By Doug Griesenauer —   As parents, you are the first teacher in your child’s life and are best suited to help their learning throughout the year. While the school year has ended, there’s no ‘break’ in learning. Learning is year-round. When the final school bell rings, it’s important to become aware of something [...]

I mocked Mother Nature by bringing a piece of summer into my kitchen. I love s’mores. I love setting a marshmallow to flames, then squishing it between to graham crackers and chocolate. I love the messiness and the stickiness, and the feeling of happiness that comes with eating a snack that makes you feel like [...]

UPDATE: Construction is now planned to start this summer on two new city parking ramps in the downtown. Work on a 500-space ramp, across First Avenue East from the city’s Convention Complex and hotel, is expected to start first, with work on a second, 550-plus-space ramp, on Second Street SE between Sixth and Seventh avenues [...]

  Summer has sauntered into the sunset. I know there are a couple of weeks of August left. The State Fair is still on. Labor Day has yet to arrive. But when your kids, in new shoes, backpacks packed, are bouncing out the door and down the street to school, you know summer’s licked. The [...]

Summer can be hard on the electric grid. Iowa’s big utilities say they are prepared this year for the annual demand peaks that always arrive in hot weather. But as history shows, much depends on the weather. In early May 2001, a heat wave conspired with power plant outages that curbed more than 800 megawatts [...]

Although it’s frequently referred to as “summer vacation,” few public school teachers walk away from school in June looking forward to three work-free months. Many use the time off to supplement their incomes by working part-time jobs in June, July and August. Ashley Marousek is a fourth-grade teacher at Westfield Elementary in the Linn-Mar School [...]

LAKE DELHI — Diane Bauers thinks 2011 is the most unusual summer at Lake Delhi. Not only is the water gone that usually runs behind her home, but so is the noise. “It’s strange not having any water, but also strange there isn’t any activity,” said the longtime Lake Delhi resident and co-owner of B&B [...]

Japanese beetles that have plagued some parts of Iowa are becoming more noticeable this summer in the Iowa City area, gardeners there are saying. It doesn’t work for all plants and won’t take care of all of the voracious pests, but my favorite control method is knocking the beetles into a container of soapy water. [...]