Boston, Book 9, and Birdley in Color

I will be going to a Zine convention in Boston this weekend to hear Marek Bennet, another teacher-cartoonist, speak about the use of cartoons in education. Other comic artists, including Colin Tenford and E.J. Barnes, are likely to appear at the convention. Should be a good time.

Between chasing my 3-year old around, book #9 is evolving. Its major include rocks, geologic time, volcanoes, and the role of microbes in shaping the biosphere. It's a lot to squeeze into 96 pages but Birdley will not disappoint. Source cartoons so far include the snottites from the Cueva de la Villa Luz in New Mexico, the three domains of life, intrusive & extrusive igneous rock, and fossil dating. For the latter cartoon I've been drawing some dinosaur fossils with my 3-year-old son, who has become increasingly involved with the Birdley business in recent weeks.

I've seen some cool Dr. Birdley "colorized" cartoons from students. It's always nice to see the characters in color, as I usually work in black and white since the comics need reproducibles. Although Birdley, Phyll, and Norman had their respective color schemes in place, it wasn't until I started doing the website that I had to seriously think about color schemes for Owelle, Clarissa, Lark, Don, and others. Incidentally, keep checking the http://www.birdleymedia.com/ site every so often for new characters and comics. They'll be coming soon.

An Ounce of Motivation

At this point of the year, some students start to lose focus.... so I have been devising a few strategies to keep them motivated and attentive. As I wrote earlier, the coupons still seem to help. It's hard to get to every student who deserves it, but I enjoy recognizing the hard work. I also found that simply writing statements on a small strip of paper (about the size of a fortune cookie message) can help to keep a student motivated throughout the lesson. Showing something gross or eye-catching seems to help as well. While discussing organic molecules I showed them a picture of a frog preserved in formaldehyde, and then a picture of the snottites from the Cueva de Villa Luz in Southern Mexico. It turned into a nice lesson on how hydrogen sulfide (consumed by the archaebacteria in the snottites) is great for the microbes, but deadly to us. I also pointed out how oxygen can be deadly to anaerobic archaea (such as the methanogens) while we require it to survive. High level stuff, but I feel like the visuals held their attention. I've also found that having them give their own powerpoints is a great motivator. Some of the students who struggle with writing shine as presenters. I was impressed with how much attention the kids gave their peers. In a way I think the audience is curious about what their peers can do, and it helps the presenters act as positive role models. It's challenging to keep students motivated all the time, but these strategies seem to help.