Hello again, Citizen Scientists! Our first activity was growing bacteria and yeast to grow starter so we can eventually use it to make bread. I’m calling my starter Sam after Sam McGee from Robert Service’s poem, The Cremation of Sam McGee.

I worked for a time in the Yukon for United Keno Mines in Elsa. I was there long enough to see the Yukon River freeze and thaw. That was the criterion to be called a sourdough. They were called sourdoughs because that’s what they smelled like.

Sourdough was a perfect food for the gold rush. Once you got it going, you didn’t have to buy yeast. You just used some of your sourdough. But it had to be kept warm. In the Yukon that can be difficult. I remember a stretch of -40 C weather. We weren’t allowed to work outside because you could freeze your lungs the air was so cold. It warmed up to -20 C and we all took off a layer of clothing.

The miners in the gold rush did the sensible thing. They wrapped their sourdough in cloth and kept it next to their skin, keeping their starter warm. Of course, many sourdoughs named their “pets,” after all, they had to continuously feed them and look after them. But if you keep a bunch of sourdough in your shirt, you are going to smell, shall we say, a bit funky. Hence the name sourdough.

This week we are going for a more modern tale, The Martian, starring Matt Dillon. In it, Matt Dillon’s character gets left on Mars and must wait months to be rescued. One of the issues is food and he famously grows potatoes using Martian soil and his feces. So, this week we are going to grow potatoes, without using our feces, please. The directions are below. Along with some interesting information about potatoes. You know, I’m from P.E.I. and I know a Russet Burbank from a Yukon Gold.

Week 2 Growing Potatoes Like a Martian

Hello, Citizen Scientists! We are back in action. But the action is going to be more self-directed. I am trying to have activities that you are interested in, following the ideas you gave me at the beginning of the course. One of those was growing things. Our Space Tomato Seeds arrived but we can’t use them. So we are going to grow our own food. The first food is going to sourdough, the new rage food among the COVID-19 set. I’ve attached the pdf of how to get going. My first one died, so I just started again. And this one is working. I’m into Day 3 of the 7 days of feeding before you use part to make sourdough bread. This time next week….

Citizens Learning Science at Home Activity 1