Author Archives
NBCTeacher Librarian and author of "Understanding Government Information: a Teaching Strategy Toolkit for grades 7-12". Member of the CA State Library Services Board, and History Room Librarian at the Petaluma Regional Library [Sonoma County Library]. She welcomes all conversation.. give a holler!
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Welcome!
A Welcoming Environment It’s been a short time since I retired from my job as Teacher Librarian at Petaluma High School, and one might think that I would begin my journey of kicking back and enjoying the sun. I have… Read More ›
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Deliberate Thinking about Climate and Other Controversial Topics
A fun part of getting ready for the new school year includes checking in with our colleagues in the classroom to see how their summer went, and using this time to share some new resources. Erin Twamley introduced me to some… Read More ›
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Survival, libraries, and your students
Imagine living in a dystopian novel: the world gone mad–maybe through human destruction, possibly through environmental breakdown. Either way, life as we know it…is no longer. What do the survivors and their children do? In the classic (and one of… Read More ›
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Takeaways from a look back — and a look forward to ALA: Chicago!
One of the end-of-the-school year things we tend to do is to go through files to toss those items that need to go, review others, and create a semblance of organization for a new year. This activity is especially poignant… Read More ›
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What IS this document I’m looking at?
The CRAAP test has been a standby strategy for teaching information literacy for a long time. Besides the fact that K-12 students love the fact that they get to say the word “CRAAP,” it has offered a reliable template for… Read More ›
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Earth Day Every Day
Start here: Human Population Through Time By the 1970s there was a growing awareness that population growth could be an issue, food shortages a possibility, and that fossil fuel energy is limited. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring written years before had opened… Read More ›
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It’s March – Time to Talk Girl Talk
March highlights women, and there is no better time to set aside time to talk about gender equity, women’s rights, and Civil Rights than this month. Moving seamlessly from February’s Black History Month, we can continue conversations that feature rights,… Read More ›
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It Really IS about the Questions!
The other day the Junior State of America debaters came to me to ask for my help in determining reliable information. They were unprepared for the arguments they were getting from students in other groups who were quoting statistics and… Read More ›
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“Huh. That’s funny.”
Guy Roz, NPR host of the NPR TED Radio Hour, mashes up interviews with TED Talk speakers under one single theme. On the episode “From Curiosity to Discovery” he interviews Adam Savage of “Mythbusters.” If you never saw “Mythbusters,” the premise was that… Read More ›
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Data and the chocolate chip cookie challenge
At one point in my life as a mother to young teens, I decided to make the perfect chocolate chip cookie; which of course, meant locating the perfect recipe. A year-long journey began with the traditional Toll House recipe and ended… Read More ›