5/4/2021

My Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            Thank you for being a calm POTUS. I haven’t let my guard down, quite yet, but it is such a relief to look through the newspapers & not have to worry about the 10 crazy things the POTUS might be doing. The most interesting thing about you in the news today is the weird picture of you & the Carters that has been circulating on social media.

            It looks like you had a nice visit with the 5th graders in Ms Bertamini’s class. I am curious about their storm projects & wondered what they might have learned. Weather is a tempting science topic because we have it every day & we all experience it. It’s a great equalizer. It’s also a very complex scientific phenomenon, hard to predict & even harder to explain. For example, to understand why we had so much wind yesterday & none today requires a recognition that air is a fluid which flows at different rates. It also requires some notion of forces, including the force that comes with the rotation of the Earth. I am already starting to confuse myself so I will stop trying to scientize the weather.

            I am into that kind of thing these days due to my seminar on Anti-racist approaches to STEM education. We have read about Social Justice Science Issues which can be used as the curriculum. Last week Dr. Daniel Morales-Doyle came to our class to talk about teaching AP Chemistry by investigating heavy metals in the soil of Chicago & the ways in which his students became Transformative Intellectuals. Exciting stuff.

            Other exciting stuff related to soils are the cool urban gardening projects popping up all over the nation. Including the Project of EDEN in SW DC & 3 Sisters, in West Sac. Teens getting dirty. What could be better?

            BYBS,