Mammalogy Lessons

It's March, 2020, and I'm home with my children sheltering from the novel Coronavirus.

Things have changed rapidly over the past 5 days.

Last Wednesday we attended a multi-school, multi-grade district band concert where it seemed that at least 300 people were crowded into the high-school gymnasium to hear kids from grades 5-12 perform. We'd already been cleaning surfaces and washing hands frequently at home and at work, but the term "social distancing" didn't catch on for me until that concert, when I realized it was something we were not doing.

On Thursday things seemed exponentially worse than they'd been the day before. People are definitely starting to freak out. The grocery store is now out of toilet paper. By mid-afternoon my department gets the news that we are moving to work-from-home format. Most co-workers take their systems home that evening, but I have a hair appointment (I asked if it was cancelled and it was not), so I decide to come get my stuff the next day. I sanitized my hands at the door of my hair appointment. At home, a beloved relative stays outdoors, 6 feet away from my son and refers to him as "asymptomatic." As of this day I would absolutely not attend a concert with hundreds of people all in one room.

On Friday I got my stuff from work and set up a small home office area, where I worked peacefully for the rest of the day. The kids had school today. Things seemed quiet (unless you read Twitter). My state has 2 cases of the virus.

Saturday is panic shopping day for, apparently, everyone. I hit the stores and pick up some extra items, though I don't think I'm hoarding. There is still no toilet paper--I buy a box of facial tissues just in case. My state has 3 more cases of the virus.

Sunday is regular grocery shopping for the week. I have most of what I need, but I go back for things like tomatoes and hamburger fixings. Shoppers who are trying to do their regular, non-panicked grocery run are staring at the empty shelves in disbelief. There is no pasta, no flour, no rice, no beans, no frozen vegetables, and definitely no toilet paper. By 2pm I have decided that even if there is school tomorrow, I won't send my children. By 5pm, school in Vermont is officially cancelled. My kids gamely make a schedule for home study. 9-11 will be schoolwork that has been sent home or assigned online, 11 will be outdoor time, noon is lunch, 1pm I will home-school them in a topic of my choice, 3pm is finishing up any schoolwork OR reading if there's no work left over, and 4pm is the start of screentime. I will be working from home as best I can except for when I'm home-schooling. I see this as my chance at last to influence my children's education, and envision at least one afternoon of listening to 80s music and discussing the confluence of punk, synth, and hip-hop. As of this day I would absolutely not go to a previously scheduled hair appointment. My state now has 8 confirmed COVID-19 cases.

That brings me to today, Monday March 16. For my first home-school session I choose Mammalogy, using my beloved 2-volume National Geographic set from when I was a kid. First I explain the 7-part classification system of Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species, and then we choose 3 orders of mammals to learn about further: Tubulidentates, Artiodactyls, and Marsupials.

Tubulidentates have only 1 living species (according to my book, which was published in 1981 and which I absolutely take with a grain of salt... because though science is true, it also changes). That species is the aardvark, which lives in Africa, eats termites, and is nocturnal.

Artiodactyl means "even toes" and covers herbivores such as llamas, camels, antelope, moose, elk, and deer. We look at different sizes of African antelope, from the tiny dik-dik to the giant eland. We review the differences between dromedary and bactrian camels, and we also cover Artiodactyls of the Andes: llamas, alpacas, vicunas, and guanacos. I learned that the first two are domesticated, and the latter two are wild--but sometimes the wild ones will come graze near groups of domesticated llamas or alpacas.

For marsupials I explained that mammals can be placental or marsupial, the latter type having very tiny undeveloped babies that crawl to a pouch where they nurse and grow after birth. We looked at the kangaroo, wallaby, quokka, Virginia opossum, bandicoot, Tasmanian devil, and wombat. In most cases the young will stay in their mothers pouch for weeks or months, then start coming out of the pouch occasionally. With possums, the young later hang on their mother's back, and when they are FULL SIZE they finally take off on their own.

Finally, each child chooses a different animal to research in the books and then teach me about, and they give me a quick quiz on each one. One chose the Zorilla, which is a skunk-like carnivore from Africa, and the other chose the Badger. These choices warm my heart, because I love skunks and I am a Hufflepuff (for non Harry Potter readers, this is a school house represented by the badger).

As of this day I would absolutely not go grocery shopping with a mob of other people. There are now 12 confirmed cases in my state.