To the editor:
Somehow it is reassuring to go past the old school building. There up on the second floor on the Fort Street side so many memories come to mind of the games and fun that made high school memorable. Here in England there is a major party going on for one of it’s native sons, Charles Darwin. This gentleman kind of kick started a revolution that continues to evolve today. And like so many ideas, its tendrils and roots of my own thoughts go back to the second floor of PIHS and the Biology lab. Mr. Lord and Mrs. Loder managed one of the largest and most interesting classrooms of the school those many years ago. And it was there that I was introduced to the Dendro family of critters.
PIHS in the late seventies and today continues to have an outstanding science program. Those of us who went through the Lord and Loder program well remember the LAPS. At the time, these formed our main textbooks and program. The reward for completing all the LAPS over the year would be the infamous Biology field trip. One of those LAPS activities was the dissection lab. It was here that students could come face to face with one of the most elegant and useful earth creatures that exists. No, it is not that other packet!
It was the earthworm dissection. You learned that basically the worm was a tube that processed organic matter into material that plants could use. In this, the program was supporting the work of Darwin who based some of his study on the function of earthworms. His conclusion: That earthworms are elegant creatures of humble nature and profound responsibilities.
The Learning Activity Packets were delightful collections of exercises and information about what each segment of the program demanded. Ahead of their time I can still remember the work that went into producing each one, countless diagrams drawn on the mimeosheets labeled and duplicated then stapled and punched for the notebooks. In the back of my memory I can still see the diagram laid out on the page. Our task was to get our worm, lay it out on the wax tray and proceed to analyze its structure and match pictures and parts to what was in the book. The very thought today will send many packing. Cool! Worm Guts! Yuck! Just the perfect thing to upset the milder stomachs. Perfect for curious high school students.
And it was fascinating to think that you were doing something that was quite real. If you made it through this exercise, you had options to move on to other critters or subjects. But the idea that we could get something useful from a simple worm still rings true today. And with the demands on landfill space, costs, and other considerations, the idea that such a simple creature can solve so many issues appeals.
I now have a herd of 1,500 or so wrigglies. As I watch the sun set in the west, I see them hard at work, doing what they have done for thousands of years. They take air, organic material, and liquid, process it and turn it back into humble soil. Soil that feeds the plants that make our food. Simple, elegant, and profound. My herd of worms are quiet, certainly more quiet than the classroom where I first met up with the business and biology of the simple Dendro family. What was learned there is that there is always something to be found if you look closely and appreciate what you see: beauty, simplicity and lots of pleasant memories of a classroom.
Stratford-upon-Avon, U.K.
orpheusallison@mac.com