Cheap and Easy Ecology: Mark-Recapture Labs

Capture-Recapture or Mark-Recapture is one tool field biologists use to measure populations, such as deer herds.  Here are several lessons about white-tailed deer.  I have a box of plastic dinosaurs I use to demonstrate the technique of capture-recapture.   I demonstrate capture methods by picking out a handful of dinosaurs and banding them with rubber bands.  I return the dinos to the box and shake it.  Kids pick out a handful of dinos and count both banded and unbanded dinos.  This is repeated three times.  All dinos are released back to the box.  (No dinosaur is injured during this activity.)  We take an average of the three trials and estimate the dino population in the box.  We count the actual number and compare results.

Next, we use this simulation with white beans.  My kids mark white beans instead of using red beans.  Below are pix and sample calculations.  We out the marked beans back after each sample is counted.  Your results will differ if you remove marked beans.  This is an opportunity to introduce spreadsheets, too.

Are you interested in deer?  Would you like an activity for Co-op?  Take a look at Project Wild’s deer simulation, ‘Oh Deer!’  Here, here, and here all describe Oh Deer!  

Jamboard Alternatives

 I just received an email from Google that Jamboard is disappearing in a year.  Booo!  Jamboard is an online whiteboard.  I taught Co-op classes remotely during COVID.  While most of our classes are live now, my teens sign in remotely for a variety of reasons: car trouble, logistics conflicts, sick sibling, etc.  I like to have a digital whiteboard.  It’s a great way to write an equation or draw a food web digitally, for kids who are meeting remotely.  I also use Jamboard to grade and send feedback.  My teens frequently test at home.  They upload tests or assignments.  I take a screenshot and upload it to Jamboard to mark.  I can share the Jamboard with the student for him or her to correct.  Below is an example.

There are loads of digital whiteboards.  Here are several Jamboard alternatives.  I don’t need text boxes, sticky notes, or fancy functions.  I want to be able to use a stylus on my iPad, just like I use a marker on a whiteboard in class.  I tried a few whiteboard apps.  For most, there are too many choices.  I like Web Whiteboard.  It looks and functions like Jamboard.  Web Whiteboard is a Miro product.  I tried Miro, too.  This app has too many moving parts for me.  It looks as though I have a year to get acquainted with a new whiteboard.  Sigh.

How to Make a Giant Food Web

 The Bio Co-op class is working on their lists of species and giant food webs.  My kids use 100 species.  However, I reduce the number to 25 for students with learning differences.  I’ll post more examples when the kids finish the latest food webs.

Step 1: Create a list of species.  We focused on organisms in Virginia.

Step 2: Research the scientific names ( Genus species) for each organism.

Step 3: Determine the trophic levels for all species.  

Step 4: Write the common names for all species, organize by tropic levels, and add arrows.  The arrows go from the meal to the diner.  Student could list both common names and scientific names on the food web.  Your teen might want to write the names once on an index card and sort the species on a large piece of cardboard.  This method can help students who are easily frustrated. 

Attention Co-ops! Free Traveling Trunks!

Many museums and national parks offer traveling trunks.  For example, Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge has All About Owls and Scats and Tracks.  Homestead National Historic Park has Prairie Animals, Prairie Life, and a Buffalo trunk.  (Homestead has history trunks, too.)  Upper Delaware has Birds of Prey and Wildlife trunks.  There is even EduBat, bat Education—not baseball.  Do you see a theme?  Check with any museum near your home or Co-op.  A docent may be willing to make a trip and deliver a program to your Co-op.

NASA offers teacher programs, too, through regional centers, such as  The Fairmont, WV Katherine Johnson facility. (If you live in West Virginia, scroll to the bottom and contact Todd Ensign for more information.).  Once teachers have training, they may borrow kits, bins with equipment.  I used to recruit teachers and home-school parents to attend trainings.  Once trained, I borrowed bins, such as IR thermometers.  

Most trunks are free.  Check!  Ask if all shipping costs are included.  Call the museum or park managing the traveling trunk program to discuss details.  Plan well in advance.  Ask a parent in your Co-op who likes to plan or manage logistics to contact the park and book the trunk.   

National Museum of the Marine: Free Homeschool Events and Resources!

Our Co-op is fairly close to the National Museum of the Marine, or the Marine Corps Museum, outside Washington D.C.  (Distance in miles around D.C. is not as important as the amount of traffic.) First, they have a Distant Learning Program if you live far from D.C.  one example from the Distance Learning materials is Animals in the Military (with a video) and brochure with a few questions.  Here are more resources, such as Codes and Communication, which has activities, such as a Cipher Wheel.  The Marine Corps Museum hosts family and home-school events.  Family events are generally held on Saturdays and Homeschool events on Wednesdays.  Lastly, take a look at the Teachers tab. There are worksheets (puzzles and fact sheets), Museum reservation form, and the Teaching Trunk program: K-5 brochure and 6-12 brochure.  The Learning Trunk can be useful for Co-ops.  Contact the museum well in advance if you are planning a program and want a docent or to borrow a trunk.

Mini Printer

 I had such a cool idea for Biology!  I ordered a mini printer from Walmart.  The idea was to capture images and make stickers to use in notes and study guides, such as a cell model to annotate.  I should have known that an inexpensive model would be a disaster.  But, I’m an optimist.  I scanned the QR code from the instructions to download the app.  Nope.  But, the site identified the correct app.  Once I downloaded the app to my iPad, I checked that Bluetooth was on in settings.  I checked for paper and turned on the printer.  (It connected with a USB to a laptop.)  once I scanned an image, I got error messages repeatedly when I tried to print.  Booooo!  I declared defeat after several attempts.  There is no way this is practical for any Co-op class.  I guess we’ll draw or cut up graphics we print on standard printers.  The mini printer is going back to Walmart.

Cheap and Easy Button Dichotomous Keys

After the kids did  the leaf dichotomous key as a quiz, they created Button Dichotomous keys.  I give kids a bag of buttons and they make dichotomous keys.  Here are instructions for making dichotomous keys.  Look at the pasta example.  You could give your teen a bag of different pasta, too.  I bought a bag from Walmart.  (You may have odd buttons.  Use them.)  The kids classified the buttons initially by the number of holes, from zero to four holes.  (Some buttons have a shank instead of a hole.)  Then they sorted by shape, type (wood, metal, plastic), and color.  We did the activity in class; in the past the kids did it at home.  It was a disaster.  I test their keys by taking a random button to see if I can key it using their key.  I’m confident the kids understand dichotomous keys.

National Biology Teachers

 I joined the National Biology Teachers group on Facebook.  Infrequently there is a fabulous resource—often from Simmons Science.  I took a screenshot from the Facebook post about Spinach Disks and Photosynthesis.  Matthew Simmons also posts resources regularly and has incredible drawings.  I’m often ambivalent about some of these national groups.  Biology groups, in particular, can be political, whiny, odd, and occasionally compelling. You can always unfollow a group.  (BTW Apologia has a Facebook group, too.)  If you join National Biology teachers or National Chemistry teachers, look at the files at the top of the page.  There are many gems in the files.

Cheap and Easy Edible Earth Science Labs

 Okay, I sometimes pander to my students.  We use candy in labs.  These labs or activities are wildly popular.  Once in awhile I teach Earth Science topics—never my favorite subject. ( I think I would rather have dental surgery.  BTW, I try to select labs or activities using candy I don’t like to save on dental work.) However, I do have a few ideas: Edible Aquifer, Oreo Plate Tectonics, Sweet Earthquake Shake, Edible Igneous Rocks (with links for sedimentary and metamorphic rock activities, too), Starburst Rock Cycle, Edible Watershed, Edible Solar System, and NASA’s Scale Model of the Solar System.  If you do the scale model of the solar system, add this activity, which uses adding machine tape.  The kids mark the relative distance between planets in a long piece of adding tape-or long strips of paper taped together.  Make your plans for science experiments after Halloween.  

Cheap and Easy Introduction to Matter Labs

 Introduction to Matter is both a Physical Science and Chemistry topic. Start with this overview or introduction.   Here is an explanation of the difference between intensive and extensive properties.  Engage kids with Shrinking Liquids.  What happens when you add 5 mL of alcohol to 5 mL of water?  This is a good example of a discrepant event.  Next, weigh air.  Follow this activity with the Density of Pennies lab.  These ACS State of Matter labs  work well for younger students.  Finally, do this lab, Physical or Chemical Change? with household items.  

Cheap and Easy Human Anatomy Models

Are you teaching the Young Explorers’ Human Anatomy class?  This is a terrific program.  The Notebooking Journal is a worthwhile investment.  There are loads of fun models and demos to supplement the program.  Print a human skeleton on to card stock to learn the names of the bones.  This skeleton can be printed on copy paper, ready to label.  Make a stethoscope, heart model, lung model, Anatomy in Clay, brain hemisphere hats, Heart Model (blood circulation), and blood model.  Make the models as a family!  The clay models below were made by high school students.  Younger students might be frustrated by clay.  

Cheap and Easy Orbeez Labs

 I had no idea the water bead blaster guns were so popular.  You might have Orbeez or water beads already.  If you don’t the beads are fairly inexpensive.  Water beads lend themselves to a number of labs: Measuring the Mechanical Properties of a Cell (upper-level, Biology concept), Water Beads Super Absorbent Polymers Science Peoject (Osmosis), and the Effect of Temperature on the Growth of Super-absorbent Orbeez in Water (detailed lab with loads of sample data and graphs).  These are fairly advanced topics.  

My Bio class uses jumbo growing spheres I bought for last summer’s science camp.  The kids set up their own labs to test tap water, spring water, distilled water, etc. on water beads.  The kids weigh the beads and use water at room temperature.  They may experiment with the beads at different temperatures or salt, too.  Our water bead experiments are inquiry-based, which just means that the kids determine how to set up the lab.  I usually have a few different types or brands of beads to use for experiments. Warning!  Once your teen sees the water beads, he or she is going to clamor for a gel blast gun.

 

Chemistry on a Budget: Hands-on Ionic Formulas

Are you teaching Chemistry.  Try Putting the Ions in Their Hands.  This is a complete kit.  I print the cations or positive ions on red card stock,  the anions or negative ions on blue card stock, and the ion formula chart on yellow card stock.  (Flinn’s original kit for this activity had the ions and chart printed in these colors.). Here is my slideshow—the cat is red and the ant is blue.  I like to stick with a concept.  You may have seen ionic formulas dice, too.  Here is ChemKate’s free activity on TPT.  Surprise!  I made my dice red and blue.  These activities work.

I ran out of red and blue card stock and had to print ions on different colored card stock.  I wasn’t happy about it either.

Biology on a Budget: Enzyme Labs

 My Bio class just finished Can Yeast Digest Lactose?  Now I have extra Lactaid enzyme tablets.  So, I looked for another lab.  Here is an enzyme lab with milk, Lactaid, and Benedict’s solution, which changes color in the presence of sugars.  Don’t buy a big bottle of Benedict’s solution because it has a limited shelf life.  Enzymes also have a limited shelf life, which is why I’m hunting for labs to use up the Lactaid tablet enzymes.  Since I’m doing an enzyme lab soon, I might as well pick up a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and do this Potato Enzyme Lab.  (This catalase enzyme lab uses liver, potato, and celery.). Some catalase enzyme labs use apple pieces, too. 

Now you also have extra hydrogen peroxide (3%), which also has a short shelf life. Do this lab, A Reaction Involving the Production of a Gas.  The lab uses hydrogen peroxide and yeast.  (Add a bit of dish soap to increase the foam.). The yeast has an enzyme to break down hydrogen peroxide.  The hydrogen peroxide breaks down into water and oxygen gas.  Here are instructions for testing CO2, H2, and O2.  Oxygen gas is highly flammable.  Light a splint and extinguish the wooden splint.  Put the glowing splint into the foam.  The splint will relight.  

If you still have leftover hydrogen peroxide and yeast, try this version of Elephant’s toothpaste.

Test tubes

 This fall I’m teaching Biology and need quite a few test tubes.  I bought a box of 50 a few years ago and am down to about 30.  The test tubes should fit your test tube rack.  I bought 18 x 150 mm Pyrex test tubes., which hold about 30 mL and fit in a standard test tube rack.  Kymex, Pyrex, or borosilicate test tubes are all heat-tempered and safe to heat in a flame or hot water bath.  If you teach one teen, buy a set.  The best price I’ve seen recently is the set below from Home Science Tools.  This set has a holder, brush, and stoppers.  I have wooden, plastic, and cardboard test tube racks.  The plastic racks do melt a little when we put hot test tubes in the racks.  If the rack has a little damage, at least we used it.

Experimental Design Lab

 Today the kids did the Jelly Belly Dichotomous Key activity and set up the Experimental Design lab described here and here.  We added a combination to our list, yeast, buttermilk, and lactaid.  The kids prepared 8 sets of variables with three test tubes to do three trials simultaneously.  I had a bunch of test tubes and test tube wracks.  Soda bottles would work as well.

Cheap and Easy Periodic Table Activities!

 There are so many ideas to help kids understand the Periodic Table.  My Co-op class makes Element Cards.  The kids also do card sorts to help them understand how the Periodic Table was constructed by Mendeleev:  Living by Chemistry’s Create a Table (Cards), Build a Periodic Table adapted from Living by Chemistry), Periodic People, Adopt an Element (classic activity for younger kids), and Element Trading Cards.  The American Chemical Society (ACS) has a detailed lesson plan with printable documents called The Periodic Table.  This activity is designed for Middle School teachers, frequently lacking background in chemistry.  The lessons even have songs.  Take a look!

Cheap and Easy Cell Models

 My Bio class always makes cell models.  The key to this project is to have a scoring rubric and to set some parameters.  I do not allow Edible Cell Models.  Why?  I’ve had too many oozing jello models or cake models creating distractions in class—not to mention ants.  However, the kids are welcome to make clay or paper models.  Look below at the natural model one student created.  I encourage kids to use materials on hand, such as LEGOS.   I do like the kids to bring their models to class; everyone wants to have a look.