the Science Museum of Virginia. Ever since I was a child, I've been fascinated with growing plants. I still remember growing a bean in a wet paper towel wadded up into a baby food jar when I was in third grade. I remember my fourth grade teacher taking us to her parents' farm to visit on a field trip. It's experiences like these that I hope to be able to pass on to a new generation of students.

I'm excited and lucky that Richmond Public Schools will be growing plants for our garden. I'm still hammering out the details about which grade level to focus on and how many schools we'll have participate. I have, howevver, developed a proposal of what I'd like them to do. I'm hoping to do a small-ish demonstration "pizza garden" as part of our acre. They've been done before. I'm not looking to reinvent the wheel. It would be a 15- to 20-foot round bed divided into slices. Each slice would be an ingredient found on pizza. A slice of tomato plants, a slice of pepper plants, a slice of jalapeno pepper plants, a slice of onions, a slice of basil and a slice of oregano. There are 29 elementary schools in Richmond. I'd like to cover every third grade class in every school. We'll see what happens!

We've partnered with Tricycle Gardens to make this farm happen. Check them out at www.tricyclegardens.org. They're doing some pretty cool stuff throughout the city. I spoke with Lisa Taranto, our Tricycle Gardens contact, about what types of growing experiments we could potentially do in our garden. There was a brief discussion of permaculture gardening, which is similar to companion planting, but focuses more on planting some items that serve only to enrich the soil and cause a different crop to grow better (I think!). It sounds quite interesting.

So what does someone need to do to get an idea like this off the ground? Well money doesn't hurt! The museum has been lucky to receive a grant from the Gwathmey Trust for $30,000. We're hoping to build a small greenhouse onsite. We'll also need to purchase all the tools necessary to maintain a farm, as well as topsoil, manure, etc. For irrigation, we're using a rainwater harvesting cistern that will be constructed onsite thanks to a separate National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant. This system will harvest rainwater from the IMAX Dome and pump it out to the farm. I'm not sure of the date of completion for this system, so we may need to figure another watering system out in the meantime. I believe the first item on my plate, however, will be soil testing.

Today I bought a small "greenhouse" kit, some potting soil and seeds. Tomorrow I plan to get those started just to get myself in a growing frame of mind. This will also allow me to see how long it will take to germinate the various plants I hope the RPS kids will grow for us.

Guess that's all for now!

Turkey daze...

Do you fall into a satiated stupor after Thanksgiving dinner? Have you heard that eating turkey makes you sleepy? Turkey contains tryptophan, an amino acid often blamed for the post-meal lethargy. The human body uses tryptophan to make serotonin. Studies have shown that serotonin, a type of neurotransmitter, induces sleep in nonhuman mammals and scientists believe it may do the same in humans. But don’t blame the turkey for your drowsy state. To enter the brain, tryptophan must hitch a ride through the blood-brain barrier on specialized protein transporters. Turkey contains five other amino acids in addition to tryptophan, all vying for a ride. Since tryptophan is the scarcest of the amino acids in turkey, it usually loses out in the competition.
What probably makes you sleepy after Thanksgiving dinner is dessert. Carbohydrates increase brain serotonin even though carbs contain no tryptophan. Here’s how: sweet desserts trigger your pancreas to produce insulin, a hormone that helps cells absorb glucose and amino acids. Insulin has little effect on tryptophan, but it does allow your cells to absorb other amino acids. With the others out of the way, tryptophan catches a ride into the brain and steps up the brain’s production of serotonin. Hence, the urge to snooze…
Even in the absence of dessert, you may find yourself nodding off after Thanksgiving dinner. Loading the stomach with food stretches the small intestine, causing sleepiness. All that blood going to the stomach and intestines means less blood for the brain and muscles. And then there are the beverages. Do you enjoy wine or beer with your meal? Drinks containing alcohol can also cause drowsiness. So enjoy Thanksgiving dinner but please don’t blame the bird for your turkey daze!

Another helping of cranberries, please...

Did you know, of all fresh fruits, cranberries contain the most phenols, a type of disease-fighting antioxidant? Phenols and polyphenols are strong antioxidants and many scientists believe antioxidants protect the heart. Uncooked berries, dried berries and pure juice are best because processing, storage and heating reduces antioxidant levels, but cranberry sauce still contains lots of antioxidants. So enjoy your extra serving of cranberry sauce…

Which vegetable is #1?

Would you believe it’s the sweet potato? According to nutritionists at the Center for Science and Public Interest, the sweet potato ranked #1 in nutrition when compared to other vegetables. Foods were given points for their content of dietary fiber, naturally occurring sugars and complex carbohydrates, protein, vitamins A and C, iron and calcium. Points were deducted for fat content, sodium, cholesterol, added refined sugars and caffeine. The sweet potato, with a score of 184, easily beat out the second place vegetable, the white potato, by more than 100 points. It’s easy to see why: sweet potatoes have twice the daily allowance of vitamin A, 42% of the vitamin C recommendation and 4 times the RDA of beta carotene. So this Thanksgiving Day, enjoy this yummy and good-for-you treat!

Our last day... all business

Welllll.... mostly business.

We began firming up plans for our grant proposals: Fauzia and Steve's ideas for stream monitoring projects; Terry and Deborah's plans for baseline surveys to use in planning for school construction; Bryan's thoughts on doing a stream restoration; Amy and Dana's desires to do something more with conservation gardens; Lee's plans to build a nature trail; Eric and Jeanine's different ideas for using real data from from their studies in math classes....

It wasn't all work; we ate ice cream (thank you, Lee!) and fooled around with hissing roaches... Bryan thinned his herd, so Lee's kids will have some creepy classroom pets this year! And Gene and I were ambushed by everyone... thanks for the presents and the sweet card (sniff...)

So, where are we now? We have a big list of "to-dos" for the next months! We'll be contacting local government offices to get information on existing monitoring stations and projects. We'll be looking at how our projects fit in with bigger school and community plans, and begin writing lessons that will cover standards and use best practices. We'll begin to decide what new equipment we'll need to do our projects. And I'll be here at the Museum, your "go-to" girl, helping with resources as we start writing proposals.

Just not this week. I'm on vacation!