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Ellis Abel Learns.

In my own words · Apache Junction, AZ

Why I love living things

Astronaut Mike Fincke reaches into the sealed Life Science Glovebox to run a biology experiment aboard the space station's Kibo module. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Biology" page — read by families in Apache Junction, AZ.
Astronaut Mike Fincke reaches into the sealed Life Science Glovebox to run a biology experiment aboard the space station's Kibo module. NASA · Public domain
  • Everything alive is built from tiny pieces.
  • The same pieces make a tree and make me.
  • It is all still going on inside me right now.

You can love living things in Apache Junction.

What it really is

Biology is the study of how living things are built and how they keep going.

Three things to try today

  1. Find something alive within ten steps of you.
  2. Name three things it needs to stay alive.
  3. Find out where it gets each one.
Astronaut Mike Fincke reaches into the sealed Life Science Glovebox to run a biology experiment aboard the space station's Kibo module. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Biology" page — read by families in Apache Junction, AZ.
Astronaut Mike Fincke reaches into the sealed Life Science Glovebox to run a biology experiment aboard the space station's Kibo module. NASA · Public domain

For the grown-up reading this

Apache Junction has a population of about 37,130. The question is not whether Apache Junction, AZ has children who love living things. It is whether anyone told them that counts as something.

Needs and sources. It turns a nature walk into systems thinking.

If the kid who loves this is a girl

Read what one popular teacher said to one little girl who took out the classroom trash without being asked — and what that girl did with the rest of her life.

Girls are great at math — Apache Junction, AZ →

Love something else too

A test model of the long magnetometer boom for the Europa Clipper spacecraft laid out for checkout at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Magnets" page — read by families in Apache Junction, AZ.Why I love magnetsTechnicians in clean-room gear install guidance, navigation and control electronics boxes into the Juno spacecraft. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Electronics" page — read by families in Apache Junction, AZ.Why I love electronicsA technician sets up wiring and monitoring equipment at Launch Pad 39A for a shuttle tanking test. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Electricity" page — read by families in Apache Junction, AZ.Why I love electricityTwo rocket engine tests fire at once on the test stands at Stennis Space Center, throwing huge white exhaust plumes into the air. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Energy" page — read by families in Apache Junction, AZ.Why I love energyThe two-bladed Mod-1 wind turbine standing on its lattice tower on a hilltop at Boone, North Carolina. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Wind Power" page — read by families in Apache Junction, AZ.Why I love windAn orange-and-white Saildrone autonomous research vessel under sail on the water near San Francisco Bay. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Oceans" page — read by families in Apache Junction, AZ.Why I love the oceanA USGS cartographer bends over a light table, scribing contour lines by hand onto a topographic map separation. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Maps" page — read by families in Apache Junction, AZ.Why I love mapsA worker checks a replacement distillation assembly for the space station's water recycling system in a processing facility. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Recycling" page — read by families in Apache Junction, AZ.Why I love recycling

Near Apache Junction

Why I love living things, everywhere in the US · All things to love · STEM jobs you could do · Summer camps in Apache Junction