My Frugal Life: Science Lab

As a school teacher and the wife of a soldier with whom I have raised 7 children, cutting corners and making things last and S T R E T C H is nothing new. I have resized, reshaped, and revived hand-me-downs to supplement clothing budgets. I have made macaroni and cheese and cornbread and beans become culinary delights. This talent I acquired through my mother's numerous recounts of how, as sharecroppers, her parents fed and clothed 11 children in the early 20th century setting of rural southwest Louisiana. She raised my brothers and me in the same manner.

Even now, with all of my children grown, I still function with frugalness. We use recycled items to care for our garden. I share that information with my students in my Earth science classroom. I show students how to use a clean plastic 2 liter plastic bottle for multiple purposes. We cut off the neck and create a funnel. We use the bottom as a planter, making drainage holes in the bottom. The ideas are only limited by our creativity. We use egg shells, carefully cracked to use the contents as eggs are intended, yet keep it intact to fill with soil, a couple of seeds, and begin plants indoors prior to planting season.

We use the egg carton to hold them under a grow light until the "eggs" can be transplanted in their entirety into a more permanent location. Students share their ideas on how to reuse items as well. My motto is "Necessity may have been the mother of invention, but it is also the Daddy of Design." With school budgets becoming tighter, maintaining a science lab takes a bit of design and determination.

By Phobe from Abbeville, LA

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