Crushing Cans

Ds#3 loves to watch videos from The Happy Scientist Robert Krampf and then goes about performing them.  This time around he got busy crushing cans using steam.  The videos below demonstrate how he did it.  Notice in the background of the second video, where Ds#2 is giving an explanation, that Ds#1 is having a little fun.

Science Olympiad Competition

I never did blog about the Science Olympiad competition, until now that is.  Our competition was back in March.  In the end we had a team of five and we competed in the following events:

• Food Science
• Road Scholar
• Crime Busters
• Storm the Castle

While it's hard to see in the picture, our team is the small group without matching shirts just about in the center of the picture.  This year Massachusetts had a record number of both regular and alternate teams, and we were the first homeschool team ever.

There's no substitute for that first experience to understand how the competition works.  For as strict as the rules portray everything, the middle school level at least was not quite so rigid.  And I had expected that I had to be with them for every competition when in fact only the competitors were allowed in to most events.

We competed against many top schools, many of which have been competing for years with not only a primary team but also one or even two alternates.  We all gathered in the gym for the final award of medals (for regular teams) and ribbons (for alternates.)  I just can't describe the shock and joy of hearing our team's name announced as the third place alternate winner for Crime Busters.  Our two competitors are in the bottom picture.

We had a great experience.  Yes, there's a lot of work.  Yes, there's a lot of stress.  Yes, it's a big time commitment. It's worth it.

Inquiry Cubes and the Scientific Method

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.

What Is Wrong With PandaMania

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

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!

Journey North Time!

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.

Planets and Meteors August 12

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.

Review: Secrets of the Universe

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.

Cloud Investigation Day 1

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

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.
 

Science Fair

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

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.

MIT Edgerton Center Field Trip

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.

Journey North Update

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

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...