At Home Science

Liebster Award

2012-01-21T21:33:00.000-05:00

Eva at Academia Celestia awarded this to me--thank you! An award for those of use who love to blog because we love the art form, not because we have a lot of followers. Here is the description:

"Liebster is a German word, meaning dearest or beloved, but it can also mean favorite. The idea behind the Liebster Blog Award is that it is given to bloggers who have less than 200 followers in order to create new connections and bring attention to these wonderful blogs!"

Add the award to your blog.

Thank the giver with a link back to them.

List your top 5 picks and let them know they've been given an award by leaving a comment on their blog.

Hope that your followers will spread the love to the blogs you've spotlighted.

I am awarding this to:

Well, I listed 4...

Refresh! Midwinter Virtual Conference

2011-12-29T17:41:00.001-05:00

Homeschool Connections is brightening up those February doldrums with a free virtual conference! Each talk is on a different night, lasts about an hour, and starts at 8 pm EST. You can see the schedule here. While they are free, you do have to register.

You might be interested in Science by Inquiry on February 1st taught by, well, guess who?

Free Recorded Course Access

2011-12-27T19:53:00.001-05:00

From now until January 4th get FREE access to my fall Cardiovascular and Respiratory System course at Homeschool Connections.

My next live course on Blood and the Immune System begins January 11th!

Seven Wonders of the Microbe World

2011-12-16T22:23:00.001-05:00

This 25 minute video is a compilation of 7 others highlighting science and microbes produced by The Open University. You can watch each individual video on YouTube or click below to watch them all.

The topics are:

The History of Beer
Black Death
Food Preservation
Nitrogen Fixation
Antibiotics
Genetic Engineering (plants)
Life on Mars

&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Black Death&lt;/p&gt;

Inquiry Cubes and the Scientific Method

2011-10-15T22:27:00.000-04:00

As a start to our exploration in chemistry this year, I introduced a fun exercise about how science works. This comes from a 1998 publication of The National Academies Press, which are free to download, called Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science.

I started off asking what they thought scientists did, and by describing how some use the scientific method. Next I brought out the cubes to experience some of what this is like.

Cube 1 is numbered just like a 6-sided die; cube 2 (optional) doubles the numbers on a six-sided die, and cube 3 has a more complex pattern. Have the kids sit in a circle and place cube 1 in the middle with the "5" face down. Students cannot move it or themselves; they can only observe the cube from their seat. Have them write down their observations and then let them take turns asking each other questions they would like to know about the parts of the cube they cannot see. They then come up with a hypothesis as to what is on the bottom.

Cube 1 is the simplest, but I question them about their certainty if they jump to conclusions based not on their evidence but on what they know about dice. They are then allowed to use some "technology" in the form of a mirror and, lifting the cube only a couple of centimeters, they can peek underneath. Next they do the same for cube 2 with "12" on the bottom. They may notice that the shaded portions are double the shaded portions in the original cube, and using the technology can verify that. Finally they try the third cube with Francene on the bottom, which my kids found much more interesting.

After they made all their hypotheses about what was on the bottom and used their technology to verify some of what they thought, I removed the cube without ever showing them what actually was on the bottom. In science we cannot look up at God and ask, "Am I right?" Besides, I did this for two groups and I didn't want the first groupto spoil it for the second. This drove them a little bit crazy, vowing to find the cube and look when they got the chance. I asked them to reflect (in writing) how this was and was not like what scientists do and that got their mind off of it--for a little bit, anyway.

Homeschool Connections Discount

2011-10-10T09:44:00.000-04:00

I am offering a 12-week Anatomy and Physiology course on Blood and the Immune System through Homeschool Connections. Early enrollment discount ends November 1st! Click here to see all the middle and high school offerings for Spring 2012.

Chemical Proportions and Electrolysis

2011-09-28T21:23:00.001-04:00

In preparing for Middle School Chemistry with our co-op our family we are going through Matter and Energy: Principles of Matter and Thermodynamics. This volume has two chapters about chemical reactions and the periodic table so it makes a good transition.

The first chapter is about the Law of Conservation of Matter, and while we just read the chapter I've been inspired by something I found here. I modified it for homeschoolers, taking out much of the school jargon and requirements, and posted it here. I hope to try it and blog about it soon.

Meanwhile, the second chapter is "How the Elements Combine." Proust first figured out that chemicals combine by mass in definite proportions. Dalton realized that some chemicals combine in several but definite proportions, a fact that fit in well with his proposition of matter being made up of atoms. Next Gay-Lussac showed that gases combined in the same proportions by volume, leading to his law stating that equal volumes of gases have equal numbers of atoms (Avogadro figured out how many.)

This was all well and good, but I was not sure how much they got from this chapter. I did not have the materials the book listed to carry out electrolysis. I did an Internet search and found that some people used pencils with both ends sharpened, making holders from Styrofoam trays or cardboard, all powered with a 9V battery. (See here and here.) I wanted to capture the gas as was done in the book so we could test them, so this is what I did:

I filled a measuring cup with water and added a teaspoon of salt. I attached a piece of aluminum foil to one end of two wires with alligator clips. I filled the test tubes with water and placed them over the foil pieces, using the top of the test tube rack to hold them upright. Finally I connected the other end of the wires to each terminal of a 9V battery. As you can see at the top of the test tubes gas began to collect.

My boys knew water was H2O, and that meant 2 molecules of hydrogen and one of oxygen. I explained that electrolysis was "splitting" water with electricity. I posed the question, "How do you know which gas is collecting in which tube?" We went through the chapter again. Proust and Dalton both worked with mass while our experiment was based on volume. We discussed more about Gay-Lussac's law and asked how definite proportions relate to the creation of water with H and O. The wheels started turning and they then knew for certain that the tube with more gas had to be the hydrogen.

I do suggest a lantern battery for this, though, because the 9V ran out when only a fourth of the hydrogen tube was filled. But I am actually a bit glad. I pulled it out of the water, let the water fall into the measuring cup, lit a match and put it into the mouth of the tube. The loud whistle and pop was impressive enough to prove that indeed it was hydrogen.

Mini Science Posters

2011-09-18T19:07:00.000-04:00

I first saw this in Biology Inquiries by Martin Shields and I had to laugh. "Lapbooking for schools," was all I could think, but after having spent a bit of money and time helping my kids make large poster presentations, I thought this was a great idea.

The idea is to put two file folders together just like you would a lapbook, completely overlapping one side of each folder; that makes the tri-fold poster board that will stand on a display table. Instead of mini books, kids place their information just as they would on a large poster. So instead of creating it as you go through a subject as you would a lapbook, this is meant to be a culmination of learning presented at the end.

This link goes to a blog entry written by a science teacher that shows a mini poster and how to construct it. This link is to a pdf that gives an example of how to place information on the three panels.

Middle School Chemistry

2011-09-11T21:38:00.000-04:00

Our focus this year is Chemistry. A long while back I found a great, free resource called Middle School Chemistry by the American Chemical Society. This 600+ page pdf takes an inquiry approach to chemistry, meaning that students first make observations through hands-on activities and then learn about the concepts behind them. The book has 6 chapters and 38 lessons.

It starts off simply but builds quickly. The needed specialty supplies, like graduated cylinders and copper sulfate, are few are not needed until later in the book; everything else is around the house or at the pharmacy.

To go with this we are reading The Wonder Book of Chemistry by Jean-Henri Fabre. It is available at Google Books or The Baldwin Project online, or through Yesterday's Classics in print form. It covers a lot of what Middle School Chemistry does plus a whole lot more, including a little plant biochemistry.

This is a wonderful living science book. It's the story of Uncle Paul educating his two nephews, Emile and Jules, through demonstration and conversation. I hope my boys are as inspired as the nephews are in the book (and that they don't expect that we can carry out the same demonstrations!)

Finally, after working through these, I hope to work through TOPS Analysis (10). It contains 16 Task Card Activities. I am supposed to give them one and have them work through the task at hand. The book gives detailed explanations for teachers so they can get students started if they don't quite understand what is being asked. But after going through the above materials I am hoping they will have fun exploring the materials in this one.

I will find supporting material on ExploreLearning Gizmos, Adaptive Curriculum, and Discovery Streaming as well, and blog when I can about our progress.

The Catholic Laboratory

2011-07-24T22:36:00.003-04:00

The Catholic Laboratory is one of my favorite science resources! The site is the creation of Ian Maxfield, and his podcast is packed with great information. He has explored Science from a Catholic perspective in regards to the Origins of Life, the Age of Discovery, and the Theology of the Body, among others. While subscribing to the podcast will get them to your readers, visiting the page for each topic will get you links to the information presented. Visit the downloads section for flyers and presentations about Catholicism and Science. I highly recommend this great resource.

Charles, Boyle, Divers, and Balloons

2011-07-17T12:04:00.002-04:00

If you scuba dive, you know these gentlemen; even paramedics are taught their laws when learning about diving-related emergencies.

They are introduced in chapter 3 of Liquids and Gases: Principles of Fluid Mechanics. Solids and liquids, in general, are non-compressible; gases, however, are and that changes pressure and density. Robert Boyle invented the air pump, something with which any child that plays with a ball or rides a bike is familiar. His law states that the volume of a gas is inversely proportional to its volume, if held at a constant temperature.

Taking what we learned from Archimedes, Pascal, and Boyle, we created something named after Rene Descartes--a Cartesian Diver. The book shows the same principle using an eye dropper, but this example in Gizmos and Gadgets is much more fun, if it is a bit more work.

Supplies
1 small foil container
1 bendable straw
1 small paperclip
A small amount of modeling clay
Scizzors
2L bottle with a cap filled with water

I used a small foil container to cut out my 3 inch "diver." Next I cut off the bendable portion of the straw, leaving about an inch on either side.

I used the paperclip to attach the straw to the diver by first clipping one side of the straw and then clipping that onto the diver. I then gave the diver some clay boots to weigh it down a little but not have it sink altogether. You can see in the picture that when I put it into the water it bobbed at the top; I just pushed it in a little and put the cap on.

Archimedes taught us that objects float by displacing the fluid they are in, so that the object is less dense than the fluid. Pascal taught us that water exerts pressure in all directions and is basically non-compressible. Boyle taught us that gases are compressed, and that compressing them increase the pressure and the density. Our diver has a straw tank of air and is surrounded by water. What happens when you squeeze the bottle?

The chapter wraps up discussing the effect of temperature on gases. Jacques-Alexandre-Cesar Charles, while ballooning, noticed that hot air expands, but the law named after him was first stated by two other great scientists, John Dalton and Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac. Charles law states that for a constant volume of gas, the pressure of the gas is directly proportional to the temperature. While I repeated this experiment with the boys, I also did this awhile back with my kids, and the video is better:

ExploreLearning has two Gizmos to reinforce these concepts: Temperature and Particle Motion and Boyle's Law and Charles' Law

Pascal and Liquid Pressure

2011-07-15T23:19:00.003-04:00

Chapter 2 of Liquids and Gasses has lots of fun water experiments. Because the weather was not conducive to being in it, we used the bathtub. We punched holes in a milk jug and watched the water shoot out father from the bottom hole than the top hole. We also poked a hole in the bottom of one cup and the side of another to demonstrate that pressure is in all directions. I thought this would be rather simplistic, but I underestimated boys' fascination with water.

The rest of the chapter we discussed. The illustrations in the text are great, but I wanted to find or rig a container similar to what is pictured in the book with the connected water columns and the piston. They got a basic understanding of the concept but I extended it to remind them that what they gain in strength they have to make up in distance, just like other simple machines. A simulation or demonstration would have gone a long way here.

They really liked the tie in to hydraulics, amazed that this simple concept is used to create the brakes of a car.

They so enjoyed fluid mechanics that the following week one of the boys brought in a hydraulics kit that they spent the class exploring. Something about boys and water...

Density and Archimedes Principle

2011-05-31T22:47:00.000-04:00

Eureka! The Archimedes Principle is about density and buoyancy, but this is one section of the book where the demonstrations did not look promising. Based on the illustrations, it looked like the water would flow over the top and just run down the sides of the glass rather than collecting in the pie plate. Maybe if I used a cup with a rim wider than the base it would work.

I thought about getting a set of density blocks for a demonstration but in the end I decided to use computer simulations instead. Both ExploreLearning and Adaptive Curriculum have several great simulations covering density and buoyancy. PhET has one for buoyancy and another for density that are free, as is the Floating Lab.

You could also read Archimedes and the Door of Science by Jeanne Bendick along with the first chapter of this book. The details of what happened when Archimedes figured out the principle named after him are in it as well as Fleisher's book.

More Janet Halfmann Books

2011-05-21T13:40:00.001-04:00

I have posted reviews for each of Janet Halfmann's 2010 book releases on Love2Learn.

The first is a sweet bedtime story, Good Night, Little Sea Otter.

The second is a fun and engaging book introducing animal classification, Fur and Feathers.

Enjoy these wonderful young science titles!

Planets at Dawn

2011-05-13T21:09:00.002-04:00

If you get up early and can get a good view of the Eastern horizon then consider taking a look at this 4-planet show.

Journey North--Our Results

2011-04-30T14:19:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was the dealine to submit results for the Journey North Mystery Classes. Here is what I came up with for the 10 locations. I include links to pages I made as to how these cities fit the final clues given.

How do your answers match up?

Unfortunately, we will not show up when the answers are announced as 3 of my students came up with answers based on coordinates and did not check to make sure their locations matched all the clues. Instead of Mahikeng we had Kimberley, instead of Sarnia we had London, and instead of Pointe-Noire we had Kinshasa. We did not meet during Holy Week, and yesterday we had several of our group absent, and the weather was just too beautiful to sit inside for class, so I just submitted what they gave me.

What Is Wrong With PandaMania

2011-04-22T23:18:00.001-04:00

I mentioned problems with OSV's PandaMania on the At Home Science Yahoo group and several people have asked for more details. I wrote a lengthy blog post on my Science of Relations blog about the things I find problematic with the program.

Quizboards at MIT

2011-04-03T19:10:00.000-04:00

The Edgerton Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers free project-based classes to school groups. This year our entire co-op and another homeschool family took part in the Quizboards program. Kids used a template to create quiz questions at home. The Edgerton staff then gave them the cardboard frame, wires, and paper fasteners so that, with a bit of soldering (the highlight of the class) they created their Quizboards.

The finished board has two alligator clips. One you hold next to the question, the other you touch to your selected answer. If it is correct then the small bulb on the clip lights up.

The Center offers classes for a variety of age groups; the Quizboards are for 9 and up. While the older kids were there, the younger kids walked around the MIT campus with some of the parents. Afterward we traveled two miles up the road to the Boston Museum of Science. On Fridays the museum has a light visitor volume and is open until 9 pm. The kids especially like wandering around the museum with their friends. We had a full and wonderful day of science!

Angular Momentum with Zomes

2011-03-16T17:33:00.000-04:00

The final section of Objects in Motion is about angular momentum. We read this section and discussed how points farther from the center move faster than those closer. We also had a spinning chair in the room that they made use of to show how they spin faster with their limbs closer to their bodies.

There's a lot you can do with spinners to supplement this section. We used Zomes to build spinners, seeing who could build the one that spun the longest.

Next, Liquids and Gases...

2011-03-08T12:47:00.000-05:00

You may have noticed, or maybe stopped noticing, the tabs at the top of the blog under the banner that have led to blank pages, or at least previously blank pages. I have finally gotten around to actually creating those pages.

The structure of each is similar. The top part of the page is topic-related picture and two links, the top icon is linked to my Diigo list of website for that subject and the bottom icon is linked to my LibraryThing book list for it. Below all that is the Our Favorites section with resources I have found especially helpful.

Hopefully those pages will help you find more homeschool science resources to enjoy with your family and co-op. Click on them and let me know what you think!

Blessings,

Journey North Time!

2011-02-03T16:53:00.000-05:00

While we are still continuing with Secrets of the Universe (having embarked on Liquids and Gases) it is time again for Journey North. Most of the offerings starting in February, but by far our favorite is the Mystery Class.

This is our third year doing this project--an excellent example of projhect-based learning. Using sunlight and cultural clues, you try to locate 10 mystery locations around the globe. It combines science, math, and geography into one fabulous project. This Friday is the first data set so it is not too late to start. Just click the Journey North tag in the right sidebar to see my blog posts from last year.

A few weeks ago we went to the Boston Museum of Science since they have free Omni Theater Fridays in January. We happened to see Whales, which was not the best Omni production I've ever seen since I am convinced they tried to instill sea sickness in the audience by turiong off the camera stabilization. However, a good part of the movie talked about the Gray Whale migration, the longest of any mammal, and that got me thinking about another Journey North project.

I happened to look today, just in time to see the Journay North Gray Whales project runs on Wednesdays starting in February. After looking through the site, and seeing they had the lowest numbers ever in 2010, I am excited to see so far they are reporting record calves in Mexico so far. And so I have downloaded the data sheets and out together our journal to follow along with this project as well. I hope to let you know how we are progressing.

Conservation of Momentum

2011-01-01T21:32:00.000-05:00

Objects in Motion, Chapter 5 part 1, Conservation of Momentum.

I turned to a favorite book of mine, Gizmos and Gadgets, and found a bunch of activities relating to this chapter. Simple things, like giving them three coins--two pennies and a nickle--and challenging them move one penny using the other penny without them touching each other. They tried all kinds of things before finally figuring out how to use then conservation of momentum to do it.

And more complex things, like creating Newton's Cradle using marbles and an egg carton ramp. There's just something fascinating about watching spheres collide!

We finished up building a simple momentum tower, another idea from the book. I had two 20 oz bottles filled with water. The kids tied a string between them and then attached two strings with paperclips to the first string, and then stuck modeling clay onto the paperclips. They held the bottles so the string between them was taut and then carefully swung only one of the clay suspensions. Guess what happened to the other clay swing?

Universal Gravitation

2011-01-01T20:36:00.000-05:00

Objects in Motion, Chapter 4, The Law of Universal Gravitation.

This chapter brings together Kepler, Galileo, and Newton, especially the first and the last. I created a review sheet listing their laws we covered next to a picture of each of them.

All I used for this class was a white board. I read and we discussed, using the board to draw illustrations and to write equations. It served as a good opportunity for review as well as an opportunity to consider the information in novel circumstances.

We considered and discussed the weakness of gravity, elliptical motion, "falling around" earth, wobbling planets, Newton's cannon, and satellite rockets. It makes for good conversation...

Laws of Motion

2010-12-06T10:06:00.000-05:00

Chapter three of Objects in Motion is Newton's Three Laws of Motion. I collected several different demonstrations for this class, and thanks to The Happy Scientist, we demonstrated all three with a scale and some hand weights.

I created a worksheet so they could fill in all the different demonstrations we did during class. I did a demonstration and then read from the book, did another demonstration, and so forth.

The First Law is that of inertia. I placed a baseball card on top of a glass, and then stacked coins on top of the card. I asked them to predict what would happen to the coins when I horizontally flicked the card away (they said the coins would fly off everywhere.) Of course they dropped into the glass, and I let them try it a few times. I also gave each of them some thick paper (bookmarks, actually) and a stack of pennies. I instructed them to place the bookmark on the edge of the table so half of it was off of it and then to put a stack of coins on the bookmark. They quickly pulled the bookmark out from under the coins and the stack remained intact on the table. (The boys, of course, experimented with ways to make the coins spill...)

Another demonstration we did used a wheeled cart and a stuffed animal. Shoving the cart made the toy fall off the back; stopping the cart suddenly made the toy fall forward. We discussed the usefulness of seatbelts.

Finally, we wrapped up with The Happy Scientist: Newton's Laws that demonstrates all three laws in one activity. You do not need a subscription to view this particular file, but I highly recommend it. For $20 a year you get a wealth of videos, experiments, and science information. Robert Krampf does a great job, and many of his videos are quite funny as well as interesting and informative. All you need is a bathroom scale--the type with an analog display (digital won't work)--and a heavy object (hand weights work well.) The kids are fascinated with how the scale changes as the weights are rapidly pushed up or pulled down. Simple yet impressive!

Towers and Parachutes

2010-11-10T10:55:00.000-05:00

Week 3 introduces us to the famous legend of Galileo dropping objects from the Tower of Pisa. We completed the student exploration guide of the ExploreLearing Free Fall Tower Gizmo. Another free tower simulator, Galileo Drops the Ball, and many other science simulators are available from SEED.

Before starting the Gizmo I gave a simple demonstration. I took a feather and a ball and asked which would fall faster; then I dropped a small toy and a large toy. Some were surprised that the second set of objects hit the ground simultaneously. Next I dropped a book and a sheet of paper, and they fell at different rates. Finally, I placed the sheet of paper on top of the book and dropped them; they fell at the same rate. That got them thinking about concepts that they could explore further with the Gizmo.

After learning about air resistance, terminal velocity, and vacuums, I gave the 3 physics groups a challenge. They each needed to build an egg parachute that met two criteria. First, the egg had to fall without breaking; second it had to fall more slowly than a rock dropped simultaneously.

Each of the three groups were all successful, and had very different designs. The older boys used a large sheet of newsprint for the parachute and a thick cardboard cone to hold the egg. It's a good thing it didn't rain that day...

The girls covered fabric with lamination, adding in straw stays for the parachute and along the strings; they had a foam cube for the harness, decorated with flowers. It fell the fasted of the three, but still slower than the rock.

The younger boys used a trash bag for a parachute and a cut up egg carton for the harness, with a good amount of duct tape to hold it all together.

I gave them two weeks for construction. The day of the drop was very windy. All the kids (21 of them) gathered for the event. You can see the videos of each parachute being dropped out a window, a team member dropping the parachute and an adult dropping a rock.

Pendulums

2010-11-05T20:00:00.000-04:00

Our third week of co-op we performed the pendulum experiment described in the book. We had three fishing weights (labeled 1, 2, and 3), three lengths of string, and a stopwatch. I created a data sheet (link goes to Google Docs) for them to fill in; they will need three of them to record data for the entire experiment.

This is one experiment in which the kids are very much surprised by the results. They expected that lifting the weight higher up would increase the time for 10 swings; they also expected a heavier weight to make a difference. Only the length of the string matters.

Related Gizmos: Period of a Pendulum and Pendulum Clock

Ellipses

2010-11-02T10:29:00.001-04:00

We are working our way through Objects in Motion: Principles in Classical Mechanics by Paul Fleisher. The first lesson is about Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion.

A key moment for Kepler was when he abandoned circular orbits for elliptical ones, so I designed an activity around ellipses. I cut a large foam board into quarters, one for each student, and tacked paper to it. They put two push pins along the horizontal midline of the paper, slipped a string with the ends tied together over it, and drew an ellipse by drawing the string taut with a pencil and circling the push pins. They moved the pins progressively farther, then closer, and observed what happened to the ellipse. We discussed how a circle is a special form of an ellipse, just as a square is a special form of a rectangle.

I then discussed Kepler's Second Law and shaded in a pie piece away from the sun and close to the sun.

For the elementary group we skipped the third law. For the middle school kids I simply wrote the formula and we discussed what it meant, including exponents and proportionality. They got the fact that distant planets orbit more slowly and related that to the force of gravity.

If you use ExploreLearning Gizmos like we do, there's one on Ellipse and another on Kepler's Laws.

Discount for Upcoming Live Online Immunity Class

2010-10-29T20:43:00.000-04:00

I will be teaching a six-week class on the immune system for high school students called Immunity in Sickness and in Health. The class runs from January 17th until February 21st, Mondays from 1:30 to 2:30 live over the Internet. All you need is a computer, headphones, and a microphone. The course costs $90, with a $15 discount for early registration if you register before November 1st.

Physics with Secrets of the Universe

2010-10-27T11:46:00.000-04:00

This year we are focusing on physics, and I found a great series of books to introduce middle school students to the subject. I am using it with our co-op as well. The series is Secrets of the Universe by Paul Fleisher. Originally published as a single volume, it is now available as 5 slim books, perfect for moving from elementary into middle school science. We have started with Objects in Motion: Principles of Classical Mechanics.

This series has so much to like about it. Fleisher explains concepts in a clear manner with informative examples. He tells the story through the scientists who first discovered the principles bringing an interesting historical perspective. He intersperses experiments throughout the text rather than as a separate section. The graphics are simple and of a single color, yet effective. It really is a pleasure to read!

The other four books in the series are Liquids and Gases: Principles of Fluid Mechanics; Matter and Energy: Principles of Matter and Thermodynamics; Waves: Principles of Light, Electricity, and Magnetism; and Relativity and Quantum Mechanics: Principles of Modern Physics.

Our TORCH co-op is now up to 6 families and 21 children. I teach 3 sections of physics, one for middle school girls (4 of them), another for middle school boys (4 of them), and another for older elementary boys (3 of them). I plan to blog more about out experiences soon!

Planets and Meteors August 12

2010-08-08T16:42:00.000-04:00

This Thursday, August 12, is a good night to have an amateur astronomy party. Every summer the Perseid Meteor Showers dazzle us with their show, but this summer, they have an opening act.

Venus, Saturn, and Mars will all be appearing in the western sky just around twilight along with the crescent moon. They will be in tight conjunction and easy to see--you won't even need a telescope.

Just as the planets are disappearing, around 10 pm, the meteors will begin. And with the moon being but a crescent, they will be very easy to spot. If you rise early, during the darkness just before dawn Friday morning, you could enjoy seeing dozens per hour.

You can read about it on the NASA blog.

Versatile Blogger Award

2010-08-02T22:17:00.001-04:00

Thank you, Annie, from Learn At Every Turn, for this award! She has a great blog with lots of science resources, as well as stuff for other subjects.

For this award:

Tell 7 things about yourself
Pass it on to other versatile bloggers

Here are my 7 things:

I love writing; that's why I am a blogger more than anything else in the social media world.
I very much enjoy teaching, especially through inquiry.
I could spend all day working on a new Zome model design.
I would like an iTouch but not until they come down in price.
I think the most versatile machine would be a tablet PC the size of a netbook--like a laptop and an iPad all in one--and still priced around $300.
Streaming instrumental music from Pandora is my constant companion at the computer.
I am Catholic, humbly faithful to the Magisterium, who thinks Evolution is a solid scientific theory that well explains the origins of species to the best of our scientific knowledge today. That does not make me a deist; God is very much involved with His creation, and has been from the beginning.

I mentioned a lot of great blogs in the recent Blogger of Substance award. This time, though, I will pass it on to a few, and simply list some other outstanding blogs I love to read but are not really candidates for award memes:

Rockhound Place
Academia Celestia
LaPaz Home Learning

Unity of Truth
The Deeps of Time
Science Notebooking
Notice the Universe

Review: Secrets of the Universe

2010-07-31T10:56:00.000-04:00

This fall, with Ds#1 being of sixth grade age, we are embarking on a year of physics using the Paul Fleisher series, Secrets of the Universe. This is an outstanding series to introduce middle-school students to the subject.

The books have no color-laden pictures, no distracting side bars; rather it has clear, descriptive, interesting writing that explains the concepts. He bases the topics on the scientists who first described the principles, and relates the material through common, illustrative examples. He intertwines the experiments with the narrative rather than putting them in a separate section. The end of each book includes a timeline and short biographies of the scientists mentioned as well as a suggested reading list and glossary.

The book was originally published as a single volume and then subsequently divided into the five-book series. Though the experiments are few, the series makes an excellent spine around which you can easily add in more activities and reading. As science books become more splash than substance, the elegance of this series is a reminder of the good writing that is being lost to the photographs and isolated side bars facts so prominent today.

If your library carries the series and you can wait to purchase these books you may be able to pick them up through the used book market at a reasonable price.

A Blogger of Substance Award

2010-07-19T12:45:00.000-04:00

Thank you, Alex, from Serendipity Home School for A Blog With Substance award! Hopefully this blog will have more substance when I finally fill in those tabs, lol!

Here's how this award works:

Thank the blogger that awarded it to you.
Sum up you blogging philosophy, motivation, and experience using exactly 10 words;
Pass it on to 10 other blogs with substance.

My summation sentence:

Sharing science resources with other homeschoolers returns many more blessings.

Here are at least 10 blogs where I find all kinds of thought-provoking and helpful material on them:

Learners at Home
Funschooling
Books, Links, and More
Miss Julie's Place: Art Lessons for Kids
Of Great Mind: A Journey in Home Education
Talking to Myself that just moved over from Homeschoolblogger, with more great hands-on stuff.
Totus Tuus Family & Catholic Homeschooling
Maureen Wittmann
Abiding Faith: Our Journey of Real Learning
Hilltop Homeschool

I could list more, but several have already received the award from others. Thank you again.

Updated Design and Tabs!

2010-07-17T21:07:00.000-04:00

I have long been looking to collect my resources in one place. I have Diigo links, an Amazon Store with my favorite books, and LibraryThing. To top it off, I never could get the header to this blog to display the way I wanted. I downloaded some code to make tabs but hadn't gotten around to hacking my template (nor would I soon.)

Today I discovered you could add tags with Blogger In Draft, as well as other nifty things, and...here is the new look.

I plan on using the tabs to link over to Diigo or LibraryThing rather than reconstructing everything anew here. I hope to get to that sometime, or at least get something crude going until I can polish it off. My hope is to have each page divided by level--maybe even subtopic. We'll see how it ends up, but at least I have a start.

Buying a Microscope 2010

2010-07-13T15:13:00.001-04:00

This is the 2010 update for those of you in the market for a student microscope. Some companies have dropped their prices making the decision-making process more difficult.

For an explanation of the parts I mention, you can see my original post or this guide.

The microscope with the most features and the best price is Bargain Microscopes' Student 1000x. Besides having the additional 1000x oil immersion lens, it has professional-grade halogen lighting, coaxial focus nobs, iris diaphragm, and a mechanical stage. It costs around $245 with shipping, far less than other 1000x scopes. (Oil immersion is really great for looking at blood cells and other objects of similar size.)

You don't need an oil immersion lens or halogen lighting for high school biology, though. The Sonlight Ultra Microscope has the same features only with fluorescent lighting without the 1000x lens for $230 with shipping.

If price is the biggest factor you can get less expensive microscopes if you give up some combination of fluorescent lighting, mechanical stage, or iris diaphragm but you won't be as happy (in my opinion, anyway.)

GreatScope's SAF3 has fluorescent lighting, iris diaphragm, and a clip stage for $211 with shipping.

Home Training Tools' Home Microscope has fluorescent lighting but a disc diaphragm and a clip stage for about $187 with shipping. A mechanical stage costs $25

Bargain Microscopes' Student 400x has tungsten lighting, disc diaphragm, and a clip stage for $175 with shipping.

I could not find a scope with tungsten lighting and an iris diaphragm.

For something a little more eclectic you can look at Bargain Microscopes' Rechargeable 400x and camera. The microscope has LED lighting (takes less power and is a step up from fluorescent), a disc diaphragm, and a clip stage; it is also rechargeable so you don't have to be near a plug. It has a camera that you can insert into your eyepiece and plug into your computer with a USB port. It captures video and still images. The package is $210 with shipping.

That's the round-up for this year. I hope you find something you enjoy!

Review of Charles and Emma: Darwins' Leap of Faith

2010-07-07T14:08:00.004-04:00

I learned a few things from this young adult book about the life of Charles Darwin after his adventures on the H.M.S. Beagle. The book is based on his and his wife’s diary entries and because Charles was the more prolific writer we have more of his insights than Emma’s. The quoted material is more of a sprinkling than a basis for the book so it is mostly the author’s interpretation than their actual words.

Charles was agnostic from the start. His father was a wealthy physician whose money bankrolled Charles’s scientific career and lavish home life (which turned out to be a very good investment). He was a Unitarian, which the author describes as “a lenient Christian faith” though most other Christians would not agree; they would be more in line with Charles’s grandfather, Erasmus, who said it was a “featherbed to catch a falling Christian.”

Charles studied theology at Cambridge because everyone studied theology that went to university in those days; University College London, the first “godless” institution, didn’t open until 1826. Charles did not do well, though he steeped himself in the Natural Philosophy of the day—the notion that the beauty of nature proved God’s existence. This very popular philosophy during Darwin’s time is what was so threatened by his hypothesis of Natural Selection because, in Darwin's mind, the process of Evolution developed the beauty of creatures and not God. When someone like Charles has been raised without a clear theology and tends to take up the current philosophical fad of the day (he later followed Francis Newman for awhile until he disagreed with him, too,) we are not surprised by his eventual atheism. Charles, however, did not have the animosity towards people of faith as many of the atheists of today have.

Overall, Charles was a highly reserved man who did not want to offend anyone. (In fact he likely suffered from panic disorder and agoraphobia.) He was incapable of even disciplining his own children, though he had nannies to take care of that. Ultimately it was this extreme Victorian reserve that held him back from publishing his thoughts on the very controversial topic of Natural Selection until he could have complete proof that he was right, perhaps the same level of proof he sought after in his search for God. While he never took the leap of faith required of a Christian believer, he did publish his theory without iron-clad proof ultimately because someone else was going to beat him to it. He received a letter from Alfred Wallace who conceived the very same theory, and even then he needed some coaxing from his friends, who also testified that Charles came up with it first.

Emma Wedgwood, from the family of pottery fame, was Charles’s affluent cousin. According to the book “Charles’s Wedgwood cousins had been brought up with few, if any, rules and the encouragement to think freely.” She is often stated to be “deeply religious” though after reading this book I question people’s definition of that term. After suffering the tragic loss of Emma’s sister, Fanny, Emma’s faith was then derived mostly from a desire to see a loved one in the afterlife rather than on any deep personal belief. This theme is emphasized by the author throughout the book. I am not surprised she was unable to convince her loving husband of the existence of God. She, too, picked and chose what she wanted to believe. She turned away from the altar during mention of the Trinity, and their daughter Elizabeth decided not to be confirmed because she also did not believe in the Trinity. The frequent mention of “free thinking” in the book seemed a nod to modern rationalism. (Freethinkers, ironically, can only form opinions based on logic and science without philosophy or theology, which seems hypocritical to me.)

Though the book is based on the writings of Charles and Emma, the author does give us a good dose of her own filter. The most telling words in this regard are:

For his part, Charles admitted that Emma had been right when she said that his looking at the world in a scientific way probably precluded him from looking at it in a religious way. Perhaps to do the great science he did, he had to focus entirely that way—to let religion in would have diluted his effort. That did not mean he would deny Emma—or anyone—their beliefs. But for him, science was the way to get answers. (p. 213)

Emma must not have been familiar with the long and important history of scientific discovery brought about by people of faith that continues today. This false generalization is the result of ignorance given her social circles, though it is a stereotype that the author willingly perpetuates.

The enjoyment of the book came through the loving and devoted relationship between Charles and Emma throughout their lives and tragedies. We learn about living a privileged life in Victorian England. They had 10 children, one who died at less than a month, another at age 10, and their last at age 2. Charles himself was plagued with sickness throughout his life (though the book does not mention panic disorder as the likely cause). Emma mothered him and he was willingly a child around her. She gave great comfort to Charles as well as the children during their times of illness. We really don’t get much of a scientific history; the book is primarily the personal life of Charles and Emma Darwin. One tidbit I found interesting is how different their painted portraits looked from their photographs; I would not have thought them to be of the same subjects.

The book brings to light so much of the religious confusion in 19^th century England. Unfortunately the author’s anti-religious filter stifles the potential for it to enlighten the reader regarding this turbulent time so well reflected by the Darwin family. In the end the religious story is a tragic one for the Darwin clan, deteriorating into the birth of the Eugenics movement through Charles’s cousin Francis Galton that was endorsed by Charles himself (also not mentioned in the book).

I am disappointed to find a modern trend in children’s book awards to select titles with anti-religious themes, this book being no exception. Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith has received the YALSA-ALA Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction award, was a National Book Award finalist, and is an honor book of the ALA’s Printz Award.

This review is also available on love2learn.net

Diigo web 2.0

2010-06-12T21:13:00.000-04:00

Diigo is a web 2.0 (social network) site designed to share bookmarks and lists. You may have noticed I used to use Delicious and fed my bookmarks to the sidebar of this blog. I have found Diigo to be much easier to use and much more powerful. Besides being able to bookmark and tag websites and feed links to the blog, I am able to create list lists for science subjects like Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy, Science Interactives, and so forth. I can add notes to websites that others in my network can see when they visit. I can even highlight and annotate part of a website and send that to others in the network. I am also able to create groups, like the At Home Science group I made, to which members can contribute and be emailed the latest posts as they are added, or daily, or weekly.

Diigo also has a very hand toolbar for bookmarking, highlighting and annotating websites. I have buttons that take me to my library website or displays links in a sidebar. If the toolbar is too much, you can drag the Diigolet to your links toolbar, then click on it whenever you want to save a website to your Diigo.

If you decide to use Diigo, be sure to follow me and join the group to send and receive great science links. If you don't join, feel free to browse my public library and lists.

Carnival of Homeschooling is Up

2010-06-08T21:26:00.000-04:00

The Carnival of Homeschooling is now up, put together by Shez at Homeschooled Twins. If you've never browsed this oldest and largest and most diverse homeschool blog carnival, treat yourself!

Finding Darwin's God

2010-05-22T23:46:00.006-04:00

Evolution, Creationism, Microevolution, Intelligent Design, Materialism, Science and Religion...where does one begin to understand what all controversy is about? Start with Kenneth Miller's book, Finding Darwin's God.

Kenneth Miller is a Catholic cell biologist that clearly explains all of these subjects. He begins by taking us through the volumes of evidence supporting Evolution, including the scientific meaning of "theory" that is often misused by opponents of Evolution. He then gives the details of Creationism, Microevolution-only, and Intelligent Design, describing not only where these proposals are wrong based on the scientific evidence, but also where they are philosophically insufficient to explain God's relationship to His creation.

After showing the fallacies in these common challenges to Evolution, he continues on to a very important section detailing how scientists also misuse Evolution as a basis for a philosophy of religion in that it somehow proves that God does not exist. He points out that scientists' vicious religious attacks are some of the reasons why Evolution has such passionate opponents. (He did not continue on with how a twisted interpretation of Evolution became the foundation of the horrid philosophy of Eugenics.) He points out the hypocrisy in demeaning those who try to discount Evolution by distorting the science while giving a pass to those who also distort the science to apply it to philosophy and society.

Finally, he takes his readers through the scientific basis as to why Evolution does not mean that our lives, our choices, our futures are determined and predicted by our genetics. He explains that, at the very core of all the ordered universe, we have found quantum chaos that impacts even how mutations occur. In other words, God has a role to play in our lives.

My sense is that Miller wrote this book for scientists and people like me--Catholics who understand the Unity of Truth and have no qualms with Evolution, but strongly reject Evolutionism. He demonstrates that being a serious scientist and a serious Catholic is not a conflict. He does not, however, get into any of the theology about where Evolution fits into God's plan; he does not discuss why there is something instead of nothing, and, frankly, that is much too big a question to address in this book.

In taking this approach, he sometimes oversimplifies an argument to the point where he puts it on theologically shaky ground. For example, he says that evolution eventually created what God was looking for--creature that could know and love Him--undermining an All-Knowing God. He also discusses free will by saying that it is impossible to create people with the option to sin that would never do so. Technically, using a logic argument, it is highly unlikely that no one would sin ever but not impossible.

While the book is an excellent overview of this controversial topic, it does not discuss Evolution in light of Catholic religious philosophy or theology. Finishing this book left me looking for a good follow up to fill in these areas.

I particularly took interest in the tale of Fr. Murphy, who told a very young Miller that a flower is a work of God, just like we are, because scientists don't know why they form. This was, indeed, a botanical mystery until a much older Miller saw the discovery of genes that cause leaves to modify into flowers.

If we teach our children a God-of-the-Gaps--that God must exist because science cannot explain certain natural phenomena--then we are setting them up to lose that belief as science progresses, especially if they become scientists. Teach them that we must have a regular, predictable world in order to recognize miracles; that we live in a natural as well as a supernatural world; and that God is the answer to the question, "Why is there something instead of nothing?"

You can read a different review of this book at Love2Learn.net

Cloud Study Week 2

2010-05-15T20:50:00.001-04:00

The second week's activity was for the students to research and create a cloud classification system. It was meant to be done as a Problem Based Learning exercise, but our kids did not do well with this approach at all. The difficulty was that none of them were adept at extracting information from their book sources, so that only led to confusion when trying to pull things together as a group. Ultimately I gave them each books to take home so that next week they could all bring back information they learn.

I have been looking for online resources for the kids to look at, too. One of the best sites I have found is Windows to the Universe, which has a wealth of information for all fields of science. Their teacher resource section for Atmosphere and Weather has several activities relating to clouds. It also has this nifty cloud viewer to print and use for classification. We have decided to continue our co-op until the end of June so I can find some extension activities here if we finish the NASA packet. The student page about clouds has a lot of great information for the kids to read.

Another site I got from Library of Books, Links and More: Crazy About Clouds was NOAA's JetStream--Online School for Weather section about clouds. They have two interactive cloud charts (main page and classification page,) a pdf cloud observation log, and a cloud identification wheel to cut out and use.

Finally, I found a neat article about Luke Howard, the man who named the clouds. It's from The Weather Notebook, a great resource from the Mt. Washington Observatory that is still available though stopped posting new material in 2005.

A site a just recently came across is NASA Virtual Skies. This has all things aviation, from math, to physics, to weather, to technology. It includes teacher resources as well. I found great information on clouds including a chart of cloud map symbols.

Hopefully the kids will do a little better with the group dynamics once they all have some information under their belts. I am going to read more about PBL from a teaching perspective to find some tips to encourage my students.

We Found Them All!

2010-05-15T19:43:00.000-04:00

I just thought I'd mention that we found all 10 of the Mystery Classes! The kids were very excited to see the posting on the web site and to see the locations displayed on the animated globe.

Review of Newton and Me

2010-05-10T22:27:00.002-04:00

With the release of Newton and Me I was hoping to find an elementary science book written as an engaging story but, unfortunately, I was disappointed. The book is about a boy and his dog, Newton, discovering various forces in their daily lives, forces first described by Isaac Newton.

The difficulty I have with this book is that the reading and concept levels do not match. I very much promote and encourage introducing science concepts at a young age; however, the basic story and rhyming text, appealing to preschool through first grade, does not introduce any concepts they do not readily realize naturally, and yet this same age group would have a hard time understanding the concepts presented in the "For Creative Minds" section, like friction, or pushing something "twice as hard." (This is available as a free download from Sylvan Dell.)

The colorful yet simple illustrations are well matched to the text and theme. Some of the concepts presented are things like: a ball rolls easier on a sidewalk than on the grass; when it is thrown into the air always comes down; a toy truck stays stationary on level ground yet rolls on a hill, and others. Many of the activities in the "For Creative Minds" section are cross-curricular relating mostly to language development.

Sylvan Dell has long struggled to publish non-nature science story books for elementary-aged children. Based on how few titles actually fit that description from any publisher, it must be a tough genre. I am still holding out hope that they will publish better offerings in this area.

This review is also available on Love2Learn.net

Cloud Investigation Day 1

2010-05-02T23:10:00.000-04:00

We began our first day of our cloud study. I described the scenario from the booklet and read the first section of the prerequisite knowledge. Here they are in two groups doing the first activity: brainstorming.

The two kids in the foreground are the 5th graders while the other group has two 3rd graders and a 4th grader in it. Even though the packet is designed for grades 5 through 8, the younger group is enjoying the process and understanding the material.

I then had all 10 kids in the kitchen for second activity--the cloud in a bottle demonstration. The picture is from the night before when I was trying it out at home. I should have taken a video so you could see how the cloud disappears when you squeeze the bottle (high pressure) and then reappears when you release it.

The next activity is three days of observations for cloud classification.

Cloud Study Beginning

2010-04-24T20:29:00.000-04:00

We don't have that many weeks until our summer break and I wanted to finish up our year of earth science learning something related to weather. I searched the NASA Educators web site and found four weather-related lesson plans for grades 5 through 8: Investigating the Climate System-Clouds, Weather, Wind, and Precipitation (you can see the links for the others from the Clouds link.)

The Clouds guide is 31 pages, though only pages 3 through 11 are student-related while the rest are for teachers. The premise is that the students have been hired as interns in the State Climatology Office and they need to investigate a letter written to them by a 3rd grader through a series of 5 activities. Each activity is supposed to take around 45 minutes, so this guide alone should be enough to take our co-op to the summer.

I ordered some books about clouds and the water cycle to start us out, and I was excited to find one available by Jeanne Bendick, How to Make A Cloud. I got a couple of generic children's science books, but I found what look to be a couple of nice gems, too.

Wrapping Up Journey North

2010-04-24T18:36:00.002-04:00

Yesterday we submitted our answers to where we think the 10 mystery classes are around the globe. We'll be starting a new earth science project next week.

We did fairly well finding our locations, except for one--class #10, for which a math error caused some pretty interesting rabbit trails. We thought it was somewhere in central Asia between India and China. When we got to the clue about the prefecture being on a peninsula, we were baffled. We did find that the Kunming Wujiaba airport was located in Yunnan Prefecture, which is shaped like a peninsula only it juts into another country instead of into water. The funniest thing is that this airport is being replaced with a larger one called Kunming Zheng He International Airport. Well, this same student also had Mystery Class #5 and that same week he had to find out about the Zheng He statue in Malaysia--we thought for sure we were on the right track!

The final clue had to do with a monument to a shipwreck on the peninsula, so we knew something had to be wrong. I looked again at the calculation sheet for the longitude. Sunrise on the equinox was 6:03 UT and was at 20:42 UT the day before, and for some reason I wrote the difference to be only 5 hours and 21 minutes!!! Why, I have no idea, but what a difference 4 hours make. The class was in Japan and not central Asia and after a bit of searching we eventually found the place to match the clues (at least we'll see if we did on May 7th.)

Mystery Class Math

2010-04-08T22:16:00.000-04:00

A major part of this project is calculating photoperiod, that is the amount of daylight at the ten mystery class locations.

We've been doing this by figuring out how much daylight was gained or lost at sunrise and sunset and then adding or subtracting from the photoperiod for the previous week.

While doing MEP with my son, I realized that it was simple enough to do this calculation in a way that extends my children's understanding of place value and regrouping, as well as introduce bases other than base 10.

Many of you are probably already aware of how to make this calculation, but if not I hope you find this as easy and helpful as I did.

Let's say sunrise is 07:26 and sunset is 20:10. We have two place values: hours and minutes. We can only put the numbers 0 to 23 in the hours place. Our sunrise has 7 in the hours place while sunset has 20 in the hours place.

In the minutes place we can only put the numbers 0 to 59. Sunrise has 26 in the minutes place while sunset has 10. Now set this up as you would any other vertical subtraction to calculate the photoperiod:

20 10
-07 26

You cannot subtract 26 from 10 so you borrow from the 20 hours, making it 19 hours. That one hour becomes 60 minutes in the minutes place, so the 10 becomes 70 (60 + 10.) Now we have:

19 70
-07 26

70 - 26 = 44 minutes, 19 - 7 = 12 hours. The photoperiod is 12 hours and 44 minutes.

Free Smithsonian Online Conference

2010-04-06T13:54:00.000-04:00

The Smithsonian Institute is offering Problem Solving with Smithsonian Experts, a series of free online conferences this month, several of which are science related. Registration is required of just a basic form.

Each day they offer 3 related topics running 50 minutes each starting at 11 am, 12 pm, and 2 pm Eastern Time. The second two days are science topics with
Unlocking the Secrets of the Universe on 4/28 and Understanding and Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet on 4/29.

In looking at this site, I discovered Smithsonian Education, a web site dedicated to their educational resources. It looks like something to check out!

My New Nature Study Blog: A Private Eye Nature

2010-04-03T13:32:00.003-04:00

I have been so intrigued by incorporating The Private Eye into a comprehensive nature study that I have created a new blog dedicated to writing about it: A Private Eye Nature.

Admittedly our nature studies have never been much. For whatever reason I never seemed to be able to make this into something regular and productive. We love nature walks but never got much beyond that. Drawing is not a strong suit for Ds#1 or Ds#2; we'll see about Ds#3. Writing was a struggle for the older two as well until this year when some mystical switch flipped inside them, especially the oldest. His creative writing has really impressed me!

Using the loupe, writing analogies, drawing, and asking why--the four basic steps--just seemed to make everything else come together. It gave me a method from which to inspire the art and the writing. It gave the boys something fascinating and hands-on to do. I started the blog not just to record our endeavors, but to also write about tips and resources to help others interested in this approach. Follow along and enjoy!

Science Fair

2010-04-01T10:18:00.002-04:00

We belong to a small (18 families) homeschooling enrichment group without a co-op, but we love to get together for field trips and events. We recently held a Science Fair at the local library where our children displayed their work and we invited families and friends to come and see.

Ds#1 researched The Immune System. He wrote about all the different structures and cells using military analogies. He even build antibodies out of Zomes (I did help with the IgM pentamer double ring--it was difficult to figure out how to construct it.)

Ds#2 researched Light and Optics, which was a fully interactive display of optical illusions. Some were on the board while on the table he had a 3D book, a picture changer, a praxinoscope, and a spinning color wheel. His was a fun display to spend time at!

We had 10 entries altogether with a lot of family coming to visit. Everyone put together such interesting and different projects. I've included a slide show of the other wonderful projects.

The Private Eye

2010-03-28T20:48:00.003-04:00

A friend of mine recently started a workshop based on The Private Eye: "5x" Looking/Thinking by Analogy and I am hooked! The process is very simple yet quite powerful. The product is designed for the school market but really could flourish in homeschools.

The idea is this: look at a natural object using a 5x loupe. Just that alone in fascinating because objects look so different magnified, revealing detail one never imagined was there. It also focuses a child's attention on that small piece of the world. Next, make a list of analogies for the object thinking about of what other things it reminds you. Similes and metaphors work well here; try to come up with a list of 5 to 10 of them.

After examining the object for awhile, draw what you see. This is ideal material for any nature notebook, of course. We draw a circle to simulate the loupe and then draw the object in it.

Finally, kids ask themselves why something looks the way it does, why it has the structure it does. Because so often form follows function, this line of questioning is really a scientific investigation. The first steps are to ask a question and form a hypothesis. Most often the answers will come from a book or Internet search, but as kids get older they may be inspired to carry out some investigations themselves.

One can easily imagine applying this simple process endlessly throughout years of nature study. Yet what I found even more intriguing are the suggestions and projects listed in the book to extend the analogies and investigations, especially for writing. By thinking in analogies, the natural objects more easily become the subjects of poetry, short stories, expressive journaling, as well research. The book gives ideas "across the curriculum" as one would expect from a school-based curriculum. I find it to be a fascinating way to look, think, and write about nature.

Journey North Update: Equinox and Longitude

2010-03-23T23:03:00.000-04:00

We have been progressing well with our Journey North project. Last Friday we received sunrise and sunset data for the equinox that allowed us to find the longitude of our mystery classes! After studying maps, seasons, the earth's rotation and revolution, time zones, and universal time, we now have latitudes and longitudes for all 10 classes!

The following weeks will be dedicated to checking maps (including Google maps) and following whatever rabbit trails may arise from the geography clues we will receive for the next month. And we're waiting to see when class 3 and class 8 will change their photoperiods. They're hard to see, but one of them still has a 24 hour photoperiod while the other has zero hours.

Our graph will have all the photoperiod lines cross as we now on the other side of the equinox. We found it interesting that the photoperiods far from the equator have non-liner changes.

It was rewarding to see the kids excited about finding their longitudes. They were quite confused at first by universal time, local time, and sunrise but after more discussion they began to figure it out. They were excited to see their hard work pay off.

NASA Educators and DLN

2010-03-03T12:14:00.009-05:00

If you haven't been to the NASA Educators web site, it is well worth a visit. This site is loaded with all kinds of helpful information. I just downloaded a 95 page packet on Optics that includes 14 different activities for kids in grades K-4, 5-8, and 9-12. And there's well over 100 publications available! Scroll down to where it says Find Teaching Materials to search or browse.

Besides the teaching guides, they have feature articles, images, podcasts, eClips (videos), student material, NASA's Kids Club online games, and other educational opportunities. You can register for a free MyNASA account to organize your personal resources on the very extensive site.

During one visit to the site, it had a box that linked to the Digital Learning Network (I have not seen the box again since.) On this site NASA offers free live web casts and, if you have the equipment, classroom video-conferences. It looks like you just click on the link when the webcast begins; right now it brings you to an empty chat room for that webcast. I'm interested to see one, the next one being March 10.

Now Contributing to Love2Learn with Little Black Ant on Park Street

2010-02-22T10:12:00.006-05:00

Love2Learn.net, as the web site says, is a place to find "favorite resources for Catholic homeschoolers and others who 'love to learn.'" I heartily agree, and I am honored to announce that I am now a contributor to the site. In fact, I posted a review for the book, Little Black Ant on Park Street by Janet Halfmann. You can read the review on Love2Learn here.

MIT Edgerton Center Field Trip

2010-02-17T21:33:00.006-05:00

If you live anywhere near Cambridge, MA, the Edgerton Center at MIT offers several free LEGO kit science classes. I arranged for our homeschool support group to participate in the Car Rally class because that one allows for the broadest range of ages. Two other moms and I brought in 14 kids; Dh personally escorted us directly to the Center. Here they are heading towards the Infinite Corridor.

Kids were broken up into groups of two and given Lego kits with which they built cars. In order to earn points, they first had to put the cars on a tilt board; the higher the board could be tilted without the car falling off, the more points you got.

Next the kids brought the cars to the track in the hallway. The further the car went, the more points they got. They needed to try the cars both forward and backward--often backward worked much better! Then you went back in to fix your design and try again.

The class ran for 3 hours, including a 30 minute lunch break. Since we all left our lunches in the vehicles we went for 2.5 hours straight through. Only the youngest two showed any signs of wear; the rest we had to almost wrestle parts from their hands!

Amy, the class facilitator, is at the tilt board. Below is the track in the hallway. I highly recommend the classes if you can get 6 or more kids of the right age for them. MIT offers parking passes for $12 per vehicle if public transportation won't work for your group. We bought 3 passes and that was still less than $1 per child. It was well worth the expense.

Beautiful Blogger Award

2010-02-16T20:23:00.003-05:00

-:|:-In His Grip-:|:- Loni from Hearts-In-Training gave this wonderful award to me--thank you so much for the honor!

Here is what I do...

Thank & link to the person that gave you the award
Done, with great pleasure!

Pass this award onto 15 (or only 7) bloggers you think are fantastic. (I follow many more beautiful bloggers...)
Talking to Myself
Art Lessons for Kids
School for Us
Totus Tuus Family & Catholic Homeschool
Mountaineer Country
Of Great Mind
Learners At Home

Contact said Blogs & let them know they've won...will do now that this post is done.

State 7 things about yourself.

I just left my job of 16 years at the hospital to teach at a university.
I really need a haircut but can't seem to find the time to get one.
I rarely miss the daily Mass on EWTN.
A long time ago I lost a lot of money booking Celtic folk bands and selling tickets to the concerts...but it was loads of fun!
I came home to the Catholic Church 5 years ago because of the Eucharist.
I wear wool wristers and a thin wool shawl while working at the computer in winter.
I really would like a minivan.
I secretly hate science (just kidding, lol!!!)

Journey North Update

2010-02-14T22:11:00.007-05:00

We completed the first two weeks of data recording. From the beginning until the spring equinox, all you need to do is record sunrise and sunset data, calculate the photoperiod (amount of daylight), and graph the data. Photoperiod reveals the latitude of the mystery classes since it is different for every latitude yet constant along that latitude around the globe. This gives you several weeks to explore related concepts.

Week 1 we investigated globes, maps, and the longitude and latitude lines on them. This information is readily available in most atlases. The National Geographic Xpeditions site has a lot of great information and related activities. I printed a copy of the world map for each student and gave them coordinates to mark to show how longitude and latitude gives you a global location. I assigned the program Globes and Their Uses on Discovery Streaming. We also learned about dividing a circle into 360 degrees as part of this lesson. We used the diagrams from the program to illustrate.

Week 2 we investigated the Reasons for the Seasons, watching the video of the same name on Discovery Streaming, and reading the Let's Read and Find Out book. There's a nice interactive on Teacher's Domain, too. They figured out why classes 3 and 8 (both of which Ds#2 has) have photoperiods of 0 and 24 respectively and near the equator is 12 hours. From that they learned that photoperiod indicated latitude, that north of the equator the photoperiod was increasing, and south of the equator it was decreasing. I even caught two math errors in photoperiod because the trend didn't fit that pattern. And now that we have a line drawn on our graph, the overall pattern makes sense to them.

Journey North Myster Class Preparation

2010-01-30T14:28:00.004-05:00

The program begins on Monday so I go the kids ready during co-op yesterday.

I put together packets for each of them. Last year I had problems with the graph because it is on two pages and it splits at 12 hours--right where all the action is taking place. This year I folded the top of the first page right to the top of the graph, lined up page one with the graph lines on page two, and then attached them together with double-sided tape. I put this in the front pocket of the packet.

I downloaded the journal cover from the web site for the first page.

Next, since I have 5 students and we are finding 10 mystery classes, I put in 2 data sheets for each student. I went over the table, what data we would put in it, and what a photoperiod was. I then put several of the unchanging journal pages so they would be ready to go next week.

Discussing photoperiod was a good introduction to the 24 hour clock. Using Smart Draw, though you could probably use Word or any drawing program, I created a circle within a circle with clock lines on them. You can download it here from Scribd.

The last several pages are the vocabulary list and diagrams from the web site. Like they suggested, I just had the kids look at them and write down any questions they had. At the end of the project we will pull the cards out again and see if they then know the answers to them.

In my notebook I put a copy of the calendar, my own master graph for all the classes, a data sheet for our home location, and parts I needed from the two teachers' practice packets.

I will be searching my LibraryThing, the public library, Discovery Streaming, and the internet for related resources. More on that as they become available...

Journey North Time!

2010-01-17T21:12:00.003-05:00

February 1st is when the next Journey North Mystery Class will start! Journey North is a series of seasonal projects by Annenberg Media. Most are related to migrations, and one is for gardening. Mystery Class is science, math, and geography all rolled into one!

Every Monday you look up the sunrise and sunset times for where you live and record the photoperiod (amount of daylight.) On Fridays you go to the website to look up the sunrise and sunset data for the mystery locations of 10 different cities around the world. Your objective is to find the longitude, latitude, city, and country of the 10 locations based on this data. What's really neat is graphing the data before and after the spring equinox.

This year I'll be doing this project as a class with the 5 kids ages 8 to 11 in our small homeschool co-op, and I'm really excited about it. The organizers asked for permission to use my blog graph image from last year, so I'll have to see if they actually were able to used it.

Immune Attack

2010-01-02T21:07:00.005-05:00

Immune Attack is a downloadable game with outstanding graphics, detailed information, and engaging game play about the immune system.

The scenario that you will help a child with Severe Combined Immune Deficiency (SCID) by sending a nanobot, complete with probes, into her blood stream to teach her immune cells how to function again. This is immunology at the molecular level--pathogens, macrophage receptors, transmigration, and more. The immune system information is presented both in written and spoken form. It can be skipped over but not easily since it is integrated in with each mission.

This is a very large file that will take some time and storage to download and install, but that is because of it's amazing graphics. I am amazed at how much my 8 year old can tell me about immune function.

The game was created by the Federation of American Scientists. Below is the trailer on YouTube. One difficulty is that there are no instructions other than what the characters in the game tell you--and they don't tell you how to save the game. It's very frustrating having to start this complex game over again from the beginning each time!

Try Engineering

2009-12-28T21:00:00.004-05:00

I found Try Engineering looking for some fun interactive games for my kids on the web. The site is for people interested in engineering careers and so has a lot of information about careers and schools.

Two tabs are of interest in our house. One is the Lesson Plans tab that has a long list of interesting engineering activities for either homeschool or co-op. You can download an 8 page pdf catalogue of all the available plans. The other is the Play Games tab. They have 4 interactive activities produced by the site--Bionic Arm Design Challenge, Questioneering, Design a Parachute, and PowerUp. They also have a good-sized list of other interesting engineering games. I showed this to Ds#2 just before he went to bed and now he can't wait to get on the computer in the morning!

BioEd Online

2009-12-26T20:31:00.013-05:00

The latest great science web resource I found is BioEd Online and its companion site, K8 Science. The sites have news, presentations, slides, lesson plans, and teacher resources for biology. While the sites cover relatively few topics in biology, they still have a decent repository of good quality resource available for free.

The sites have a lot of information about laboratory techniques, including a sheep dissection video, measuring and counting with a light microscope, micropipetting, dilutions, and more. K8 includes some physical science topics as well. Despite their limited subject coverage, they have managed to put out quite a bit regarding embryonic stem cells; unfortunately they have no information regarding other sources of stem cells. They have a presentation on cloning, too.

Overall the sites are a great place to look for ideas or to supplement something you may be doing already.

Geminid Meteor Showers

2009-12-10T22:39:00.003-05:00

The Geminid Meteor Showers have begun and are due to peak at 2 am on December 14th!

From Universe Today:

Occurring every year in mid-December, the Geminid meteor shower is commonly referred to as the most reliable meteor shower of the year. That is, it almost always puts on a great show!

The Geminid meteor shower is sure to be a stunning show this year, as the Moon will not be visible at night, so its glow will not impede your meteor viewing ability. In addition, the Geminids' radiant is favorably positioned for most viewers at this time of year.

Can I shake my kids out of bed at 2 am? Our homeschooling friends up the street live on the top of a treeless hill that would be perfect for viewing...

Rock and Mineral Show

2009-11-22T18:53:00.010-05:00

As part of our geology study we went to a local rock and mineral show. It is a great opportunity to collect minerals and to see where locally people are finding them. This is our first visit to one of theses shows; someone on the AtHomeScience Yahoo group suggested this wonderful idea.

Any child that went to the show got a grab bag of various rocks, and then my kids bought a few, too. The 5 rocks along the bottom of the picture were bought while the rest came in their grab bags.

Ds#1 noticed that one dealer was selling rocks that looked very similar to one he had recently found. We knew it was an igneous rock, granite in particular. It had no pick feldspar though it can be white. The specimen is striking for the many black crystals in it. The black crystals turn out to be biotite, a type of mica; we could tell because it was easy to flake. And since the rock also has muscovite mica, it is called binary granite.

BTW, the University of Pittsburgh and Cal Poly Pomona have informative and pictorial sites for identifying igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks.

Saturday Science Challenge #13

2009-11-21T06:00:00.000-05:00

Layers of the Earth

The earth has 3 basic layers--the crust, the mantle, and the core. Texts will emphasize the thinness of the crust. Making models is a wonderful way to demonstrate this, though I found my kids were particularly impressed by this demonstration.

The earth is not perfectly spherical, and the crust of the earth is irregular, so exact numbers are not really possible, but these are the ones we can use for this activity:

Radius = 6378 km
Distance to core edge = 2890 km
Distance to mantle edge = 35 km (from Wikipedia)

Take a measuring tape at least 6 m long; have someone hold it in place at the "center" of the "earth." First measure out to 2.73 m. Holding chalk and the edge of the tape together, draw a circle, or at least an arc; this first line is the edge of the core. Now bring the tape out to 6m and draw a second arc; this second line is the edge of the mantle. Ask your kids, "How thick is the crust in this model? How much longer do I extend the measuring tape to draw the crust?" Have them mark where they think the line would fall.

Answer: 3 cm

For advanced students, have them calculate the ratios. I choose to have the edge of the mantle to be 6 m, so how large is the full radius for the model? The actual distance from the center of the earth to the mantle's outer edge edge is 6378 km - 35 km = 6343 km. Now set up a ratio:

distance to outer mantle (6346) is to earth's radius (6378) as model distance to outer mantle (6 m) is to model radius (rm).

6346/6378 = 6/rm --> (6378)(6) = (6346)(rm) --> (6378)(6)/6346 = rm
rm = 6.03

You can set up a similar ratio to check the edge of the core.

Saturday Science Challenge #12

2009-11-08T22:05:00.012-05:00

Basic Rock Identification

Around here we rarely find rocks made of a single mineral that we can identify through color, luster, streak, hardness, and cleavage, but you can classify rocks into their three basic classes: igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary.

All you need is one hammer and goggles for everyone participating. A geologist's pick hammer is most effective though this can be done with other hammers. And you need to find a flat, hard surface on which to do the cracking.

You can play the Rock Type Game at Geology For Kids as a warm up. You can also read the classic A First Look At Rocks by Millicent Selsam, or DK e.Guides Rocks and Minerals to get an idea what to look for when classifying them.

Cracking them open, as well as wetting them, really helps to see crystals and layering. And I didn't have to ask twice if anyone wanted to do this activity. For older kids, have them try to identify the specific types in each category. They can also map the location of their rocks, and see if different locations have different predominant types. The Moh's hardness scale is helpful for this, especially the hardness of common items you can use to test your samples. For advanced students, check out the igneous rocks, metamorphic rocks, and sedimentary rocks classification pages.

These two rocks are the same specimen. The picture doesn't show how much more lustrous the inner rock is compared to the worn outer surface.

It's granite, an igneous rock.

Bedrock Samples

2009-10-26T22:54:00.007-04:00

Whether it's Nature Study or Geology, it's great having an environmental engineer for an aunt (my sister-in-law.) Not only does she know all the plants in the area, she gives you gifts like pike hammers and bedrock samples. These arrived today. She included an informational sheet as well as a pamphlet about Rhode Island bedrock, complete with a geological map!

These bedrock core samples are the metamorphic rock gneiss formed from granite, distinguishable by its distinct banding. It contains quartz (clear to gray), biotite (black banding), and feldspar (pink.) Some samples may contain flecks of pyrite (Fool's gold.)

The samples are best viewed wet. Why? Think of clear plastic wrap--when you crinkle it, it becomes white because the light is reflected by the countless surfaces it now has. The uneven rock surface (even though these are pretty smooth from the drill) is "smoothed out" by water and so the colors are more intense. This is similar to polishing rocks.

All of these pieces come from the same core sample beginning at about 40 feet deep. Each piece is marked with the depth at which that piece started. The breaks come from pockets of ground water. You can clearly see how the stone changes with depth. Yoou can't tell in these pictures but the deeper stone clearly contains a lot more feldspar than the more superficial stone, which has more biotite banding.

AtHomeScience Yahoo Group

2009-10-24T12:12:00.002-04:00

Click to join AtHomeScience

Finally, I have activated the Yahoo Group that I created back when I created this blog. I've added a button to the sidebar if you would like to join. Here is the description:

Everyone is welcome! This group has many Catholic members, including the moderator; as a result, please keep the following in mind:

Please no discussions about "young earth" or "Creationism" and please note if a resource has that perspective. I greatly appreciate families of faith with this perspective; however, information about these resources are available elsewhere, and discussions on this topic tend to get extensive and are without resolution.

Many wonderful secular resources will be discussed, and most of them have no reference to Christianity. Those that do will be discussed in light of their view on Christianity. On some occasions, discussions about Science and Catholicism will take place as well. Any anti-Catholic comments will no be posted.

May this list be a blessing to your own science homeschooling journey!

Geology Study Resources

2009-10-10T15:23:00.014-04:00

We are taking up earth science at our house this year, and we are exploring it with our small co-op (3 families, 11 children under age 11, 8 of which are school-aged) We have had a lot of fun so far investigating geology, so I thought I would share some of my resources.

I am using Be Your Own Rock & Mineral Expert by Michele Pinet as our spine. This thin hardcover works well to outline lessons, including activities. It is particularly good at describing techniques and making tools for rock hunting, and then for testing samples. You will need other sources for specific identification. Unfortunately this book is out-of-print and quite expensive; my copy is from our library. This is actually geared to high school kids but it is easy enough to adapt.

I have found several wonderful living science books, most of them written 20 or more years ago. Many of these, however, are still in print and some have even been updated! In fact, the only two on this page that are out of print are the books by Pinet and Selsam.

Some of these are strictly about rocks and minerals while some relate to the rock cycle or the earth's composition. I find it helps kids understand and distinguish igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. One of our family's favorite authors is Milliscent Selsam, and A First Look At Rocks is no exception. The black and white pictures have obvious limitations, but the writing is just spectacular juvenile science. The book is a great introduction to the three types of rocks and the characteristics of each, so you can go out and start classifying your finds. Her books, unfortunately, are out of print but they are readily available on the used book market. Another favorite of ours are books from the Let's Read and Find Out series; two of them relate to our geology study.

As for actual pictorial identification, rock and mineral books are plentiful on library shelves. We happen to like the Basher Science books because they are so whimsical, the information is in bite-sized pieces, and my kids love to look at them, and the newest addition is Rocks and Minerals: A Gem of a Read.

We have subscriptions to Discovery Streaming, which has many related videos, though I liked the ones from United Streaming that I could link to for free from this neat site about the rock cycle called Rocks to Soil.

We also use Explore Learning, which has some great Gizmos. The Rock Classification Gizmo and the Rock Cycle Gizmo and the Mineral Identification Gizmo all fit right into our study. You can try them for 5 minutes at a time for free each time you visit the site, and Homeschool Buyer's Co-op is currently offering a group buy.

Our little class is about to move on to collecting and testing sample. I even bough a small amount of HCl from Home Science Tools for when we get to mineral identification. I hope the weather doesn't get too cold yet!

UPDATE

How could I forget these three wonderful books (thanks Jennifer!):

Solubility, Capillary Action, Math, and Art

2009-09-10T22:46:00.005-04:00

This week we had a combined art and science project, with a little math thrown in for good measure!

You need a white T-shirt, permanent markers, isopropyl alcohol (we used 70% though 90% would be fine too,) a dropper bottle (we used a non-medical syringe,) a large plastic cup, and a rubber band. Here you see the boys posing with their new T-shirts ready to start the project.

Slip the plastic cup inside the T-shirt so the opening of the cup faces towards the front panel of the shirt. On the outside of the shirt, pull the shirt tightly over the cup and put the rubber band around the top to secure it.

Put spots of various colors on the section of the shirt secured to the cup. You can put wavy lines, too, if you like the effect.

Here's the science part. Permanent markers are not soluble in water, but they are in alcohol. Fill your dropper bottle with the isopropyl alcohol and drop in onto the decorated section. Because the permanent marker is alcohol-soluble, the ink "runs." Capillary action moves the ink along the fabric.

Because the syringes are graduated, the boys made up math problems as they went along, like, "Mom, if I had 30 mm of alcohol to start and now I have 10 mm, how much did I use?"

Here are the boys with their finished projects.

We did have a PROBLEM though. I rinsed the shirts in water before washing them, but all the ink washed away. Next time I am going to rinse them well again, then run them through the dryer to evaporate off all the alcohol (it is very volatile, which is why it has such a strong odor) before washing it. The boys have been bugging me to get more shirts ever since.

One Lovely Blog Award

2009-08-26T10:37:00.006-04:00

Thank you Sara in the Woods for this award posted on her blog The Forest Room. Just the graphic alone makes this a neat meme to pass along! I am a tea drinker; I have an entire cabinet filled with different varieties and accessories, with more loose teas in my ginger jars.

Here are the rules of this award:

Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link.

Pass the award to up to 15 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

This needs to go back to Sara and The Forest Room as her blog is a wonderful discovery!
Learners At Home are from my neck of the woods...
...as is Every Day Best (and a long lost college friend!)
Live Life with Your Kids is another neat CMer blog.
Over the summer I found Catholic Cuisine and we are actually going to incorporate it into our TORCH classes this fall. They have the lovely tea set up in the corner, too.
Heart of a Mother is another lovely and inspiring blog new to me.

I could also give this to most of my long time favorites, too!

Free Museum Day is Approaching

2009-08-23T13:34:00.004-04:00

Saturday, September 26th is Museum Day, when loads of participating museums offer free admission. Which one shall we go to the year?

Living Science Author: Robert Gilmore

2009-08-09T13:50:00.020-04:00

I only picked up The Wizard of Quarks yesterday at my favorite used books store, and so I have only read a little of it. Yet in researching this book and others by Robert Gilmore, Once Upon a Universe, Scrooge's Cryptic Carol, and Alice in Quantumland, I knew I had to post about these marvelous living science books.

Each book explains complicated physics through a modern retelling of a classic fairy tale. The Wizard of Quarks is an introduction to atomic physics told through Frank L. Baum's classic. Grimm's Fairy Tales are used to explain the universe in Once Upon a Universe: Not So Grimm Tales of Cosmology. Three ghosts visit a descendant of Dicken's famous character in Scrooge's Cryptic Carol: Visions of Energy, Time, and Quantum Nature. And then there's Alice in Quantumland, with the obvious nod to the Lewis Carroll classic.

Make no mistake, these are college-level books dealing with college-level concepts. I noticed that several comments on Amazon mention these books being enjoyed by elementary students, they are that fun, even if they didn't get all the concepts. It seems only scientists pan the books, and not for the content but rather for the fairy tales.

These books are rather pricey as new hardcovers but used copies are readily available at good prices. (I've already ordered the other three myself.) I will post a full review on Shelfari as soon as I finish these delightful finds!

So far Dorothy has encounter the very large witch of mass, who explains how her strength is far, far less than her sister, electromagnetism. She has two other sisters, too--strong (color) interaction and weak interaction.

Dorothy has also met the Observant Scarecrow in an electron probability field...

Six Week High School Webinar on Blood

2009-08-04T21:14:00.004-04:00

I am teaching an online webinar course about the physiology and pathophysiology of blood called:

Blood in Sickness and in Health

"You won't faint at the sight of blood in this virtual class! We'll explore what blood is and does, how it is made, how it clots, and blood typing. We'll also look at how blood is tested in a medical laboratory, what the results are when a person is healthy and how it changes in illness. Each student will present their own research into a specific blood disorder of his or her choosing."

If you register before August 15th, the cost is an incredible $60; after that the cost is $75. There's an additional $20 lab course; one-time access to a 400x microscope is required.

The course starts Friday, September 18th and continues for six consecutive weeks. The live webinar portions are every Friday from 3:00 to 4:15 pm EDT. This is a great opportunity for high school homeschool. I am really excited about this course and the others offered by Homeschool Connections.

New Sylvan Dell Book, Free Trial eBook Access

2009-07-29T19:33:00.004-04:00

Sylvan Dell Publishing has 5 wonderful new titles coming out this fall, including Count Down to Fall by Fran Hawk, illustrated by Sherry Neidigh.

The book is written in short verses surrounded by a two-page spread of beautiful autumn scenes. It focuses on tree leaves, both their shapes as well as their autumn colors. This is a great early elementary book for a tree study, and, like other Sylvan Dell books, includes activities involving tree leaves as well as plants in general.

If you think this or any other Sylvan Dell books look good, like I do, you can check them all out for free for the next 90 days. Check out Sara Dobie's blog for the press release and the link. You can open and flip through all the pages of all their books. You can even have automatic page-turning with accompanying audio. It is a great opportunity to check out Sylvan Dell's wonderful line of science and math books.

The Eclipse in China

2009-07-22T20:29:00.003-04:00

If you have not visited Jimmie's new web site, Jimmie's Collage, then you should check it out.

She's a homeschooling mom living in China so she got a great view of the eclipse. She has a fabulous blog entry about it here.

I Guess Education Is an Atmosphere...

2009-07-19T14:16:00.002-04:00

...at least when it comes to science at our house. Here are the boys spontaneously role playing together. Ds#1 and Ds#2 are surgeons--see, they have their masks on. They are cardiac surgeons, specifically, performing an open heart on Ds#3. They even fully draped the patient so that only the critical area is in the work window (I have no idea where they picked that up!)

I understand the patient did well.

Molecularium interactive

2009-07-13T11:24:00.004-04:00

I recently came across this interesting interactive, called the Molecularium, that is a great way to introduce kids to molecular structure and chemical notation.

When you follow the link you will want to click on the nanolab, the top button on the right, and then select the Build option.

Using 3 atoms--oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen--kids construct a series of common molecules. Mel, the computer, then gives a few facts about what they have made. Kids work their way through 3 levels plus a bonus round.

The Zoom activity views the earth at different distances, while the Transform activity shows water as a solid, liquid, and gas as the temperature changes, so there's not a lot to them. The home site showcases Digital Dome movies (shown in a planetarium) the project is producing.

Wow--Free NASA Webinar for Homeschoolers

2009-07-04T11:15:00.002-04:00

Homeschool Connections has announced an incredible free science webinar with NASA engineer Domenico Ruggiero. Here are the details from the Unity of Truth blog.

Register for the July 29 event at One Small Step for Parents, One Giant Leap for Homeschool Kids: Insights from a NASA Engineer

I am certainly looking forward to this one!

Science Saturday Challenge #11

2009-07-04T11:00:00.005-04:00

More About Cohesion and Adhesion

I found so many experiments about the topic I created an entire webinar with a whole series of experiments including the two from challenge #9.

You can view the webinar for free anytime.

I found a lot of my material in Super Science Concoctions--a great book to have on your homeschool shelf!

Courses and Webinars Listing

2009-07-03T18:44:00.015-04:00

I teach live online human anatomy and physiology classes for high school homeschoolers through Walter Crawford and Maureen Wittmann's company, Homeschool Connections.

I teach classes every fall and spring. If the online live schedule does not fit your schedule, you can also purchase a subscription service that gives you access to all recorded courses.

I have the following courses available:

Blood in Sickness and in Health
The Immune System in Sickness and in Health

I hope to have one or even two additional courses ready for the 2010-2011 year. Go to Homeschool Connections and click on the Courses tab to see the upcoming schedule. Besides my science courses, Homeschool Connections offers an extensive and growing list of short courses in literature, history, theology, government, economics, and more, all taught from an authentic Catholic persective. They also have free live and recorded webinars for homechooling parents.

Lesson Planning Web Resources

2009-07-03T17:54:00.004-04:00

I've started my lesson planning for next year, so I dusted off some of web sites I find most useful for finding educational material. I find all sorts of lesson plans, animations, interactive sites, video clips, and more through these sites.

I list them all in this post from my homeschool blog Science of Relations.

Happy planning!

Looking Into the Top of a Tornado

2009-06-10T09:33:00.002-04:00

My kids are fascinated by extreme weather, especially tornadoes. They are avid fans of Storm Chasers, and had to explain to me what the TIV is. When Ds#1 saw this video he could even identify the doppler in the background.

Living Science Author: Eric Sloane

2009-06-07T19:10:00.007-04:00

Eric Sloane (1905-1985) was an artist and author whose work spanned most of the twentieth century. His books about weather and all sorts of things Americana, filled with spectacular detailed line drawings, are both a pleasure to read and to browse.

While Weather Book and Book of Storms are technical, great for advanced weather studies, Look at the Sky and Tell the Weather is a wonderful collection of short stories that are great for a read aloud. The stories in succession follow a weather front from western Canada to New England, describing how people and weather interact.

All of these books are available as oversized paperback reprints through Dover publishing.

In 1975 he also painted a wall mural, Earth Flight Environment, for the Smithsonian Air and Space museum. We're headed that was this month so we're hoping to see in person.

Next webinar is June 30th

2009-06-01T21:46:00.003-04:00

I am having another free live webinar: Science At Home: Cohesion and Adhesion, June 30th at 8:30 pm EDT.

Cohesion, adhesion, surface tension, capillary action--this webinar will explore them all through a variety of experiments put together with whatever I can manage to find around the house. Click here to register.

I hope you will join me!

Science Saturday Challenge #10

2009-05-30T06:00:00.000-04:00

Buckyballs and Molecular Biology

I found this article to be an interesting if unusual connection between biology and math.

Buckyball Computer Simulations Help Team Find Molecular Key To Combating HIV

ScienceDaily (2009-05-25) -- Researchers have identified specific molecules that could block the means by which HIV -- the deadly virus that causes AIDS -- spreads by taking away its ability to bind with other proteins. Computer simulations were used to test more than 100 carbon fullerene, or "buckyball," derivatives initially developed for other purposes to see if they could be used to inhibit a strain of the virus, HIV-1 PR, by attaching themselves to its binding pocket.

You can build a buckyball with Zome, or use toothpicks with marshmallows or large gummy candies (yum!) If you look carefully at the picture you will see the model combines pentagons and hexagons in a soccer ball type pattern. Each hexagon has attached to it alternating pentagons and hexagons. Here is the Zome flyer with directions from the old web site should you get stuck.

For an extension, try building a molecule with a binding pocket into which the buckyball "fits" (or at least sits in.)

To help round out your lesson you can read more interesting information about fullerene.

Science Logic Curriculum

2009-05-29T19:34:00.003-04:00

I recently saw this interesting science series. What intrigues me the most is that it is written by a science-teacher-turned-homeschooler mom that I "run into" at a lot of Charlotte Mason and Classical homeschooling sites.

Makita sees as I do a lack of solid middle school science for homeschoolers that is not written from a Creationist perspective. (It's great that such excellent Creationist material is available, BTW, since you are unlikely to find anything about it at your local library.)

As a result she created Science Logic: Sciences for the Logic Stage. While I have not seen the whole package, she has a free sample download of her first one, Earth Logic, and it looks excellent. You can order it spiral bound, unbound, or as a pdf file. She plans on releasing Life Logic and Physics Logic later in the year. Nice job, Makita!

Living media: The Way Things Work videos

2009-05-25T09:41:00.007-04:00

Our family enjoys David Macaulay books, from Cathedral, Castle, and Underground to The Way Things Work; soon we will have The Way We Work on our home science shelves, too.

The Way Things Work introduces basic science concepts, often using brief stories involving mammoths. It then has wonderful illustrations of all sorts of inventions that operate based on the concept introduced. (See my review on the Shelfari widget.)

The book has an accompanying video series. We recently borrowed the Electricity DVD from the library. Instead of just being a reproduction of the work, the video is actually an expansion of the mini-stories introducing science concepts.

If these were books they would be excellent living science books. Instead they are great animated science tales. My kids keep asking to watch them, so we'll be renting more soon!

Science Saturday Challenge #9

2009-05-21T22:57:00.008-04:00

Surface Tension

Water is an amazing molecule for many, many reasons, one of which is it's incredible surface tension. First read this article: Sticky Water from the Exporatorium to get an idea of why water has such adhesive abilities.

A great book about water, including surface tension, with stunning pictures is A Drop of Water by Walter Wick.

These experiments are easy to do and visually impressive, both of which make for favorite science experiments in our house!

Materials
A small bowl of water
Pepper
Liquid soap (for hands or dishes)

Procedure
Sprinkle pepper onto the surface of the water until it pretty much covers it.

Dip a clean finger into the bowl of water, and Ds#2 and Ds#3 are doing in the picture below.

Now rub your fingertip with a little of the liquid soap and dip it back into the center of the bowl.

Now try the experiment with milk and food coloring for a more dazzling display!

Soap has a polar "head" that attracts the hydrogen bonds of the water, but also has a hydrophobic "tail" that stick up at the water surface. When the water bonds to the soap the tails break up the surface tension. That makes the pepper and the food coloring scatter, and gets dirt off of surfaces!

New Nature Series

2009-05-18T12:01:00.002-04:00

I regularly follow two fabulous blogs, In the Sparrow's Nest and Our Journey Westward. These two ladies have launched a fabulous new nature series called NaturExplorers available through their company, Shining Dawn Books.

To celebrate the launch, they are giving away six units from the series. You can enter to win three of them at this post from In the Sparrow's Nest and three of them at this post from Our Journey Westward.

Enjoy!

My dragonfly is the Zome Model of the Month!

2009-05-16T15:27:00.006-04:00

I built this last year and it finally made it to publication as the Zome Model of the Month! Looking at a dragonfly made me think of the Golden Ratio, which made me think of Zome, and the rest is history.

I found this to be very interesting on the website:

"If you are a purist, you can skip the supports and suspend the model from monofilament fishing line, as we did in February at our stand in the international toy fair in Nuremberg, Germany."

I'm blushing, guys. The Divine Ratio in Nature recreated in Zome.

Science Saturday Challenge #8

2009-05-16T00:05:00.003-04:00

I successfully completed my first webinar! It has all sorts of information about homeschooling science, resources, and lots of experiments regarding static electricity. Just click on the Science Saturday logo to view the show.

Thanks to everyone who attended, and to Homeschool Connections for making this possible!

Post a comment when you try some of these yourself.

Science, Faith, Angels & Demons

2009-05-15T23:58:00.003-04:00

While this starts as a movie review, it addresses the myth about the relationship between science and the Catholic Church.

NatGeo on Pandemics tonight

2009-05-11T20:50:00.005-04:00

Tonight NatGeo presents Swine Flu: The Science of Pandemics at 10pm EDT.

You can bet my DVR is set for it...

Happy Mother's Day with Magnets

2009-05-10T21:08:00.005-04:00

Only Ds#2, the same child that makes happy birthday music out of snap circuits, could make such a beautiful and touching surprise for me out of paper clips, magnets, a compass, and a small knob. Thanks, Sweetie!

BTW, Ds#3 felt we should spend time together on Mother's Day so he went and got our M.E.P. math books for us.

God bless all us mothers out here in the blogosphere and those Twittering away!

What do you want offered?

2009-05-04T11:01:00.002-04:00

Homeschool Connections is filling out its offerings of online courses, seminars, and free webinars and want to know what you homeschoolers want to see offered.

Please take the survey to let Maureen and Walter know!

Science Saturday Challenge #7

2009-05-03T12:37:00.003-04:00

I know, it's Sunday, but I had to work all day yesterday...

Any guesses what this is a picture of?

Spiral Science & Math Manipulative

2009-04-30T10:07:00.008-04:00

Fibonacci numbers are practically unheard of outside of math circles, and yet the math, science, and even art concepts that tie into them are many. Spiral Science & Math Manipulative is an elegant and inexpensive way to extensively explore these relationships.

Ds#1 and I have been trying out the many acitivities available at the web site. Middle school or above students with a good understanding of fractions, decimals, and percentages will get the most out of this neat kit, though upper elementary kids can use it for simpler activities. Ds#1 does not have that much math under his belt, but enjoyed the activity on hand bone ratios nonetheless. He was able to figure out the pattern of the Fibonacci sequence after a bit of thought--and that made it all the more wonderful for him.

The 13x21 cm kit consists of 7 magnetic sheets that have numbers and a spiral-forming curve on one side and examples of spirals in nature on the other, a magnetic sheet to work on, and a thick vinyl pouch to keep it in. The Teacher's Guide is included, containing six lessons, and the web site has another 8 activities all aligned to national standards (if you keep track of them.) You can also buy class packs for your co-op, but these are significantly more expensive.

Some of the vocabulary and concepts you will explore with this kit include logarithmic (Archimedes) spiral, tessellations, ratio, proportion, golden mean, interval scale, X and Y axis, controls and variables, histogram, average, and more. With a cost of less than $15, this kit certainly offers a lot of science and math exploration for the dollar.

Bugscope session: Wow!

2009-04-28T21:11:00.002-04:00

Today we had our last day of co-op. I taught Hands-on Science to a group of ten 6 to 8 year olds that finished up with our live Bugscope session!

The details to reserve time on the scanning electron microscope are at the website. We collected bug and mailed them out last week. The folks at Bugscope (I believe they are grad students studying various small arthropods) mount them and are then available for live chat during the session. You can have up to 20 computers logged in; we had 4. Below are some of the images we were able to manipulate--center, zoom, focus--from our computers.

While only one computer at a time has control, you can type questions from any of them. The grad students were great! And this fidgety class of rambunctious kids were fascinated for the full hour that we had reserved. They seemed to love it more than the older kids that wandered in late in the session.

This is something our co-op will certainly do again next year!

Living Science--literature v. mulitimedia

2009-04-24T10:53:00.005-04:00

I have commented before about how limited the living science literature field really is. If you want a nature story, or a biography you're in luck, but beyond that you will have trouble. That's why I like to feature good living science literature here.

Interestingly, while discussing this topic on Julie's Living Math Forum Yahoo group, she noted how hard it was to find any biographies of mathematicians. It seems math is full of concept readers, where science is lacking, and science is full of biographies, where math is lacking. Both, of course, have their share of text books.

While I am not giving up on science literature by any means, I have discovered that it is much easier to find wonderful science multimedia and web sites than literature. I have mentioned some of them here, and will continue to do so.

A related topic came up on the MEP board in the context of being unable to advance in science because of a lag in math. Living science multimedia is one good way to continue learning science without the math intensity of a science curriculum.

Science Saturday Challenge goes live!

2009-04-19T20:56:00.005-04:00

I have thoroughly enjoyed the live webinars at Homeschool Connections, and many more have been scheduled, including mine! Science At Home: Static Electricity live webinar airs on Wednesday, May 13th at 8:30pm Eastern time. You can register here. I will be discussing homeschooling science as well as static electricity, and then demonstrating several experiments relating to the topic.

If you miss the live webinar I will post a link as the next Science Saturday Challenge so you can view it at any time.

I hope this effort will make homeschool science easier for those who are just a touch intimidated by the subject, or for those who want to break away from the textbooks and boxed curricula.

You can see all the upcoming webinars here.

Blessings,