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STEM Tuesday– Cephalopods — Writing Tips & Resources

By on June 17, 2025   /   Cephalopods/Mollusks, STEM Tuesday   /   Leave a comment

Creativity and Octopuses!

The first of the cephalopods that comes to my mind is an octopus. To me, the metaphor of a multi-limbed being is in the multi-possibilities offered to apply to creative activities. Many arms and many legs and many muscular hydrostats mean that connections can go many ways. As my focus is STE(A)M, I began to run options though my head. I settled on music, research, and visual art (camouflage). Like a cephalopod, these are just three of the connected “arms” in the world of art. I make my case below.

Music and the Octopus.

One of the best known octopus songs is “The Octopus’s Garden,” by Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey) and recorded by the Beatles.

“I’d like to be under the sea
In an octopus’s garden with you”

The cover of Octopus's Garden

The song is full of fun and joy. It is said that Ringo wrote the song after being told that octopuses collect stones and shells to make a decorative garden around their homes. Studies have shown that while we don’t understand their full capacity, octopuses have great intelligence.

Ringo is crediting them with a sense of artistry. Enough artistry to design and build a garden where …

“Oh, what joy for every girl and boy
Knowing they’re happy, and they’re safe”

Musicologist  Alan W. Pollack says:

The charm of “Octopus’s Garden” lies in its simplicity and complete lack of pretension.

Alan W. Pollack is an American musicologist known for having analyzed every song released by the British band the Beatles. Since this STE(A)M post is about science, I was wondering if a musicologist is considered a scientist. While Wikipedia describes it as “the academic, research-based study of music,” it employs of a number of fields of science, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, formal sciences and computer science.

The Octopus and Reasearch

Back to the idea of octopus as metaphor -it makes a great visual for research. Sometimes called a map or web for exploring possibilities, finding connections through random ideas is a superb tool for creativity. One can imagine the octopus, sitting in their garden, all arms reaching out to explore different places. There are no boundaries to using the mind this way.

Listening to “The Octopus’s Garden,” you find it is more than about a garden. It tells a story, shows emotion, incites curiosity, invites the imagination. Which is what good research should do. Musicology is sometimes considered to be a social science but many aspects, such as acoustics, musical instruments, and sound waves (and more), involve mathematics, materials science, psychology, and the list goes on. It one of many multi-armed disciplines.

In planning projects for kids, music and octopuses are intriguing ways to frame research and creative thinking. The investigation can be about any topic at all.  

Visual art and Octopuses

Octopuses have been the subject of artists since ancient Greece. Shown here is a lithograph from Jean Baptiste Vérany’s Chromolithographs of Cephalopods (1851). There is curiosity about creatures so unlike humans.

A historic lithograph of an octopus.

Members of the shell-less subclass of cephalopods (squid, cuttlefish, and octopuses) have the magic trick of color changing (yes, I know it’s a complicated process – not magic, but it is like magic to me). Some of their cells are capable of producing rapidly changing color patterns to match the surrounding areas or mimic other creatures. What a fascinating ability!

Doing art activities involving camouflage is a great way to improve eye, hand, and perception skills. And a real challenge. One needs to recognize shape, value, and colors to accurately reproduce them. Teachers Pay Teachers (link below) has a number of activities listed on their website. You don’t have to be an art teacher to use art projects as encouragement for students to do in-depth observational studies. With today’s fast-paced imagery of phones and games, people seem to be losing ability to focus. The value of practicing real observation can be time well spent.

Conclusion

Making connections is a large part of the creative process. It may appear this post strayed off topic, but it is an example of allowing the brain to find solutions that are new. Many inventions (such as the printing press) were the result of someone making an odd or unusual connection that ultimately led to a very useful solution. And, like learning to play music or becoming a good athlete, preliminary training paves the way. Anyone can practice connected thinking skills and use them for practical situations. Sometimes when I am doing research, allowing my mind to wander discovers materials better than what I was looking for.

Happy Connecting!

Margo Lemieux

References and more info

The Octopus’s Garden book https://bookshop.org/p/books/octopus-s-garden-with-cd-audio-ringo-starr/10265712?ean=9781481403627&next=t

The Octopus’s Garden video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De1LCQvbqV4

Alan W. Pollack https://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/og.shtml

Teachers Pay Teachers Cephalopods

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/browse?gad_campaignid=20273913093&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwgIXCBhDBARIsAELC9ZiEjEwazcCjEgkVAUxueIxDCn_5mZEzBJuPrZn1OJjIO_wtepaOXSAaAtP5EALw_wcB&search=Cephalopods%20

Teachers Pay Teachers Camouflage

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/browse?search=camouflage

Historic lithographs of cephalopods

https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/verany-cephalopods

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STEM Tuesday– Naturalists– Writing Tips & Resources

By on April 15, 2025   /   Earth Day, STEM Tuesday  

Hello again, STEM Tuesday friends. Here in Utah the spring has been iffy, with bitter winds and snow as recently as two weeks ago. Now that the air is warm and filled with little white blossoms from the cherry trees, it seems like we’re finally close to summer.

With the warming weather, and our monthly theme of naturalists, my first impulse is to recommend a nature walk. When I was young, I loved looking at different leaf shapes, and feeling their various textures. I remember washing out an Altoids tin and keeping an assortment of dried flowers, twigs, and rocks. These sorts of outings are timeless.

It being poetry month, I have a wonderful resource for you: a book about writing nature poems, written for and featuring young poets called A Crow Doesn’t Need a Shadow: A Guide to Writing Poetry From Nature by Lorraine Ferra.

a book cover

Indeed, the first chapter is about poetry field trips; getting into the great outdoors and experiencing the primary text of the world around us. Ferra writes,

Weather is an endless source of ideas for poems. You need only to step outside to feel the freshness of new-fallen snow, or a light rainfall. If circumstances limit your activities and keep you indoors, a poetry field trip can be as quick as a few steps to a window. From there, you can watch dark thunderclouds riding toward you like a herd of buffalo or catch sight of a rainbow before it disappears.”

While this book offers plenty of writing prompts, I’ll let you discover those yourselves (see page 21), instead opting to share some from my own arsenal.

Writing Prompt 1 | A Form Poem

Have your children try writing a seven-line diamante. It’s a little like a Mad Lib, in that they’ll need to know their parts of speech. Typically, diamante poems juxtapose two things—whether like or unlike—so the prompt is to choose two parts of nature and bookend the poem with those, like this:

seed

– –

– – –

– – – –

– – –

– –

pebble

From there, build the poem accordingly. The seven words following your first line should modify the beginning word. The seven words preceding the last line should modify the last word. Each hyphen represents a word. The double hyphen lines are filled with adjectives. The triple hyphen lines are filled with gerunds (verbs ending with -ing), and the middle line features nouns. A completed poem might look like this:

 

seed

patient, thirsty

uncurling, stretching, waving

stem, blossom, path, river

flying, twirling, sinking

kicked, settled

pebble

 

Writing Prompt 2 | Short Stories About Small Creatures

If going outside for a nature walk isn’t possible, the next best thing is bringing the outdoors in. If you feel adventurous, invite students to bring their own insects, bugs, or spiders to class (in a jar or other container). Otherwise, choose one or two to bring. Easy ones to capture might include pill bugs, common house flies, or pollinators like ladybugs. In a pinch, you can purchase some from pet stores, which usually carry live crickets (about $7 for 40), worms, and other small creatures. Several years ago, I caught a jumping spider similar to this guy in my back yard:

jumping spider

Encourage your students to write a short story from the perspective of one of these small creatures. What would the world look like? How could a normal object from school life, like a pencil or calculator, be experienced by a non-human? What kind of challenges might this kind of main character face? For example, what color of acrylic paint would a ladybug be most attracted to, or how many ants would it take to carry a cookie? This exercise may lead students to write silly stories, but it’s a fun prompt that encourages empathy.

Wherever you are, I hope you’re enjoying nature and the weather, helping your budding naturalists-in-the-making to observe and discover more about the world around them.

Best,

Stephanie

A nature-loving creative, Stephanie Jackson writes poems, articles, picture books, middle-grade novels, and more. Her nonfiction has been published in Cricket magazine and her poems have been published in The Dirigible Balloon and various literary journals including Touchstones, where she’s been a contributing poetry editor. Professional affiliations include the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and The Authors Guild. She’s graduating this month from Utah Valley University with her English degree, emphasis in creative writing. You can read more at StephanieWritesforKids.com.

 

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STEM Tuesday– Naturalists — Book List

By on April 1, 2025   /   Earth Day, STEM Tuesday  

A naturalist is a person who observes plants, animals and fungi, and looks at how they fit into their environments. You don’t have to go to a special school to learn how to be a naturalist; you just have to be curious. Here are a few books about naturalists, and how you can become one.

I Begin with Spring: The Life and Seasons of Henry David Thoreau by Julie Dunlap and Megan Elizabeth Baratta

Henry Thoreau collected leaves and arrowheads from a young age. He could tell when skunk cabbage was blooming by smelling the air. As an adult, he kept copious notes about nature, sending samples and observations to scientists. Observant readers will enjoy the timeline that runs along the bottom of the pages. Back matter dives into phenology (botanical signs of the seasons) and how Thoreau’s work has helped modern scientists understand climate change.

Wildheart: the Daring Adventures of John Muir by Julie Bertagna

Beginning with boyhood in Scotland and continuing with his adult life in the US, this book presents John Muir’s life in graphic novel format. Muir, more famous as founder of the Sierra Club, was a careful observer of nature. His study of glaciers in Alaska informed his understanding of Yosemite.

Darwin’s Rival: Alfred Russel Wallace and the Search for Evolution by Christiane Dorion

This is an adventure story – a tale of exploration, field research, shipwrecks, and a friendship between two naturalists that evolved over time. Both Wallace and Darwin wrote about natural selection and the evolution of new species. But instead of competing against each other for credit, both tried hard to treat each other fairly – to the benefit of all. Filled with maps and spreads showing diversity of beetles, butterflies, and birds.

The Incredible Yet True Adventures of Alexander Von Humboldt: The Greatest Inventor-naturalist-scientist-explorer Who Ever Lived by Volker Mehnert

Another adventure story of two naturalists — Alexander Von Humboldt (a young German inventor who from childhood preferred exploring nature) and Aimé Bonpland (a young French doctor who preferred studying plants and rocks) — who undertook the first scientific expedition into South America’s rainforest and the Andes mountains. Stunning illustrations highlight their discoveries of plants, geology, animals, and cultures unknown to anyone in Europe. As well as Alexander’s later trek through the wilds of Siberia. His books and lectures inspired a generation of naturalists and scientists – including Charles Darwin. With a conversational tone, maps, and direct quotations, this book brings to life their fascinating, daring, and harrowing adventures.

The Lady and the Octopus: How Jeanne Villepreux-Power Invented Aquariums and Revolutionized Marine Biology by Danna Staaf

From making hats to fine dresses for wealthy Parisians, Jeanne Villepreux put her sewing skills to work. When she had the freedom to study nature, she got interested in sea creatures. Could she bring them into her house like she did caterpillars and turtles? She invented aquariums for holding sea animals, and began to study small octopuses called argonauts that lived in the local waters. Back matter includes “how to be a naturalist.”

What Linnaeus Saw: A Scientist’s Quest to Name Every Living Thing by Karen Magnuson Beil

As a boy and young man, Carl Linnaeus also preferred exploring nature to his studies. This engaging and exciting biography follows his adventures and discoveries in the Scandinavian Mountains, research into the scientific mysteries of unknown animals and plants, and dreams to catalogue every plant and animal in the world. Ultimately, his frustration at a lack of consistency in cataloguing plants and animals, led Linnaeus to create the classification system still used today. Includes period illustrations and maps, scientific update sidebars, direct quotations, and intensive back matter.

Steve and Bindi Irwin by Amy Breguet

From childhood, Steve and Bindi Irwin, where both raised to be modern-day naturalists and conservationists. Filled with great photos, fascinating side bars, and a fair review of controversies, this is a great look at their relationship and dedication to animals, tireless work to preserve wild spaces, and drive to inspire others to preserve and protect nature. Back matter offers numerous ways to get involved.

You Can Be a Naturalist, Too!

The Observologist: A Handbook for Mounting Very Small Scientific Expeditions by Giselle Clarkson

This book presents four potential sites for conducting naturalist expeditions, along with the sorts of things one might observe while there. They are easily accessible to kids of all ages and include a damp corner (perfect site for discovering more about centipedes and fungi), pavement (great habitat for ants and worms) and weedy patches.

Be a Nature Explorer!: Outdoor Activities and Adventures by Peter Wohlleben

This book is filled with 52 activities that range from following slugs and snails to mapping plants that move. In addition to a pencil and notebook, Wohlleben suggests a few other things to take along including plastic containers, a hand lens, binoculars, and maybe a cell phone with a camera and a nature app.

The Naturalist at Home: Projects for Discovering the Hidden World Around Us by Kelly Brenner

The 20 individual projects specify the season(s) and study topic involved and specific materials needed. The projects range from creating a woodland in ajar, sugaring for moths, and finding tardigrades. With wonderful illustrations, a general naturalist toolkit, easy to follow steps, sidebar tips and warnings, and a few bonus activities, this is a great book for budding naturalists.

The most important book – is the one you’ll use to collect your notes and drawings.

This month’s STEM Tuesday book list was prepared by:

Sue Heavenrich is an award-winning author, blogger, and bug-watcher. A long line of ants marching across the kitchen counter inspired her first article for kids. When not writing, she’s either in the garden or tromping through the woods. Her books for middle-grade readers include Funky Fungi: 30 Activities for Exploring Molds, Mushrooms, Lichens, and More and Diet for a Changing Climate. Visit her at www.sueheavenrich.com

Maria is a children’s author, blogger, and poet who is passionate about making nature and reading fun for children. She was a round 2 judge for the Cybils Awards (2017 – present), and a judge for the #50PreciousWords competition since its inception. Two of her poems are published in The Best of Today’s Little Ditty 2016 and 2014-2015 anthologies. When not writing, critiquing, or reading, she bird watches, travels the world, bakes, and hikes. Visit her at www.mariacmarshall.com.

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