Beth's Adventures in Mbarara Uganda

On Monday, when I walked into my classroom I nearly vomited. It smelled so bad! Sour, rotten, slimey sweet potatoes in jars with dead bugs floating in them. I carried them outside and aired out my classroom, deciding to wait and let Curt and Herin figure out what to do with them.
Curt and Herin decided we should change the water and that some were just not working. So we threw out some of them (the peel and the inside part of the potato).

In the two pictures above, Herin and Curt are holding their noses because it smells so bad. And on the right, Herin is changing the water in the jars with sweet potatoes.

Below is Herin's response. I didn't even change her spelling or grammar mistakes. Remember, she's Korean and English is her second language.

"Every day the bugs came and fell in the water, but one week later, it stinked so bad that we changed the water, covering our noses, and through some of the pieces out. We through the peel of the sweet potatoes and the insides. Now we're waiting for the sweet potato to grow. But I think the eye will grow better than the others. But my friend thinks that the whole sweet potato will grow. I wish it grows quickly and not stinky."

Curtwrites:

"We checked out potato plants this morning. Boy, did they stink bad! There were even some bugs floating on top of the water. We emptied the water adn rinsed out the jars. We also studied the pieces of potato carefully. Some of the potatos had grown longer roots. Others had not done anything except collect mold. We chucked these. (They were the insides adn teh piece of peel.) Then we rinsed jars and refilled them with clean water."

Below, Curt, grimacing at a moldy potato peel, is getting ready to "chuck" the peel. On the right, Curt and Herin show the newly cleaned jars with clean water with the "hopeful" potatoes.

Check back next week to see if we have more moldy potatoes or if we have some potato plants growing. . . . .

So, my 4th graders and I are trying to grow sweet potatoes by putting them in jars of water. I know that I taught middle school science for several years back in America, but Biology--and more specifically BOTANY (that's the science of plants and stuff, right?)--is just not my thing.

Anyhow, last week (Wed. maybe? That just shows you how great I am at keeping records for this science experiment!), we put some sweet potatoes (which had been in a black cavera for 2 days in the classroom) in jars of water to see if they would grow new plants. Well, only one of the potatoes actually fit in the jar...and it even stuck out quite a bit. So we decided to cut them in pieces to experiment and see which part of the plant was actually responsible for the growth of a new plant.



It was suggested to even see if a new potato could grow out of the peel of the potato or from the actual inside part of the potato. So we tried it all! I think we put 6 jars on the window sill, one with a whole potato; two with chunks of a potato; 1 with just the "eye" of the potato; one with the inside only; and one with the peel only. In the picture to the left, Curt is trying to get me to put only the white (yes white!) part of the sweet potato in the jar...as a new experiment to see if anything would grow from it!

Below, Herin and Curt are filling the jars with water. Notice that one of the jars Curt is holding already looks cloudy and dirty...not a good sign. Be sure to check out my next post to see what Curt and Herin wrote today in their journals about the potatoes and see some new pictures!

Did I ever even post question #3? Surely, I can't remember.

Oh well...

Question #4:

If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one ability or quality, what would it be?