How is it you have so many ideas and resources?

In another life, I taught in private and public schools.  Guess what?  Only one school provided tremendous resources for science classes. The other schools were underfunded.  By underfunded I spent my own money, rigged experiments, or raised money.  (Ask me about selling lunches.)  I learned how to write grants.  In Virginia and West Virginia, there are free summer programs for science teachers.  Sometimes, the program pays teachers to attend.  Sometimes, the program includes free equipment.  At one private school, where I taught for a number of years, one of the biologists at the Smithsonian had his kids enrolled.  I took part in Biodiversity and Watershed studies.  Federally funded programs want teachers to use their curriculum and may provide training. I baby-sat smart kids as part of the DoD STEM Internship program.  There were monthly, teacher workshops to help woe teachers as part of the internship.  I did a ton of training.  I attended and presented at conferences.  (The conference is free if you present.)  My main motivation was to learn something new.  I tried Project Wet, Project Learning Tree, and Project Wild.  I sponsored training sessions at my school.  When we got new equipment, I arranged training.  In West Virginia, it was a small group of science educators who were interested in training.  It was easy to make a few phone calls and arrange a training.  These same people were great about training my high school kids.  I was open to helping colleagues with programs, such as a Pumpkin Drop.  As a result of my tour of underfunded schools and Co-op classes I have a few ideas.  I’ve also had to teach an inordinate number of science classes. It wasn’t unusual to teach four or five science classes.   I leaned to draw the line at three different science classes.  Private schools, in particular, think if you can teach science, you can teach any science.  I won’t teach Physics; but, I’ve taught Life Science, Earth Science, Physical Science, Chemistry, Chemistry II, Biology, Human Biology, Advanced Biology, AP Biology, AP Chemistry, AP Environmental Science, and Hands-on Physics.  I taught kiddos the Young Explorers Anatomy, helped Rob with Young Explorers Chem and Physics, too.  I taught two college, Chemistry courses as an adjunct.  See why I have  a few ideas?  I also sponsored science fair projects for years.  Do you know how hard it is to help kids locate a project?  You need ideas.  I did some consulting.  I had to develop some new ideas for Inquiry instruction.  The training had a script; teachers want more ideas.  Yesterday, my husband, Rob, was developing a lesson for geometry.  I had an idea: build a clinometer and measure the height of a tree.