3 HOT AND BOTHERED

Hot and Bothered The next day, no one rushed to sit on Colorado. Dusit sat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean without pretending he was drowning. Bean and Ivy flopped onto Wisconsin together. Ms. Aruba-Tate was explaining capital letters with her big purple pen. The first letter at

the beginning of a sentence was always capital. Okay, thought the second grade. The first letter of a person's name or a place was always capital, too. Fine, thought the second grade. Whatever. Ms. Aruba-Tate put the cap on her big purple pen and looked at the children on the rug. "Well!" she said, "I know something that will pep you up. Emerson School is going to have a science fair!" "No!" groaned Bean. "I hate science," said Emma. Drew and Eric nodded. Ms. Aruba-Tate raised her eyebrows. "I'm confused, boys and girls," she said. "I thought you liked science."

"No. We hate it," Zuzu said. "It's awful." "But," said Ms. Aruba-Tate, "what about fish prints? You liked making fish prints, didn't you?" "Those were okay," said Emma. "And our insect studies," Ms. Aruba-Tate asked. "You liked those, didn't you?" "That cicada was cool," said Marga-Lee. "Remember the hissing cockroach?" said

Drew. "That was cool, too." "What about marine reptiles?" said Ms. Aruba-Tate. "Elasmosaur and plesiosaur?" "And mosasaur!" yelled Eric. Eric loved mosasaur. "Then why do you say you hate science?" asked Ms. Aruba-Tate. "Global warming!" chanted the second graders. "Global warming?" asked Ms. Aruba-Tate. "Didn't you listen, Ms. Aruba-Tate?" Bean

said. "The whole world is going to turn into a desert." "The polar bears are going to die out," said Ivy. "And the frogs," said Emma. "And newts," said Eric. "Squishy things are in trouble." "All the animals are in trouble," said Drew. "And it's all our fault!" said Bean. That was the worst part.

Ms. Aruba-Tate was quiet for a moment. She looked like she was thinking hard. Then she said, "Boys and girls, I'm hearing that you are very worried about global warming. I'm feeling sorry that you're worried, but I'm also feeling glad that you care so much about the earth. People who care as much as you do are the people who will find solutions to the problem." The second graders looked at each other. Solutions? There were solutions? "Right now, scientists all over the world are trying to find ways to stop global warming. Science is the solution, not the problem. That's why I'm sad when I hear you say you hate science." "They should work harder," said Drew. Ms. Aruba-Tate looked at him. "Do you remember, Drew, when we talked about cave dwellers? Some of you thought cave dwellers were stupid, because they didn't know how to build houses, and we talked about how people have to experiment in order to make their lives