Rubber Ducks

This past week we went to NJ to visit family. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and Bubba really enjoyed playing with his cousins. I'm always amazed at how some young adults are so good with toddlers. Luckily, Bubba's cousins fall into that boat - they were great with him. 

Speaking of boats and falling...While we were in beautiful Mt Tabor, NJ (if we had the money for a second home, this place would be on the list) I happened to be flipping through my nephew's Earth Science textbook. Yes, I know that makes me a supergeek (maybe I should get a cool shirt made to look like Superman but with an S and a G for SuperGeek!?). There was this neat write up about 29,000 rubber ducks (and green frogs and some other stuff) that fell off a container ship in 1992 and how the ducks' voyages have helped scientists learn more about ocean currents. What a cool way to learn about oceans, continents and the earth as a whole.

Of course one of the first things I did when I got the chance was to Google it. Turns out there's a website dedicated to those little ducks (actually rubber ducks in general but close enough). Eric Carle (from The Hungry Caterpillar fame) even wrote a book about it. How cool is that? I thought it was this obscure write up in a text book and there is so much more to it. There is a good article about it from 2007 which you can read here.

http://www.lindasog.com/archives/2007/07/voyage_of_the_rubber_duckie.html

I could have spent hours flipping through my nephew's textbooks (the Earth Science one as well as a Literature textbook). When I was his age, I probably felt a bit as he does about homework. Who likes to read when it's an assignment? But reading just for the pure enjoyment of it? Just because it interests you and you are learning something new...that's the best!