My new pet

[LizStreithorst]

This guy found his way into the fish room a couple of days ago.  He's about the size of a quarter.  You wouldn't believe the sound he puts out...almost sounds like the smoke alarm going off.  He has serenaded me two nights in a row and is still singing this morning.  For some reason I can't fathom why his singing doesn't disturb my sleep.

[Mugwump]

LOL....does he sing "on top of old croaky" ? 

[PaulineMi]

Jon.....Lurch groan here.   Lol.

[sschind]

Spring peeper , one of my favorites and yeah, they are loud for their size.  Stand by a pond at night in the spring and you can't carry on a normal conversation they are that loud.  I'm jealous, I can't wait for this long cold winter to be over but I may have to wait until May to hear them this year the way it been going.

[Ron Sower]

Hyla crucifer....harbinger of spring.  I used to take my biology classes out on night field trips to a vernal pond in the Blue Ridge Parkway in VA just so they could hear them.  The peepers got really quite as we approached the pond and I'd tell the students to be quiet and I'd started whistling out to the frogs. After my first ten whistles...nothing...and the students, who are standing behind me now, are starting to snicker, thinking I'm nuts! I quiet them again, and return to whistling. Eventually one would begin to call back at me, then another, and pretty soon there was the loudest, most raucous cacophony the students ever heard.  Then the Northern Chorus Frog, Psuedacris triseriata (I see now that that the genus has been restructured and may not be that name any longer), would kick in and it was glorious!!! Then, turning around, I would kneel down and help pick the students' jaws up out of the mud!

I used to do all sorts of frogs' calls. It was a lot of fun.
Screech owls were pretty easy to call in and get to perch right over your head in a tree at night.

[Mugwump]

Hyla crucifer....harbinger of spring.  I used to take my biology classes out on night field trips to a vernal pond in the Blue Ridge Parkway in VA just so they could hear them.  The peepers got really quite as we approached the pond and I'd tell the students to be quiet and I'd started whistling out to the frogs. After my first ten whistles...nothing...and the students, who are standing behind me now, are starting to snicker, thinking I'm nuts! I quiet them again, and return to whistling. Eventually one would begin to call back at me, then another, and pretty soon there was the loudest, most raucous cacophony the students ever heard.  Then the Northern Chorus Frog, Psuedacris triseriata (I see now that that the genus has been restructured and may not be that name any longer), would kick in and it was glorious!!! Then, turning around, I would kneel down and help pick the students' jaws up out of the mud!

I used to do all sorts of frogs' calls. It was a lot of fun.
Screech owls were pretty easy to call in and get to perch right over your head in a tree at night.

You're my kind of teacher, Ron. I had a prof for Geology that would take us on field trips up through the Sierra Madres, and doing all sorts of weird experiments to demonstrate how things were formed over the ages. He was a team leader on the 'Rocky Mountains Rescue team'...you can only imagine the places he took us to up there...LOL...and if you weren't in decent shape, you'd lag way.way behind....good times, good learning...

[Ron Sower]

Mugs,   I loved it - took about 2 years to really learn how to teach biology to non-biology majors in a 2-year college though. I always loved school, and lived biology 24/7 for my 4 years there. But it took me time to learn that a Community college student wasn't there for quite the same experience. Once I realized that, my approach took a turn and I made the material more relevant to everyday life as much as I could. I got pretty good at it eventually.  For instance, when I began my classes on population density, etc, I would come into the classroom and ask..."Where does a bear s--t? And of course I got their attention! Funny how no one ever came back with the answer! And I would say..."In the woods, of course!" This would lead to the next question..."Where does the poop go when you push the chrome handle?" I would them make comparisons between "nature's" methods of recycling the poop, and human's methods of modifying nature with sewage treatment plants to do the same so we can build up larger, "unatural" population sizes in our cities. The following week we would take a field trip to the sewage treatment plant to see the enormous job it does for our populations.

Today, I describe the aquarium filter system as a small, self contained sewage treatment to the elementary and mid-school kids when I help install classroom aquaria. I use similar analogies with nicer language...!

If they'd had enough courses at the small school I went to, I would have minored in Geology...my second love.  Geomorphology was my favorite geo course. It kinda pulled all the other geo courses together! And it tied in so well to the field biology courses.

[Mugwump]

My brother just retired from Boston University a couple years ago. He was a dean in the business school. He graduated from UCLA with a degree in bacteriology/biochemistry, with a minor in business. He taught at Mt St Mary's in California, then at Purdue University, where he got his PHD. He then taught at Harvard before being lured to BU. In between he worked up at Dow in Midland, Mich., doing biological research (Viet Nam era).....he enjoyed teaching immensely, and had our great Aunts as mentors. Aunt Betty taught 2 astronauts in her school in Indiana, and traveled the world. Academia has ,also, been continued in other parts of our family. Three cousins are teaching, as well as one of our daughter in laws. I have the highest respect for those that teach, and it taught me to appreciate the exceptional ones. Kudos, my friend...kudos 

[Ron Sower]

Thank you!  One of my greatest moments and accomplishments was the time one of the first students I'd taught came beck to visit and told us he'd just finished his doctorate in biology.  Another is when another former student applied and accepted my position on the faculty as I was leaving to go into sales. Great moments in my life.  Other gratifying times were when young ladies and men who'd taken my classes, would tell me they had taken their kids up on the Blue Ridge Parkway or some other familiar area, and had started teaching them the trees around there.!  Cool times!  Sometimes I think I shoulda never left the field.