Wondering

I'm still "wondering" if I'll get this all done! First off, Ace Awards to Jennifer Smith and Julie Mansfield for their blogs. I've only visited the ones from my POD so I can't judge them all, but these two are on the ball.

I found some comfort in the Carol Kuhlthau video clip on "Student Frustration." (Can be found on Eduscapes under "Wondering"). I have been mulling over the materials I have. It has been a long time since I've done any research quite like this. My youngest does this all the time for fun! She has always been into Non-Fiction and loves animals. She has created many PowerPoints on various topics: planets; sharks; monkeys and apes, etc. I have even greater admiration for this passion in her now that I'm faced with this project.

I wrote out a list of questions I began wondering about as I thought about my topic. Side note: Is it recursive to think of the final product and then back to questions? I've already admited that I tend to get caught up in the final product. I went from being curious about the vitamin/nutrition aspects of my daughter Sarah's vegetarian diet choice. But that curiosity has expanded to include wondering about other aspects. And includes not only Sarah but her group of close friends, too.

Questions:

What prompted you to become a vegetarian?
What was your parents/siblings reaction?
What's been the hardest thing being vegetarian?
Have you researched your nutritional needs?
Iron? How much needed at your age?
Calcium? Ditto.
Can you enough of these through diet only?
Do you take a daily vitamin with iron?
Where do you go for support? Books? Websites? Magazines? Friends?

Is any of this conducive to my research? To my final product?
Probably more to the latter. I really want to video "the girls" and ask them these questions. Don't get the wrong idea, I support them fully in this choice of diet.
And I admire their stamina in sticking to their choice. Maybe it's the inner teacher in me that wants to know what they know and to bring to their attention information about nutritional needs for girls their age.

Research: I need to learn as much as I can about vegetarian diets and vitamin needs.

One of the two bloggers I mentioned above, not only used a mapping tool, but was able to blog it in. I tried to use a pdf. wondering chart but could not figure out how to fill it in without printing it out first. I've now found "Inspiration" not a pun, but a download I'm hoping I can get to work for me. The video tour of it impressed me, it looks like a really fantastic tool for students and teachers to use.

I found the download of Inspiration on James McKenzie's page on "The Research Cycle."
I really like his philosophy toward learning and research. He's providing information to educators to turn from topic driven research to using creative questions to prompt research projects. This avoids turning "students into simple word movers"(McKenzie, ). Kids are natural questioners and if this could be incorporated into K-12, it would be fantastic. All three of my girls got some of this via their school, Center for Inquiry. But even there, I'd like to see it stretched further.

Now I'm wondering if I can borrow a digital video camera from a friend and whether I can get this group of girls together before Oct. 3rd.

Time to get blogging

I feel I have a greater sense of direction since Dr. Lamb's last two emails. I love the idea of blogging, but confess I have a difficult time thinking, writing out loud about this project. I have procrastinated and now have a week to accomplish this inquiry and product. After completing 3 skyhoppers I felt I had overdosed on my computer monitor and needed a break. My body thought so too. I had an episode of sciatica on Tues. 9/20. Fortunately ice packs and muscle relaxants got me back on my feet by Wed. I read that sitting for too long can aggravate this condition.
FYI- I read that the Firefox browser works better with Blogger. You can download Firefox from if you don't already have it. I found the tip on page 23 of the Oct. 2005 issue of MacHome magazine. It also shares info about video blogging. I'm writing via Firefox now.
I hope the two previous blogs addressed some of Watching and Wondering. I spent a little time thinking about various topics before deciding on Vegetarian Teens. I didn't want to do something that was just something to fill space with, I wanted whatever I learned to be useful. It couldn't be too broad. It needed to be manageable, timewise. I confess that I didn't pick up on the fact that this was all to be done by Oct. 3. Manageable is now even more important. Ack! I regret that I can't remember at this point the kinds of things that I toyed with doing at first.
In the last blog I talked about not having begun looking at sources for my topic. I did sit down the very next day and started with IMCPL. I initially searched under "vegetarian teens" in a subject search and brought up some hits. In one, a book called "Vegetarianism and Teens: A Hot Issue" by Kathleen Winkler, clued me into the keyword Vegetarianism. I had never considered this. Vegetarian/Vegan yes but vegetarianism no. I found and requested several books, keeping copyrights as current as possible, though I did include one 1999, that is "The Teen's Vegetarian Cookbook" by Judy Krizmanic, mostly for personal use. And another "EAT" by Steven Kroll (1995) a 3rd grade Hyperion Chapters book for fun rather than research.
When I did hit Google, I used "Vegetarianism and Teens" again and came up with several useful sites. I need to go back and read through them thoroughly for information, but skimming brought up some issues I hadn't thought of previously. Like why teens decide to become vegetarians. Health, religion, ethics, weight, fashion or environment or combination of these. I realized that I never gave many of these thought when Sarah made her choice to become a vegetarian. I got a vague sense that it was appreciation of animal rights, etc. She had read some information about PETA and receives some of their mailings including a magazine geared at tweens/teens called "Grrr!" Also, the friend factor was there, as several of her friends were experimenting with vegetarianism. One in particular, Jesi, was always sharing with the group the horrors of McDonalds, where they got there meat from etc. I remember this going back several years ago, possibly 5th/6th grade. The girls are Freshmen this year.
Back to reading, more blog to come. Jeanine
PS. Thank you to those of you who have commented on my previous blogs!