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Ellis Abel Learns.

In my own words · Middlesex County, MA

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 Middlesex County, MA.
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 Middlesex County.

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 Middlesex County, MA.
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

Middlesex County is one of 14 counties in Massachusetts. Somewhere in that number is a kid who lights up about living things and has never met another one.

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 — Middlesex County, MA →

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 Middlesex County, MA.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 Middlesex County, MA.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 Middlesex County, MA.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 Middlesex County, MA.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 Middlesex County, MA.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 Middlesex County, MA.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 Middlesex County, MA.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 Middlesex County, MA.Why I love recycling

Near Middlesex County

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