Where have green hearts been growing lately? Where next?
Are you heading to the NAEYC conference at River Center on January 31st? If so, please consider stopping by the Growing Green Hearts workshop titled “Energize Kids About Climate” on Friday at 2:15. It would be great to see you there!
Will your kids be getting their creative groove on at the 2014 Creativity Festival put on by Success Beyond the Classroom? In the Interstellar Water Search workshop sessions led by Heidi, the elementary school kids and their teachers will use STEM strategies on a creative quest for H2O.
Throughout the summer Zion Lutheran in Anoka, Minnesota has been constructing a natural playground complete with rain garden, boulders, hill slide, timber balance beam, and raised garden beds for the neighborhood, community gardeners, and the Zion preschool program. Thank you very much to Allina for funding a large portion of the project through a Neighborhood Health Connection 2013 Healthy Activity Grant!
Heidi has been teaching two courses on Saturday’s in November with the Minnesota Institute for Talented Youth in St. Paul, Minnesota. Crystals, volcanics, gemstones, and other geology goodies come to life in the courses for first through fourth graders. Kids have been asking intriguing questions and searching for answers through activities and experiments during the “Stories In The Rocks” and “Rumble Tumble Rocks” sessions. The YES (Your Extraordinary Saturday) programs run each fall and spring. MITY’s EXPLORE School, another great opportunity outrageous learning experiences, for middle level students, lasts 2 weeks in June.
Thank you to the coordinators and attendees of the 2013 Our Children Our Future conference held in Bloomington, Minnesota this year. Over three hundred preschool and school-age care professionals attended the conference. It was great getting to know people that stopped to chat at the Growing Green Hearts table in the exhibit hall and at the 2 workshops by GGH: Science Inside Out, and Energize Kids About Climate.
“Faith and science go together?” some might ask. The response my husband (a pastor) and I usually give is…”yep, they’re even married!” The opportunity arose this summer for us to write and article about the commonalities with faith and science for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s youth and family journal called Connect.
Halloween was definitely more fun than spooky, especially when the day before was spent with 60 middle schoolers from St. Phillip the Deacon in Plymouth, Minnesota doing hands-on science and exploration of about faith, climate, and systems. We burned stuff, watched carbon dioxide sublimate, asked questions which led to more good questions with some answers, and connected ourselves to the natural communities that we are a part.
November 2013
