THE WORLD IS YOUR OYSTER

I've started after-school mentoring again! This time with middle school students. And this time with the "Billion Oyster Project" (BOP) curriculum. (The BOP aims to restore one billion oysters in New York Harbor by the year 2030 and educate the next generation about ecosystem restoration.) Before the holidays, the kids played "Name that Science" (a multiple-choice buzzer game to teach them about the different fields of science), drew *typical* scientists, and figured out what it means to be alive (NBD). Today, we learned about anatomy! We learned that the human body contains 37 trillion cells - if you lined them all up, they would wrap around the Earth about 19 times!! And those specialized cells make up our tissues, which make up our organs, which make up our organ systems. We learned that oysters have some organs that are functionally similar to human organs (e.g., the stomach, the esophagus), as well as some completely different organs (e.g., the adductor muscle, the palps, the tentacles). Finally, we made three-dimensional paper models of oysters. The kids really seemed to enjoy it! (They were happy as clams?)