WOW Recommends: Book of the Month

WOW Recommends: Just in Case

Three people walk through a snowy Arctic landscape to enter a metal building.In this time of severe changes in weather, international conflicts and concern about the environment due to man made interferences, have you considered the complex challenges confronted by plants? More specifically, what happens to the seeds that hold the future of our physical environment, food sources and economic survival amidst a crisis that could endanger and make extinct these valuable resources? The notion of seed banks in general and their importance to our future is a topic not often pursued, even in circles of those concerned about the environment. The focus of Just in Case: Saving Seeds in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is on the building and use of this amazing creation. Continue reading

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‘Señor Calavera still isn’t scary’

by Julia López-Robertson, Tiffany LaBrooy, Kirstin Wade & Jamie Yobs, University of South Carolina

Book jacket for Just a Minute by Yuyi MoralesThis week a group of students read Yuyi Morales’ beautiful stories, Just a Minute and Just in Case. Just a Minute is a witty tale of Grandma Beetle who gets a surprise visit by Señor Calavera, a skeleton who has come to inform her that it is “time to go.” Grandma Beetle says she will go in “just a minute” after she sweeps one house, boils two pots of tea, makes three pounds of corn into tortillas… and on and on until she gets to ten where she informs her grandchildren that Continue reading