Density and Tyler Florence

I'm grading papers. It's alright.  My students are terrible spellers. Glucose has been spelled "GLUECOS" about a hundred times. We recently finished a density lab where we had to find the density of 5-20 pennies.  And guess what, the density stays the same!  Surprise kids. 

    But the spelling.  PENNIES turned into PENIS. And since most of the students copy each other's work, I had about 30 papers with penis written all over it. I'd like to blame it on the whole, "I'm learning english thing" but really?!  Then again, I never can draw a test tube on the board without giggles, so maybe they did it on purpose. 

    Anyways, we continued with density and worked on this lab, which worked well.  A teacher at a JFEW conference told me about it and I adapted the worksheet to fit my classroom.  I start with a demonstration, "Will this orange float in water?"  After I get some predictions, I show them the answer, they have to think about what they know about density and gravity to figure out how things layer according to density. Then they calculate the density of different mystery liquids in a clear straw. I would recommend at least 2 periods for this lesson. The lesson is from this website. I used petri dishes and play doh to make the base. Here is a picture of the winning team, using the calculators funded by donorschoose and my friends, Mark and Rita.

Density in a straw!

     On an entirely separate note, my sister bought me Tyler Florence's cookbook at Homegoods for 5 bucks a while ago.  This was one of the best dishes.  Here's the recipe. Seriously, amazing. Plus you can throw the extra watercress into your ramen the next day. Genius.

Bacon, avocado, tomato, watercress, lemon. 

What's up with this blog name?

In case your wondering about the name of this blog, My Stomach Be Rumblin', here's an explanation. I love food. Eating food, cooking food, and occasionally baking. AND, I teach biology and earth science to high school students who are new to this country. They are great students and I love my job. Sometimes, they say the strangest, funniest things!

Question during a lesson on reproductive systems:

Student: What would happen if there was sperm on the sidewalk and suddenly an egg falls in that exact spot.  Would that make a baby?

Me: Okayyyy, let's say this is even possible. Where would this sidewalk baby live?  

Here are a few glimpses into my classroom. The plastic dinosaur is named Vazquez.

Vazquez, causing havoc

A student made cell with hormone receptors

A group of students making a slime cell model.

Students grew beans in the closet.  Look at this monster!

Lastly, this blog is named after this conversation: 

Me: Why were you absent yesterday?

Student: Miss...my stomach be rumblin'

Hurricane Sandy and I

New York is pretty crazy right now.  But you wouldn't know that from midtown and above.  I am imagining downtown to look like a scene from Cloverfield.  One day and three Hulu shows later, I was going to go crazy from boredom.  I didn't want to work, and I couldn't go outside.

The bread aisle at the food emporium. 

A down tree. Poor tree.

     Anyways, in terms of school, we're getting three solid days off.  Which is a bad thing in my opinion. With the jewish holidays, election day, veterans day, columbus day, PSAT day, and parent teacher conferences, my students barely see me.    Which means, when they fail exams, I get blamed.  Don't blame me New York State!  I tried.  Sigh. 
    I baked apple hand pies that I saw on smitten kitchen and another blog called, pencilkitchen.  Just mash the recipes together. I would share the recipe I used, but I'm a terrible baker and I didn't measure anything.  Which makes baking a bit more adventurous wouldn't you say?

The set up. I found a raspberry.

About to go in the oven. 

Delicious!