Of Books, Seeds and Lesson Plans

Now that things are winding down school-wise, I have spent some time catching up on reading. This means, of course, I can read more than I usually do. My students were often amused by the fact that we don't have a satellite TV connection, so aside from the occasional movie or TV show on DVD, I don't watch much TV. Thus, more time to read!

Anyway, I have caught up on reading the latest mystery/thriller books I enjoy, such as those by Lee Child (did Reacher survive or not?), John Sandford, Andrew Gross, Dana Stabenow (a newly discovered author that my spouse also likes - we fight over who gets to read her latest novel first), C.J. Box, and so on. Needing a change of pace (and genre), I went looking in the teen and juvenile section of the library (research for my classroom) and discovered a series of books by P.W. Catanese. They are called The Books of Umber and I thoroughly enjoyed the first two books of the series (the last comes out in January 2011). I highly recommend them to young and old alike.

What does the above have to do with seeds? Well, there is a small connection between the first book of the series and what is written below, but I can't tell you what it is - you will have to read the book to find out!

So, the seeds. After reading the book the other day, I was reminded of a Globe and Mail article I read a while ago entitled ‘Doomsday’ Seed Bank Growing Strongly . And today, while browsing National Geographic videos, I came across this:



Naturally, this plants a seed (excuse the pun - I couldn't help myself!) for a lesson plan in the next school year. My students loved to talk about all things apocalyptic (the movie 2012 was constantly discussed in class), so hopefully this idea works! I'll have to let the idea germinate over the summer (hah!).

If you are curious, here is a Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault.