Knowing Too Much

By: Judi Stuart
Port Discover - Visitor Services Manager

Knowing Too MuchSometimes it’s better that we don’t know. Last month, while keeping up with current events, I learned too much.

Charlie Naysmith was taking a walk with his father on the southern coast of Great Britain. Instead of walking by a large brownish- yellow rock, he picked it up to examine it. Now, he’s going to be $63,000 richer.

The curious eight year old found a piece of ambergris, which has a odor of its own and is sometimes used in expensive perfumes to prolong the scent. What’s really amazing about the substance, which is literally worth its weight in gold, is its origin.

Ambergris is produced in the intestines of sperm whale to protect them from the beaks of the squid that they often digest. Later, the whale vomits or poops out the excess, which then hardens and seasons, as it eventually floats to the shore.

Selling ambergris has been illegal in the United States since 1972 when the sperm whale became an endangered species. In New Zealand, it washes up on shore, and gangs control the territory, so that they can sell the substance and make a huge profit for themselves.

Author Herman Melville wrote an entire chapter in Moby Dick about how “fine ladies and gentleman...regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick whale.” Recently a 200-year-old fragrance used by Marie Antoinette was replicated using ambergris. It sold for $11,000 a bottle.

The ingredients found in some cosmetics are often, shall we say, unusual.

Lanolin, which is found in many lipsticks, shaving creams, skin creams, shampoos, and make-up removers comes from animal fur or hair. It is the sebum that is made from wax and the remains of dead fat-producing cells.

Squalene can be obtained by squeezing shark livers and is used in facial moisturizers, lipbalm, sunscreen, eye make-up, lipstick, and bath oils. When used, it is easily absorbed into the skin and combined with other oils. Wheat germ oil and olive oil are replacing squalene in many products.

Dead algae or diatomaceous earth is used in some acne treatments, facial cleansers, and exfoliates. You would recognize it as the slimy film on fish tanks. Cholesterol from animals is found in anti-aging and many other creams.

Guanine is formed by processing the scraped off scales of dead fish and then suspending them in alcohol. The result is a pearl essence that gives the iridescent quality to some cosmetics such as finger nail polish.

Other startling substances used in beauty treatments around the world include nightingale droppings, snail secretions, cochineal beetles, placenta creams, cow dung, and snake venom.

After all my research, I am left with the question—what kind of person first decided to rub nightingale droppings on her face or picked up that ambergris rock and smelled it? I don’t know, but what I do know is that I’ll be reading the labels from now on.
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It’s All in Your Head

By: Judi Stuart
Port Discover - Visitor Services Manager

It’s All in Your Head
Have you thought about your brain lately?

In 1990 President George Bush issued a proclamation making the nineties the “Decade of the Brain.” People were beginning to realize that the advancements in technology were advancing the field of neuroscience to new heights.

Electro encephalography (EED) measures the changes in electrical voltage in the neurons in the brain. Magneto encephalography (MEG) uses highly sensitive magnetometers to measure the electrical currents produced by brain activity. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) measures changes in blood flow during brain activity.

Since all science is based on observation, these new technologies have allowed researchers to study the human brain in ways never before possible. What have we learned, and has it really affected teaching and learning? The answer is as complex as the brain itself.

We have learned that the brain continues to change well past childhood and that it changes based on a person’s experiences and learning. Although the brain stops growing at age 18, it continues to make new connections throughout life. For some time, teachers have accepted that each child learns differently which has made strategic designing of lessons mandatory.

One of the most dynamic times during the brain’s development is right before puberty when the frontal cortex experiences an unexpected growth spurt, and the gray matter begins to thicken and rapidly grow connections. The older teen brain differs dramatically in anatomy, biochemistry, and physiology from the childhood brain.

In 2002, PBS’s Frontline aired a program titled “Inside the Teenage Brain” which you can still watch online. Several points are made about how the changing of their brains should affect how we deal with teenagers.

Cognitive skills are still being built in the teenage brain, and the skills of judgment and decision-making are immature and that actually causes the risky behavior that we sometimes see. You might say that the teen tends to be mentally clumsy, just like they are sometimes physically clumsy.

Just when parents begin to allow kids to stay up a little later and might actually lose control of bedtime, the child’s sleep need increases to 9.5 hours per night. The average teens get 7.5 hours per night which makes them operate at a deficit.

Strategies like allowing the student to catch up on sleep on the weekends and having later start times for school have been explored. Some researchers think that the number of hours of sleep that the student regularly gets is a better predictor of college success than SAT scores.

Other tips for parents include reading aloud and having conversations with children, which promotes brain development. Studies have shown that students who ate lunches that did not include artificial flavors, preservatives and dyes did 14% better on IQ tests.

By the way, the technical word for that problem of not being able to remember a word or name that’s on the tip-of-your tongue is called anomia. Yep, I’ve got that!
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Fostering the Gift of Curiosity

By: Judi Stuart
Port Discover - Visitor Services Manager

Fostering the Gift of Curiosity
You can see it in their eyes. It sparkles and lights up their faces. It’s curiosity, and it must be cultivated and nurtured, or it will dim.

Eleanor Roosevelt said, “...at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.” Curiosity might be the mother of invention, but it is also the mother of learning.

Some children seem to lose some of their drive to learn and explore as they approach the middle school years, and teachers and parents become anxious to get back that childhood enthusiasm for learning. Where did it go?

Many books have been written, teaching techniques explored, and countless hours of research spent in the quest for the answer to what keeps the desire for learning at its peak.

Of course, there is no simple answer, but after many years of teaching, I believe that parents and teachers must continuously act as facilitators for learning. They should be relentless in their efforts to follow the interests that the child expresses and to provide materials and experiences in those particular areas of interest.

A child can be his own best teacher.

Childhood is full of opportunities for exploration through toys, games, books, movies, television, and countless child centered activities. Places like the Museum of The Albemarle, Arts of the Albemarle, and Port Discover are settings where kids can experiment and find their personal interests.

For all of the criticism directed at media, they also provide many golden sparks for kids’ curiosity. Finding Nemo, the Ice Age series, Madagascar series, Wall-E, Lorax, Rio, Bambi, and 2001, A Space Odyssey all cause kids to wonder about the world of science.

Although the science is not always the most accurate in such programs as “Sponge Bob” and other cartoons, they still might cause the child to ask questions and become interested.

That’s when the parent can seize the opportunity to acquire books, magazines, and materials from the library, take the child on to a museum or science program, or just probe for questions that the child might be wondering about and try to answer them together.

One activity that can be helpful is regularly discussing current science events. Just this summer, there have been so many topics to explore like global warming, drought, flooding, space exploration, archeological discovery, and the list goes on and on.

My newest discovery is www.neok12.com which is a treasure house of free online videos, lessons, quizzes, games, and puzzles for kids, teachers, and parents. Organizations such as the British Broadcasting Company offer documentaries on a variety of topics such as prehistoric America, dinosaurs, and the Ice Age.

Remember that a child’s first question is usually “Why?” As their first teacher, you can easily become equipped with all that you need if you look around. You will probably learn something together, and that’s the fun of it.

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