Fandom Library, Wednesday, October 30th

[afraid_of_marshmallows]

"All right, y'all, basic rules," Arden said sternly to the gremlins gathered around the circulation desk. "First rule is no hurting anything. That means no knocking things over, breaking anything, tearing anything apart, or doing any of the same things to people, got that?" She looked at them very sternly. "Second, no running around, no fighting or roughhousing, no making a lot of noise or a lot of fuss. This is still a library and if this gets too out of pocket in here, I'm gonna call an end to things early. Third, trying to cheat me gets you banned from participating at all. The last rule is that if you're gonna eat your treats here in the library, you can only eat them at that table over there." She pointed. "I find crumbs or smears of chocolate or anything else around the library, this'll never happen again and it'll be all y'all's fault. Got that?"

The gremlins all nodded solemnly and Arden was just gonna hope for the best. "So I've hidden a bunch of puzzle pieces around the library," she said. "Anyone who shows me a puzzle piece gets a bag of candy." She held up a treat-sized bag of M&Ms. "If you manage to get all the pieces and put the puzzle together before the end of my shift, you can have whatever candy I have left."

The gremlins cheered. But quietly.

"Okay, so ready, set....go."

The goblins scattered and Arden settled back with a book and the promise of at least a little bit of quiet time.

Exploring American History, Wednesday, October 30, 2024

[heroic_jawline]

Welcome to San Antonio, class, much to your teachers' relief because until they'd started looking, the Alamo was "Texas, somewhere" and they were both decidedly more comfortable in a large city than out in the wilderness.

"Remember the Alamo," Steve said. "A phrase that's caught in our country's collective consciousness, but we don't necessarily remember why we should remember."

"And it serves as a pretty concise explanation for why Texas is the way it is," Tony added. "The territory that Texas occupies was under Spanish control before Mexico gained their independence in 1821. But American settlers moved into the area rapidly until they decided to gain independence from both America and Mexico to form the Republic of Texas. Which lasted all of about a decade. But Mexico didn't really take to having their land being taken from them again."

"We're going to go on a tour with experts who will explain in more detail, but the short version of this was that the 200 Texans inside this mission faced off against between 1800 and 6,000 Mexican troops--the numbers are very vague--for 13 days before the Mexican army overran them and killed most of them, including famous historical figures Davy Crockett and James Bowie," Steve said.

"Which then became a rally cry for the other Texans around the area, causing more to join their cause rather than disenfranchising them as the Mexican army had hoped," Tony added. "But let's just get into exploring the site. And there will, of course, be lunch provided, don't worry."

Morality of Action, Wednesday Afternoon

[despisestheforce]

Not for the first time, class would find themselves entering the Danger Shop, only to find... no teacher, and a less than ambiguous setup.

Specifically, they would find themselves on a long lawn, with a large pile of water balloons centered in the table. Up in the sky sat a scoreboard, with the names of every student.

Well.

That seemed simple enough.

Introduction to Fossils - Wednesday Period 1

[itsananomaly]

No sooner had Cutter and Connor gotten back from the trip, then Phillip had called and had wanted Connor back in the lab so it was just Cutter standing in front of the class that day, “welcome back,” he began, “this week we’re going to be talking about Inverterbrete Fossils, which are animals without backbones and they boast a fossil record covering a span of 600 million years and are a prime example of how their abundance, diversity, and wide range of adaptations make them an ideal resource for scientists to use in understanding how our planet has changed over time. Palaeontologists study fossils earn about these extinct animals and how they are related to modern animals and through this can learn  about the history of biodiversity, evolution, extinction events, climate changes, and paleobiogeography,” he explained.

Common kinds of invertebrate fossils include molluscs (snails), arthropods (trilobites), echinoderms and cnidarians (corals), These are all animals that, throughout most of Earth’s geological history, lived in a multitude of habitats including marine, freshwater, and terrestrial. Fossils are any trace of a previously living organism, and although invertebrates do not have “true” bones, they leave behind evidence of their past in the form of shells, molds and casts, track ways, fecal pellets, tubes, and exoskeletons.”

“For the rest of today’s class I would like you to work on the moddable worksheets that have been left out for you and as always if there’s any questions, I will be happy to answer them,”