We were very lucky to have Eric Johnson (S.W.'w neighbor) come in today to share his energy expertise. Little did I know when Eric contacted me to collect information about our solar panel that he would be such a resource. As he explained to the Herons, some people have baseball as a hobby, he has saving energy.
He gave a cracker jack presentation about solar collectors (and other uses of solar energy). The students gasped when their old friend boron (from our polymer experiments) showed up as partner of phosphorus in solar panel design. It's been great to see the Herons make so many connections among scientific ideas like acids, electrons, ions, charges and chemical properties. We got to see Eric's collection of solar gadgets and then he patiently fielded questions that, in typical 4/5 fashion ranged from "How does the electron moving from the phosphorus to the boron create enough electricity to do anything?" to "How does a television work?" Eric, amazingly, answered them all with grace (and accuracy).
When we came back in from examining the solar panel, some of the students re-created from memory all of the explanations that Eric had created on the board for us.
The Rookery 
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