Many of my kids report to online home-school academies: Mother of Divine Grace, Kolbe Academy, Homeschool Connections, and Seton Home Study School. Parents submit work samples to the online schools: tests, lab reports, models, etc. Each school has different requirements for Co-op classes. I try to keep the work sample submission requirements in mind as I teach. Basically, the online school wants evidence that the Biology or Chemistry class has labs. Additionally, since we use Apologia Biology, I try to schedule labs which are similar to the experiments in the textbook. Today, the kids did the Apologia Biology Experiment 14.2, ‘How Anthocyanins and pH Help Determine Leaf Color’. Surprise! I did not follow the lab exactly. Instead of boiling cabbage leaves, we used red cabbage powder. Apologia Biology instructs the kids to boil the red cabbage. Here are instructions from Carolina Biological to just blend the red cabbage leaves. Here is an entire thread about using different methods to extract pigment from turmeric, red cabbage, etc. Believe me, I have used several methods. What a pain! I just buy the red cabbage powder instead. My kids mixed up extract and tested it with baking soda, ammonia, citric acid solution, and vinegar. Here is a red cabbage pH chart. When you mix the red cabbage powder in water, pH 7, the solution is purple. Litmus pH strips are made from lichens.
We also started the Transpiration lab. The kids bagged up cucumber seedlings, some in light, and others inside a box. Several plants are serving as controls, unbagged. Let’s see if there is moisture on Thursday. I took pix.
No comments:
Post a Comment