Journey North--Our Results

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.

• Perth, Australia
• Guatemala City, Guatemala
• SANAE-IV, Antarctica
• Hong Kong, China
• Mahikeng, South Africa
• Jerusalem, Israel
• Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Sarnia, Canada
• Pointe-Noire, Republic of the Congo
• Daegu Metropolitan City, South Korea

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

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!

Angular Momentum with Zomes

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...

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,