-
- Dr. Ben shows Shelby how to see the really, really small stuff!
-
- Our friendly students at the Countryside School
Dr. Ben and I had a wonderful time in Champaign and Urbana, Illinois! On Monday, Ben was interviewed live on morning television for the local news channel. Today we taught eight classes at Leal Elementary school, where Ben’s brother Alex attended classes as a kid! After that, we headed over to Countryside School in Champaign where we saw almost 60 kids. We spent all day looking at Daphnia and talking about the energy cycle / food chain. We had some really nice sun and made a lot of electricity in our solar panels!
Now we are headed back East, where we will make a stop at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and again at Farber Custom Coach in Columbus, OH before heading to a school in Akron on Thursday. We are looking forward to getting some new equipment for interior improvements to the bus from the generous folks at Farber. For now, though, it’s the open roads of Southern Indiana, and travelling always makes me wax poetic..
The highway stretches before us like an artery in this great organism called America, trucks and cells passing silently in the night. The nation – the world, even – is like some living, breathing beast; each person within is but a single piece of the creature. Each cell has its job to do. Liver cells, kidney cells – these remain stationary, performing their function time and time again. But blood cells, lymph cells, and other types of motile cells take to the road, moving through the highways of the organ systems, transmitting goods, food, supplies, nutrients. The neural pathways connect us almost instantaneously over great distances, keeping us in touch with friends and family and allowing business to occur despite spacial differences. The lack of a centralized ” brain” does not prevent our world from functioning – indeed, it gives us strength. We are many brains and we are one; with redundancy upon systemic redundancy, our survival is ensured.
The study of life always amazes me. The parallels that can be drawn, from inorganic molecules all the way up to the most complex animals, seem infinite in either direction. Just as you and I have organs in our bodies, every single cell within those organs has organelles of its own. Those organelles, in turn, are made up of different types of specialized molecular structures, each of which is made up of unique atomic structures. Consider a city as a living thing – each factory, each home, each school and office building and grocery store is an organ. Those organs are made up of living cells. And just as the cells within our bodies create extracellular materials with which to work, we create the buildings and tools that allow us to function as a society. There are so many levels of life.
When one paints a picture of life with this broad view in mind, it is difficult not to love and respect all living things. As I said today to the students at Leal, all living things depend on the other. Your kidneys can’t function when your liver fails, and your heart can’t pump if your lungs aren’t working. When the deserts flood the rainforests dry up, and even the insects wouldn’t be happy without the spiders that eat them. We are all part of a whole; mutual respect is necessary.
R.