Skip to content
Ellis Abel Learns.

In my own words · Pasadena, TX

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 Pasadena, TX.
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 Pasadena.

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 Pasadena, TX.
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

This page is written to the child, not about them. If a kid in Pasadena, TX loves living things, here is the grown-up version of what they already feel. Pasadena is one of the cities the Houston–Pasadena–The Woodlands, TX metro area is officially named after.

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 — Pasadena, TX →

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 Pasadena, TX.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 Pasadena, TX.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 Pasadena, TX.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 Pasadena, TX.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 Pasadena, TX.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 Pasadena, TX.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 Pasadena, TX.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 Pasadena, TX.Why I love recycling

Near Pasadena

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