adventures in babysitting

so i have been working in the education department at the desert botanical garden, doing tours for field trip groups. mostly they are in 1st to 4th grade, with an occasional older group thrown in for fun. here are some of the interesting stories.

with 4th graders: the teacher says, "this student here isn't feeling well." so i look over, and the girl just leaned over and barfed right in the middle of the trail. nice.

with 2nd graders: i asked some question, to which the answer was, "flower." a little boy shouted out his answer, which was "OVARY!!"

with 8th graders: we were talking about the parts of a flower and i said, "this is the male part, anyone know its name?" one weird kid said, i think, "scrotum." but then another kid said something else right after, so i got to ignore the scrotum comment.

with 2nd graders: everyone turned around to look at some quail. when i tried to refocus the kids, one boy said, "i need help, i have a cactus in my hand." and sure enough, he did, a piece of cholla. he was a trooper, i radioed for a ranger to come help us (no way i was touching that thing or it would get stuck in my hand) and the kid said it hurt but waited really patiently and hardly complained. there was a little squeal of pain when the ranger pulled it out, but no screaming or tears or anything. i had 2 teachers, 2 parents and 12 kids. how come no one saw this kid getting too close to the cholla?

ah, fun in the garden.

science you can use

i know its been awhile, so what better way to get back into the blogging spirit than a nice article on really relevant science. as reported by CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/personal/12/03/bad.kissers/index.html