October had National Chemistry Week and Mole Day!

Flinn has a free Halloween poster and Zoom background here.  I do NOT spend a month doing spooky experiments or decorating for Halloween.  We set out a pumpkin and distribute candy for trick or treaters. Period.  

October is National Chemistry Week, October 17-23, to coincide with Mole Day, October 23.  Here are activities for the 2021 Theme is about Reaction Rates.  Here is the 2021 magazine.  NCW has loads of ideas from previous years.  (Scroll down the page for the links to archived editions.).  Here are some ideas for NCW from Flinn.  Cap off Chemistry Week with Mole Day.  This blog post has a video showing how to make felt moles.  This year’s mole day theme is ‘HaMoleton’.  Make your celebratIon patriotic.  Have a blast!

Concepts Maps

 My teens in Co-op create concept maps.  Concept Maps promote higher levels of thinking.  The kids need to know the vocabulary before they can categorize or groups of like ideas or terms.  Here is the website, ihmc, free concept mapping software for Windows, OSX, iPad, and Linux.  Here are the downloads.  I start the kids with cards; they work in groups to create maps.  Here is a sample Jamboard concept map.  Here are instructions for Google Docs and here for Google Drawings.

The kids in Biology just started an Ecology concept map.  Here is the list of vocabulary for Ecology to create a concept map, 25 in all: food, ecology, biology, producers, consumers, decomposers, community, population, food chain, food web, biosphere, biome, ecosystem, herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, niche, habitat, predator, prey, competition, symbiosis, scavengers, parasites, and species.  As you work on your concept map, you may want to add terms, such as trophic levels, levels of organization, or types of symbiosis, habitats, or niches.  Below are a few concept maps.  Initially, I make sets of vocabulary cards for the kids to use for their concept maps.  Eventually, the kids can devise their own from the module’s key ideas and vocabulary.

Mark-Recapture Lab

 Today the kids completed the Mark-Recapture Lab, another simulation.  The purpose is to understand how forest rangers estimate populations, such as deer herds.  How to forest rangers know there is a deer problem?  Here is a detailed lesson.  Deer are bagged, tagged, and released back into the woods.  Hunters return tags from deer hunted.  My kids determined the estimates of the bean population, counted the actual number of beans, and calculated the percent error.

Let’s rap!

 I like science songs or raps.  I plan to introduce Cells, Module 6, right after Ecology, Module 10.  Once in awhile I use a rap.  This time, I’m using the Cell Theory Rap.  I warn kids to wear their Depends before class.  I’m going to sing Waltz Around the Cycle when we tackle TCA Cycle.  Wish me luck!

Virus Colors

 I am still collecting Chromebooks for the digital microscopes.  I want the kids to spend time sketching what they see under the microscope.  One exercise is sketching viruses like these.  I took a screenshot and spend twenty minutes doing a few watercolors.  Sketching microscope slides is a classic exercise.  It forces the student to closely examine the slide.  Painting or making color pencil or marker sketches has the same result.  Kids need to look more closely and study the image.  Here are my samples.  I’m sure the teen’s will produce better images.

Owl Pellet Food Webs

 Below are sample food webs, the kids completed in class today. I removed the kids’ names and cut off most of the titles.  The complexity and detail vary; some of the kids have a stronger understanding than others.  Everyone has the basic concept and they are all learning.  Take a look.

The Lynx Eats the Hare

Update: Below are pix.  One tip: at trials 9-11, the population of Lynx and hares May crash.  Just start over with three hares and one lynx.  Continue to tally results.

 My Co-op class is emerged in Module 10, Ecology.  Thursday, the kids will tackle  Flinn’s The Lynx Eats the Hare lab.  It is more of a simulation than a lab.  Here is the slideshow I assembled with a bit of background, the Flinn video about the lab, and a few screenshots of the data graphed.  My kids are going to do the simulation and graph the sample data.  I’m going to have my husband, Rob, take a look at the data to see if we can do some analysis in a spreadsheet, too.  I am trying to add more graphing analysis to the Biology course and expose kids to both spreadsheets and graphing calculators earlier.  BTW, the graph is from GraphNCalc83,  an emulator app for Apple, installed on my iPad.  I’ll post pix Thursday when the kids do the simulation.

Family Science: Leaves

Update: Have you considered Wax-Dipped Leaves?

 Update: Flinn has The Science Behind Autumn Leaves: Fall Foliage, Leaf Patterns, and Photosynthesis Study Techniques.  Take advantage of these free ideas.

You can combine some art and science with leaves.  Start by collecting a variety of leaves, especially a variety of colors.  Here are instructions from Scientific American explaining how to crush the leaves to extract pigment for Paper Chromatography.  (Below are several images from Co-op of the kids doing paper chromatography.)  Your family may like paper chromatography.  Younger kids will like leaf rubbings.  Try using chalk, pastels, and crayons.  Dick Blick, a popular art company, has a Curtain of Leaves Monoprint to use for inspiration.  While you have out the paint your family could experiment with Tempera Paint Pours.  Our family uses art for Christmas presents, even making humble notecards.  One more art idea: Paper Clay Leaves.  Use the lesson for inspiration.  You are pressing real leaves into clay and painting the clay.  Here are instructions to make paper clay.  Good luck.  The only time I tried making paper from scratch was a disaster.  Instead, make up different homemade clays.  Try embossing each clay with leaves.  Bonus points for distinctive dyes for the clay leaves.  Our family embossed shark teeth in Skulpey clay in the photo below.  Your whole family can spend Friday afternoon gathering leaves, making prints, embossing leaves, and creating rubbings.  Set aside the best products for presents.

 

Google Sheets for Data

 Update: Here is the video my husband, Rob, did this morning for class.  One of the kids, Lacie, edited to 15 minutes, which we all know is very long.  Take a look.

On Tuesday, my husband, Rob, is going to give a lesson on spreadsheets.  I’ll record his lesson, upload the video to YouTube, and post it to the blog for reference.  The kids are loading data from the Apple Mummies lab into a Google spreadsheet.  (The photo with some of the data is below.)  I plan to have the kids collect data from osmosis and enzyme labs next month to summarize in spreadsheets.  My husband, Rob, feels strongly that the kids should be able to manipulate and manage data.  Google Sheets is another free tool to add a bit of tech into your lessons.

Food Web Instructions

 The kids dissected Owl Pellets.  The kids are using the species identified to create food webs; here are instructions.  I have kids lists the types of animals identified by their bones, using this bone sorting chart.  The kids listed the species on the board and researched birds and rodents the barn owl might eat.  Most of the local birds, such as cardinals, blue jays, and robins are either carnivorous or omnivorous.  LBBs, little brown birds, tend to be seed eaters or herbivores.  Here is an owl pellet food web.  Here is a lesson on trophic levels.  Our food web will look a bit different.  See the sample I made below.  FYI food webs get messy quickly.

Apple Mummies

 The kids weighed the apple pieces they are drying in different salts.  We discussed it; there should be three weeks of data, similar to three trials.  We’re combining data from each group to average.  The kids are writing formal lab reports next week.  Here is the slideshow explaining how to write a lab report which includes a scoring sheet.  My kids write four formal lab reports, which are required by some of the online home-school programs.  The kids will complete food webs, graphs, observations, etc; I limit the number of formal labs to four.  Below is a shot of the data.  All of the kids are entering their data into one spreadsheet to average all of the data.  I encourage kids to make a copy of their data electronically.  Whew!  I’ll post sample lab reports when they roll in next week.  BTW a teen with learning differences could use the lab slideshow to write the report in Slides.

Owl Pellet Dissection

 The kids dissected owl pellets—finally!  They used this bone sorting chart.  Here is the lesson at HST.  The bone sorting chart is proportionate to the bones in the owl pellets.  I instruct the teens to put the bones on the chart to identify the species and make a list on the board.  Next Tuesday, the kids are making food webs for the Owl Pellet lab, the final assessment.  I took loads of pix.  Take a look.  Yes, this is a big class for Co-op, sixteen.

Hold on while I overthink this!

 My Co-op Bio Class’s motto this year is ‘Hold on while I overthink this.’  Really.  Today the kids completed this Taxonomy WS, worked on Button Dichotomous Keys, and a few did the Deer Starvation graph on the TI 83/84.  I wanted to have the kids use the TI graphing calculator to enter data and calculate a linear regression.  I chose an ecological example.  We spent time entering and graphing the data.  Why?  I want the kids exposed to graphing calculators before college.  Only six kids graphed because the others were busy overthinking their button dichotomous key or the taxonomy worksheet.

Food Webs

 Apologia Biology, Module 10 is all about Ecology.  This web the kids are learning how to create food webs—hopefully!  They will dissect owl pellets Thursday, after the extra pellets arrive. And create owl food webs.  (My class grew after I placed my initial order this summer.)  I use picture cards, like these for the initial food webs.  The kids can create the food webs on a table and use chalk to connect the diner with its meal.  Here is a more sophisticated food web with pix to sort.  Here is one more food web for kids to sort.  I like this sort of activity because I can give easier versions to my kids who are easily overwhelmed and harder versions to groups who enjoy a challenge.  The goal is to take the list of 100 species and create a giant food web.  

Element Day!

 A teacher, Antoine, posted pix of his students’ element t-shirts on social media.  Below is one example.  Here is a rubric if you want to use the idea for a chemistry project.  The Periodic Table of Cookies dovetails well with this t-shirt project.

Owl Pellets

This week the kids are doing owl pellet dissections.  You only need toothpicks and paper plates for an owl pellet dissection.  This home-school mom has produced an entire Owl Pellet  Study Unit.  Here are resources from HST.  Scholastic has this simple lesson plan.  What are owl pellets?  They are regurgitated bones and fur.  Here is the bone sorting chart we use.  My teens sort bones from the pellets and try to identify voles, mice, moles, birds, etc.  The kids need to see what moles, mice,  voles, and birds eat.  The final product is an owl pellet food web.  The image is from a previous owl pellet dissection.  I’ll post pix this week.  We might not dissect until Thursday.  I have 15 kids-more than I anticipated when I ordered the pellets.  I’m hoping the extra pellets arrive Tuesday or Wednesday.  If you have barn and your own owl pellets, here is an article about how to sterilize owl pellets.

New Spin on Mentos and Coke

 I saw a post on social media with Mentos and Coke experiments next to a brick building.  Kids can measure bricks and count them to determine he height of the coke fountain.  The image below is from the teacher’s post on social media.  Here are detailed notes and ideas from Steve Spangler.  If your geyser or fountain is next to any building, kids can measure the height.  Here is another way to teach experimental design.  Remember there should be a minimum of three trials.  Your goal is to isolate one measurable variable, the independent variable; it could be sugar or Diet Coke, temperature, number of mentos, etc.  What single factor is tested?  What are controlled variables?  These may be temperature of Coke, number of Mentos tablets, and volume, say all one liter bottles, or all two liter bottles.  Here is the post we made earlier when we were teaching Paul about controlled variables

Button Dichotomous Key

Here are the instructions for Building a Dichotomous Key.  Below is a photo of buttons from one of the groups.  Your teen can use these to build his or her own dichotomous key.  Be careful!  This activity requires some hard thinking.  Be ready for some frustration.  Once the kids finish the key for these buttons, I’ll post their key for your teen to test.  My kids are swapping buttons and keys to test among the different groups.