“Why couldn’t we leave Mary Anne in the cellar and build the new town hall above her? Let her be the furnace for the new town hall.”
-Virginia Lee Burton, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.
In Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Virginia Lee Burton acknowledges a child, Dickie Birkenbush, for coming up with the idea for Mary Anne’s happy ending as she read her manuscript for the book aloud to a group of children. Burton passed away in 1968, and the real Dickie (Richard) Berkenbush (she spelled his name wrong!) in 2009, but the beloved story lives on.
I was thinking about the book this morning because my son, Jake, gave me the idea for this blog post. I was reminded—once again—of something that any of my educator readers already know. Children are an endless and awe-inspiring fountain of knowledge and ideas. Just ask one.
Of course, in no way am I comparing my sparsely read, occasional personal blog to Burton’s masterwork. My train of thought is Kid Citizen Science-centric because children are natural scientists. As keen observers of the world and innovative thinkers, they can contribute to citizen science in ways that adults, including professionals, cannot. Their homespun research in the form of firsthand observations are deserving of a prominent role in creating community science. We were at the park this morning following a family visit to our local Saturday morning farmers’ market, when we happened upon this alarming sign:
“Curiouser and curiouser!” Cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass
My husband, ever the scientist, was the first to notice and called the rest of us over for a closer look. And so of course upon seeing the sign, I did the smart thing, which was to immediately approach the tree and begin photographing the bees at an ill-advised range:
As we were retreating to a safer distance and then starting the walk home, Jake reminded me that I had a blog (ha) and that the photo would be perfect for Kid Citizen Science. We used the opportunity to find out first why honeybees swarm, and then to learn more about honeybees and other pollinators in preparation for our latest project, The Great Sunflower Project. Annie Corrigan writes for NPR, “Late spring is swarm season — the time of year when bees reproduce and find new places to build hives. Swarms of bees leave the nest and zoom through the air, hovering on trees, fences and houses, searching for a new home” (“Spring Is Swarm Season, When Beekeepers Are On The Hunt For New Hives,” June 10, 2016.”) Beekeepers, educators, kid scientists… tell us more in the comments.
Jake’s idea reminded me to check on the progress of our emerging Lemon Queen sunflowers, which we’re growing for The Great Sunflower Project:
As you can see, they have quite a big more growing to do (and I have more mulching and weeding to do) before we can start tracking pollinators in our new sunflower garden.
The kids and I will be finding out more about honeybees as we wait for our flowers to grow. Since most of our food crops depend on these fascinating insects, they’re an incredibly important, curriculum-aligned, and kid-friendly topic for the classroom. There’s also a wealth of recent nonfiction children’s books about honeybees that we’ll be sharing over the summer.
We’ll be tracking other species of pollinators in our garden as well. Find out more about pollinators from the Xerces Society and at your library, and we’ll meet up soon to kick off our summer Kid Citizen Science project together just in time for summer reading season.
