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James's notes on Topic 38 — triage (2 October 2026)

Source: reviews/james/NOTES_G3T38_2026-10-02.md. Five notes (L01, L02, L03, L04, the summary script). None of this topic's videos exists, so every change is a text edit; nothing is committed. The vault write-back for the general rules (a summary recaps each lesson's key point, not its examples; introduce a term before using it) is the coordinator's.

In plain words

L01 now says the root is what held the dandelion in the ground, the carrot is the root itself and held the whole carrot plant, and roots also have another job (no "You've already seen"). L02 names the stem before it uses it: "This long green part of the sunflower is called the stem, and that's what holds the sunflower upright." L03 no longer puts leaves on a celery stick: the red lines run up the stick, the stem carries water up the plant, and only then does the lesson move to a whole plant with roots and leaves. L04 shows an oak tree's leaves before the pine needles and the lettuce, and says the leaf uses sunlight, water and a gas from the air (never carbon dioxide). The summary is James's shape: one opener, the roots' two jobs, the stem's two jobs, the leaves' job with the gas, one chain sentence, "Okay, now your turn." — 90 spoken words, no examples recapped.

The table

his note (verbatim)	action	where
L01: "'Something held the dandelion in the ground: its root, gripping the soil.' - just say the root is what held it in the ground,gripping the soil."	applied, his words: script beat 3 "The root is what held it in the ground, gripping the soil."; article "The root is what held the dandelion in the ground, gripping the soil." (the "That grip held…" line folded in)	`content/G3T38_lessons.py` L01 script, article
L01: "'The carrot is a root.' --> the carrot is the root itself. it held the whole carrot plant in the ground."	applied, his words: beat 5 "The carrot is the root itself. It held the whole carrot plant in the ground."; chip A CARROT IS A ROOT → THE CARROT IS THE ROOT; article subtitle "The carrot is the root", its two lines, and the forest line	L01 script, article, forest
L01: "'You've already seen the roots' other job. They take in water from the soil' - i think just say: roots also have another job - they take in water from the soil."	applied: beat 8 "Roots also have another job. They take in water from the soil."; article "Roots also have another job: they take in water from the soil." (the duplicate "The roots take in water from the soil." line after the figure removed; "They do not eat the soil." kept)	L01 script, article
L02: "what is a stem? you need to intrdocue this term --> this long green part of the sunflower is called the stem. and thats what holds the sunflower upright"	applied, his words: beat 1 "Here's Anton beside his sunflower. It stands taller than he does, and it has no bones."; beat 2 "So what holds it up? This long green part of the sunflower is called the stem, and that's what holds the sunflower upright." (the question answered in the next sentence); article "This long green part of the sunflower is called the stem." / "The stem is what holds the sunflower upright." / "It holds up every leaf, and the flower head at the top."; the opening caption no longer says "stem" before it is named; forest line 1	L02 script, article, forest
L03: "'The stem carried it up to the leaves.' - a celerey stick has no leaves though? so maybe start be just saying, the stem carries water up the plant. --> then you switch to other plants which have leaves"	applied: headache "The next morning, there are red lines all the way up the stick." / "How did red water get up there?"; "The red water went up inside the stem. The stem carries water up the plant."; then "Now let's look at a whole plant, with roots at the bottom and leaves at the top. The roots take in water from the soil." / "The stem carries that water up to the leaves."; the tall tree and the rule unchanged; the closing return says "up the stick". Figures: `celery_red_leaves_photo` (key kept so the pipeline's slot stays wired) is now a plain stick with no leaves, red lines up it — a retake: the 1 Oct render shows leaves with red veins; `marisa_celery_cartoon` brief says a plain stick with no leaves (the 1 Oct render is usable as it is: the leaves are not the point of the set-up picture, but a retake would match the brief)	L03 headache, forest, article, script; `figures.py`
L04: "nice lesson - maybe include one more obvious examples of leaves, like on an oak tree, before going to the less obvious examples like the pine needles and the lettuce"	applied: new subtitle "An oak tree's leaves" with a new photo `oak_leaves_photo` (brief written; placeholder until rendered) before "Needles are leaves"; script beat "Now let's look at an oak tree. Its wide green leaves make its food." before the pine; forest line added	L04 article, script, forest; `figures.py`
summary: "(you should mention the gas in the lesson too)"	applied in L04: article "The leaves also take in a gas from the air." / "The leaves use the light, the water and that gas to make the plant's food."; script beat 4 "They use sunlight, water, and a gas from the air."; the rule, the lexicon, the term entry, the rule card, the job table and every fb / why that states the rule now read "using sunlight, water and a gas from the air" (Topic 32's 2 Oct wording; never carbon dioxide). Knock-on items: L04-q7 (typed) asked for "one other thing" besides water — the gas is now a true second answer, so it asks where the light comes from (accept list unchanged: sunlight / the Sun / sun…); L04-q8's key option reads "sunlight, water and a gas from the air"	L04; `G3T38.py` lexicon, terms, items; `figures.py` JOB_ROWS, `rule_leaves_food`, briefs
summary: "'The dandelion came up with soil clinging to its root. The carrot is a root. A tree's roots hold it through a storm.' delete - given that its a summary we can deal with the key takeaways more concisely, without recapping all of the examples. so the summary goes roughly - here's what we found out... - roots hold the plant in the ground, and take in water - the stem holds the plant upright, and it carries water from the roots to the leaves - the leaf is where the plant makes food, using sunlight and water, and some gas from the air - okay, now your turn!"	applied: the summary rewritten to his shape (below), 178 → 90 spoken words; every example line (dandelion, carrot, tree, sunflower, trunk, celery, pale leaf, needles, lettuce) cut; the lexicon's two stem sentences merged into one ("A plant's stem holds it up, and it carries water from the roots to the leaves.") so the summary speaks each lexicon sentence as written; L02 and L03 keep their own rule sentences. No `closing_bullets` / `summary_bullets` field exists in this topic, so nothing else to match	`G3T38.py` summary_script, lexicon

The new summary script, in full

Here's everything we found out about plant parts and their jobs. [the job table, every row empty; the register plant beside it]
First, a plant's roots hold it in the ground, and they take in water from the soil. [the roots row fills]
Next, a plant's stem holds it up, and it carries water from the roots to the leaves. [the stem row fills]
And last, a plant's leaves are where it makes its food, using sunlight, water and a gas from the air. [the leaves row fills]
So the roots take in water, the stem carries it up, and the leaves use it to make the plant's food. [the plant with every arrow; the full table]
Okay, now your turn. → the three attached questions, unchanged

Judgements

"Upright" / "up". James's sentence says "upright"; the rule sentence stays "A plant's stem holds it up." (the lexicon's and every item's word). "Upright" appears three times (L02 beat 2, the article line, the forest line); S36 lists it as an unusual word — his word, kept.
"Stem" is not added to coined_at. It is an everyday word Topic 32 used, and L01's options already offer "the stem"; registering it as coined at L02 would fail S12 on L01. The article bolds it once at the naming line, as James asked for an introduction, not a new term.
Beat 5 of the summary (the roots → stem → leaves chain) is kept: it is L04's closing key point, not an example. If James wants the four-line shape exactly, delete it; nothing depends on it.
The leaves' rule now names the gas everywhere. Topic 32 kept its rule sentence and added the gas as an extra line; here James's summary line carries the gas, and the summary must speak the lexicon sentence, so the lexicon, the L04 rule, the rule card, the table and every fb / why follow. The practice typed term "The part of a plant where it makes its food, using sunlight, water and a gas from the air, is called its ___." reads longer but stays closed.
L04-q7 was re-asked rather than deleted (the quiz keeps its typed produce item at the same position; "a gas"/"air" would otherwise have been a defensible answer to "one other thing").
L03's celery photo: the lesson text now matches the picture that exists (red lines up the stick are visible in it) while the retake is pending, so the page is not wrong in the meantime.
Scripts: L01 149, L02 120, L03 136, L04 147 (≤150); intro 103 (unchanged); summary 90 (≤175). Checker python3 build_tools_check_topic.py grade3/topic38_build/content/G3T38.py → 0 FAIL, 25 WARN (24 before: S11 the type-sheet-only bank + 24 × S36 unusual words, "upright" new; S38 fragments 0; S39 hits 0). Job-table guard: worst cell 0.77 of its column; rule_leaves_food and table_full rendered and opened: the four-line rule fits its box, the table's leaves row fits. Topic 39 (shares Topic 32's figure drawer) re-checked: 0 FAIL. Page rebuilt: course_preview/topic38/index.html. No new character names. Not committed.

Figures owed to the image session

key	why	what to render
`oak_leaves_photo`	new (L04, the obvious member)	an oak tree in full summer leaf, wide lobed green leaves filling the branches, sunlight
`celery_red_leaves_photo`	retake (the stick has no leaves)	a plain celery stick with no leaves in a glass of red water, red lines all the way up the stick, nothing beside the glass
`marisa_celery_cartoon`	optional retake	the same set-up with a plain stick, no leaves