Holiday Gift Guides: Ithaca is Gorges
by Maya Rodgers
This week’s gift guide brings you all things Ithaca— perfect for the Cornellian or Ithacan in your life. This week features a wide range of gifts, from books on Ithaca’s local geology to a book that can be turned into a beehive!
Turn this Book into a Beehive | $19.95
Written by Lynn Brunelle, author of Pop Bottle Science, whose gift for making science fun earned her four Emmy Awards as a writer for Bill Nye the Science Guy, Turn This Book Into a Beehive! introduces kids to the amazing mason bee, a non-aggressive, non-stinging super-pollinator that does the work of over 100 honeybees. Mason bees usually live in hollow reeds or holes in wood, but here’s how to make a home just for them: Tear out the perforated paper—each illustrated as a different room in a house—roll the sheets into tubes, enclose the tubes using the book’s cover, and hang the structure outside. The bees will arrive, pack mud into the tubes, and begin pollinating all the plants in your backyard.
Twenty experiments and activities reveal even more about bees—how to smell like a bee, understand the role of flowers and pollen, learn how bees communicate with each other through “dance,” and more. It’s the real buzz on bees, delivered in the most ingenious and interactive way.
Earth Core Sample Tea Infuser | $34.95
Carry your favorite tea and your love of earth science with you throughout the day!
In addition to keeping your beverage insulated against temperature change, this double-walled glass infuser flask is sure to keep you digging deeper into the mysteries of the earth. Get lost in the layers of geologic history while you hunt for the fossilized remains of creatures who lived in each era.
Cecil the Coelophysis Hoodie | $40.00
Stay cozy this winter with our mascot, Cecil the Coelphysis!
A short guide to Ithaca's geology. This revised edition includes several new sections and new photographs.
Written by Warren D. Allmon, Robert M. Ross
Max the Mastodon | $29.99
Mastodons are some of the most famous ice age giants. Along with the woolly mammoth, these extinct elephants once roamed the forests and grasslands of North and Central America. In 2019, scientists determined that there were actually two species of mastodon in North America. Max is a Pacific mastodon (Mammut pacificus), the first new species of mastodon named in 50 years.