Abby Quillen

Freelance Content Marketing Writer and Editor

Abby Quillen

A Snapshot of Education In America

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Photo: Sidewalk Flying

Number of hours the average kid spends in school each year:

1,067

Number of hours the average 8 to 18 year old spends playing video games, going online, and watching TV each year (Figure based on average of 7 hours and 11 minutes a day.):

2,634

2007 Department of Education budget:

66.4 billion

2007 Department of Defense budget:

539.9 billion

Average starting teacher salary in the U.S. (2005):

$32,367

Average starting teacher salary in Luxembourg (In U.S. dollars) (2005) :

$70,908

State with highest 8th grade reading scores:

Massachusetts

State with lowest 8th grade reading scores:

Mississippi

State with the highest high school graduation rank (2005):

Nebraska, 87.8%

State with the lowest high school graduation rank (2005):

Nevada, 55.8%

Percentage of kids who attend private schools (2005):

11.2 %

Percent of kids who are homeschooled (2003):

2.2%

Rank of U.S. in the world by literacy rate:

19

Percentage of male public school teachers in 1961:

31.3%

Percentage of male public school teachers in 2001:

21%

*Click on hyperlinks to see sources for statistics. All other statistics are from the 2009 World Almanac.

This is part of a New Urban Habitat series: Snapshots of America. You can read part one, A Snapshot of Car-Usage in America, here.

Days of Rest

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Last week my son and I spent a couple of nice, leisurely days at the Oregon Coast with my mom and sister, who were visiting from out of town. I’m always amazing by how recharging even a short time away from work, emails, phone calls, and social networking can be.

In the last few months, I’ve started powering down every Sunday – leaving the computer, email, and phone off and hanging out with my family. Sometimes we go on a hike, go swimming, or walk to the park. Sometimes we hang out at home and linger over breakfast, read the newspaper, and work in the backyard. I usually take a nap with my son in the afternoon or read a novel.

At first taking a day off just felt strange. Between taking care of my son and the house and working on this blog and my writing business, I’m used to toiling nearly every waking moment. Sundays just felt entirely non-productive, even wasteful. But as the weeks pass, I find myself looking forward to my family’s slow, quiet, non-electronic Sundays.

Moreover, I’m realizing that a day of rest is actually productive. It gives me time to think and reflect, which are necessary elements to the writing life. And I don’t find myself wasting time, procrastinating, or avoiding work as much on the other days of the week, because I know I’ll get a chance to rest and recharge on Sunday.

Many have long understood the importance of a weekly day of rest. Followers of Judaism observe Shabbat from sundown on Friday until Saturday night. They are freed from the regular daily labor, can spend time with family, and can contemplate the spiritual aspects of life. Traditionally Jewish people also observed a Shemitah Year every seventh year, when they left the fields fallow to give the land and society time to rest. All debts were also canceled during that year, so they could begin anew again.

Many Christians observe a day of rest on Sunday. Some Muslims take a day or half day of rest on Friday. And there’s a new movement growing called Secular Sabbath. Marc Bittman wrote about it in the New York Times a couple of years ago, when he came to terms with his addiction to being plugged in. He discovered what I and probably many others have in our always-on society – forcing yourself to unplug can be surprisingly difficult:

I woke up nervous, eager for my laptop. That forbidden, I reached for the phone. No, not that either. Send a text message? No. I quickly realized that I was feeling the same way I do when the electricity goes out and, finding one appliance nonfunctional, I go immediately to the next. I was jumpy, twitchy, uneven.

Like me, Bittman eventually adjusted and came to look forward to his days off:

Once I moved beyond the fear of being unavailable and what it might cost me, I experienced what, if I wasn’t such a skeptic, I would call a lightness of being. I felt connected to myself rather than my computer. I had time to think, and distance from normal demands. I got to stop.

Do you take a day of rest each week? How do you spend it?

Bamboo Bicycles

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(Originally published March 1, 2010, reprinted in celebration of National Bike Month.)

A couple of years ago, my husband and I were going to plant running bamboo along our back fence. Then we casually mentioned the idea to our next-door neighbor. She looked, well, terrified.

Bamboo is an amazing plant. It’s used to make musical instruments, toys, tools, weapons, flooring, paper, food, cooking oil, vinegar, and alcohol. But it’s also a bit noxious, at least in these parts.

When we were thinking of growing it, we visited a peaceful bamboo garden on the outskirts of town. The gardener showed us around and explained the difference between the many varieties of bamboo that rustled overhead in the slight breeze.

Then the conversation turned to warfare.

“You’ll need to dig a two-foot-deep trench all the way around your bamboo and bury this in it.” He held up a roll of thick, black plastic. “This needs to stick up at least three inches above the soil. The bamboo’s rhizomes will try to jump it. So leave a foot or so of bare ground all the way around the trench. That way you can see them coming over. When they do, mow them down immediately.”

It sounded more like prison-tower watch duty than gardening.

But there’s an upside to bamboo’s invasive nature. It is not only a useful plant; it’s an incredibly renewable resource.

And now you can get a bike made out of it.

Although riding a bike is considerably more environmentally-sound than driving a car, most bike frames are constructed out of materials that are decidedly not renewable. Think: steel, carbon fiber, aluminum, molybdenum, and titanium. Extracting these elements is labor-intensive, environmentally destructive, and can threaten public health.

For instance, I grew up 60 miles down-river of Leadville, Colorado, where the mining industry allowed heavy metals such as lead, arsenic, cadmium, and zinc to leach into the soil and water. The Environmental Protection Agency declared Leadville and the 20 square-miles around the town a Superfund site.

So imagine if we could make strong, light-weight, functional bicycles without mining, not to mention out of plants that grow like weeds. Well, we’re getting closer to that reality, although most bamboo bicycles contain some metal components.

You can purchase your own custom-made bamboo bicycle from Calfree Design. They claim that their bikes are tough, and they offer a ten-year warranty on them. They’re expensive though. All of the frames that are “on special” on Calfree’s website cost well over $1,000. But “if there were an award for ‘Bicycle with lowest carbon footprint’ (least amount of carbon dioxide emissions in the production of the frame), this frame would win, hands down,” Calfree’s site boasts.

You can also learn how to build a bamboo bicycle yourself.

Bamboo Bike Studio in Brooklyn offers workshops where you can learn to build one in a weekend. They’re also not cheap. The full bike workshop costs $932 and the frame-only workshop costs $632.

But some of the proceeds go to a great cause. The Bamboo Bike Studio is working with partners, including the Bamboo Bike Project, to establish bamboo bicycle factories in “Millennium Cities, starting with Kumasi, Ghana, Kisumu, Kenya, and Quito, Ecuador.” They hope the factories will, “provide a lower-cost, more durable, locally manufactured form of transport specifically designed for local terrain.” Unfortunately you’ll have to wait awhile to attend one of their workshops. They’re full through September.

But if you’re seriously into do-it-yourself, you could check out this how-to on Instructables. (However, as the disclaimer says, “Death or serious injury can result from a bicycle frame failure. … Be smart.)

Hopefully as more companies start to manufacture bamboo bicycles, the prices will come down, making bamboo bicycles a more accessible option for more people.

Would you ride a bamboo bicycle?

A Snapshot of Car-Usage in America

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(Originally published September 14, 2009, reprinted in celebration of National Bike Month)

The 5 U.S. cities (1,000+ population) with the least car ownership* (2000 census):

  1. Hooper Bay, Alaska (Pop. 1022) – 95.65% of households car-free.
  2. New Square Village, NY (Pop. 4707) – 73.77% of households car-free.
  3. Kaser Village, NY (Pop. 3299) – 68.57% of households car-free.
  4. Kiryas Joel Village, NY – (Pop. 13,214) – 57.78% of households car-free.
  5. Kotzebue, Alaska – (Pop. 3082) – 51.29% of households car-free.

Number of U.S. cities (1000+ Population) in which 100% of households own a car (2000 census):

155

Average cost per year of owning and operating a vehicle (2008):

$8,095

Average percentage of household income Americans spend on transportation costs each year (2007):

17.65%

Number of minutes per day the average American reports spending behind the wheel (2007):

87

Amount of time the average 16 year-old American will spend driving a car in his or her lifetime (Figure based on 87 minutes per day average driving-time and a 77.8 year life-expectancy):

3.73 years

Percentage of workers who commute to work in a car alone every day:

85%

Average cost of a new car:

$28,400

Number of motor vehicles scrapped in the U.S. every year (2007):

12,737,000

Federal Highway Administration budget for 2010:

50 billion

Federal Transit Administration budget for 2010:

10 billion

Federal Railway Administration budget for 2010:

1.5 billion

*Click on hyperlinks to see sources for statistics.

May is National Bike Month!

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I’m taking a blogging vacation and a mini digital detox this week to hang out with family visiting from out of town. But in honor of National Bike Month, I’ll be celebrating bikes all week by rerunning some of my previous posts about bicycles and car-free living. I hope you enjoy them, and I’ll see you next week!

Credit: Tammy Strobel

Bicycle Love (originally published May 5, 2009)

May is National Bike Month! Oh bikes, how I love thee. Let me count the reasons…..

10.  Bikes are quiet.

You’ll never get woken up at midnight, because your teenage neighbor’s revving his bike engine. And imagine if they replaced that freeway next to your house with a seven-lane bike path.

9.  You can cart groceries home on a bike.

Baskets are classy. Panniers are sophisticated. Cargo bikes are cool. And you can make your own hauling machine with a simple grocery cart.

8.  Bikes run on renewable resources – food, water, and human calories.

With the obesity rate hovering around 35%, quite a few of us have some calories to spare.

7.  Cycling tones your muscles, heart, and lungs.

The American Heart Association says all healthy adults ages 18 to 65 should get at least 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise five days a week. With a bike, you can probably get that on your commute to work.

6.  Bikes enable you to smile and wave at your neighbors.

Social isolation is growing in the U.S. Let’s get out of our cars and take a spin around our neighborhoods.

5.  Bikes are thrifty.

Check out Bike at Work’s calculator to see how much cash you can save by dumping your car.

4.  Bikes emit zero pollution.

Automobiles belch out 333 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, not to mention nitrogen oxide, sulpher oxide, toluene, benzene, formaldehyde, and more. All bikes emit is a little human sweat.

3.  Once you’ve learned how to ride a bike, you never forget.

What can I say … it’s like riding a bike.

2. Bikes are economical.

What’s the world’s most efficient mode of transportation? You guessed it – the bike. For energy burned per miles travelled, cycling is three to five times more efficient than walking. And it trounces running, driving a moped, taking a train, car-pooling, horseback riding, and swimming. (Sadly the least efficient mode of transport seems to be America’s favorite – driving a car with no passengers.)

And finally, the ultimate reason I love the bicycle…..

1. Bikes took down the bustle and the corset.

That’s right, ladies. The bicycle craze in the 1890s changed womens’ fashion forever. Women abandoned their confining corsets and adopted what was known as common-sense dressing.

In 1896, Susan B. Anthony said, “I think [the bicycle] has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives a woman a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. The moment she takes her seat she knows she can’t get into harm unless she gets off her bicycle, and away she goes, the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.”

bicycling not buttons

Let’s celebrate our two-wheeled friends all month by taking them everywhere. Note that Bike-to-Work Week is May 17-21, and Bike–to-Work Day is Friday, May 21. Employers can find out how to participate here.

What are your top reasons for loving bikes?


More Flavor, More Nutrition, Less Food Waste

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For years, making vegetable stock sounded like a good idea, but it wasn’t something I would actually do. It seemed difficult, like something I would need to buy a new pot for. But now I make it on a weekly basis, and I can attest, it is incredibly easy. And it’s a great way to:

  • Waste less food
  • Increase flavor in soups, stews, and dishes
  • Add more vitamins and minerals to your diet.

How to make vegetable stock:

Designate a container in your refrigerator or freezer for vegetable scraps. This is where you’ll put all of your onion and garlic skins, carrot tops, celery greens, outside cabbage leaves, etc.

You can use any kind of large pot for making stock. I love my cast iron dutch oven.

To make the stock:

  • Chop an onion and saute it in olive oil until soft.

Add

  • the onion skin
  • a carrot (chopped)
  • 2 celery sticks (chopped)
  • any other vegetable you have on hand, i.e. leeks, mushrooms, tomatoes, etc.
  • a tablespoon of culinary herbs. I use marjoram and thyme.
  • a teaspoon of salt.
  • the contents of your vegetable scrap container.
  • a couple of garlic cloves (optional)
  • a piece of kombu (Kombu is a savory, mineral-rich seaweed. You can learn more about it here.) (optional)

Cover the vegetables with water. (I usually make about 8 cups at a time.) Simmer for at least half an hour. Taste the broth. If it’s not flavorful enough, simmer it longer. When it’s done, strain it, let it cool, and pour it into jars. (If you’re going to freeze it, leave some space at the top of the jars.)

Stock is not just for soup

You can use stock to puree baby foods or cook rice. Or you can just pour it in a mug and sip it. It’s the perfect nourishing drink for a cold day or to build strength when you’re ill.