Apologia Biology: Cell Models

I need to teach my husband’s Physics class how to graph and do linear regression analysis with the graphing calculator.  He just taught them how to graph in Excel.  We used the graphing calculator in Chemistry last year.  I can use graphing calculators to explain linear regression in motion.  My husband, Rob, can switch with me and monitor my Biology class.  I’m going to have the kids make animal and plant cell models.  NIH has a free publication, Inside the Cell.  I don’t want edible models.  When a kid makes an edible model the jello cytoplasm inevitably oozes everywhere.  Yuck.  Instead, I have play doh, buttons, beads, beans, pipe cleaners, etc.  This rubric or guide specifies the organelles and requires both definitions and a key.  This is exactly what I want.

Apologia Physics and Physical Science: Excel

My husband, Rob, teaches Physics.  He retired from a Finance career.  He wants his kids to learn how to use spreadsheets.  So, Rob dragged in four of our laptops to class.  He borrowed one and one kid worked through the excel lesson on her phone.  One student, Cassidy, helped Rob teach, moving around the room helping.  (Cassidy is a techie and had had Excel in middle school.). Rob used this guide, Excel for Physics.  He spent two classes teaching the kids how to enter data, create formulas, and graph.  Before class, Rob tackled a simple data set using both Excel and Google Sheets for comparison.  He likes Google Sheets; graphing in Sheets is more straight forward.  All four of our laptops have different Excel versions, including the one from Office 365.  Rob loves spreadsheets and loathes graphing calculators.  His class will use spreadsheets all year.  I will review graphing on the calculator and doing regression analysis one class soon.

Apologia Physics or Physical Science: Motion

My husband, Rob, teaches Physics (His new blog is here.). I have taught Physical Science, but can’t do a good job with Physics like he can.  I do help him plan labs.  One recent lab was Speed, beginning with Hot Wheels Speedometry.  Yes, this program is designed for elementary aged children.  The physics kids still need to understand how to measure velocity.  This summer, my grandson brought over a GoPro Hero session and hot wheels car adapted for this mini GoPro camera.  It took me two hours to figure out how to load the camera on the car and sync it to the iPad.  The problem was the plastic cage on the camera.  I’d never used a GoPro before.  We had two of the Physics kids come over this summer to make sure they can sync the camera to the iPad before we started class.  The teens took seconds.  In the Physics class, Rob set up Hot Wheels track and brought in wood ramps, balls, rulers, and Hot Wheels Cars, along with the GoPro camera and its car.  I charged up the camera right before class.  I explained to Rob that the kids could figure out speed with a stop watch on their phones.  One teen, Cassidy, counted frames on the camera over a known distance and time to determine speed per frame.  Then they could just count frames.  I paid $99 for the GoPro (Amazon) and $7 (eBay) for the little car.  We had the Hot Wheels track and cars.  Rob had Lowe’s cut two boards at one meter for ramps.  Now, we did not use the Hot Wheels Speedometry per se; Rob did use the guide as inspiration for good questions.  Look at the fourth grade curriculum.  It’s terrific if you’re a novice with Motion.

Apologia Biology:Cells or Module 6

Since our next unit is Module 6, Cells, I’m back on my quest for less expensive microscopes.  Yes, again.  I think the My First Lab Duo Scope Microscope is the Alaska Fairbanks microscope sold by escience Lab Kits.  I bought an escience kit from shop goodwill.com with this microscope.  It has no markings.  The reason I’m obsessed with this quest to identify the microscope is because it is excellent!  I’m not sure it is worth $70, maybe $20.  I know families spend hundreds of dollars on microscopes and slides for Biology.  The kids mainly need a microscope for Biology—hence my quest.  Is there a less expensive microscope that works.  Shop eBay and Goodwill for a Duo Scope Microscope, especially if you don’t want to gamble with a microscope from Goodwill.

Check out this review.  But, try to find one for $20.  It’s still a toy—a good toy, but a toy.

Apologia Biology: Ecology Completed

Today we reviewed all of the vocabulary with this slideshow I made.  Then, I gave groups of students cards with the terms to create concept maps.  I wrote the terms on to card stock.   A concept map challenges a student’s understanding of the terms, their relationships, and the connections.  The best free software to create concept maps or c maps is from IHMC.  (One of the best commercial concept mapping software is Inspiration.). I like free.  Yes, these two activities took the entire class.

Apologia Biology: Lynx and Hare

Today we had a dichotomous key quiz, reviewed the guide for the Giant Food Web, and did the Lynx and Hare Predator-Prey Simulation.  The kids graphed the data.  The kids have this exercise, Deer Predation or Starvation to graph for homework.  Yes, I have photos!  Below are images of the children doing the Lynx and Hare activity and my example of the food web, list of species, notes, and list of scientific names.

Apologia Biology: Microscopes

I’ve been ordering microscopes from showgoodwill.com all summer.  Only one was a big miss.  I have eight now.  It is a gamble buying microscopes second hand.  I limit my bid to $25.  Now, one of the better microscopes wouldn’t focus.  I researched simple repairs.  All I had to do was rotate the two coarse adjustments in opposite directions and the problem was gone.  Good Will frequently has eScience Lab sets.  One I bought had a simple microscope with the kit.  I think it is this one, My First Lab duo scope microscope.  It’s not bad!  I checked it with several slides and the details are fine.  The microscope is battery operated.  The kids can use these anywhere in the classroom.  I would not pay more than $25 for a used microscope.  Ordinarily, I don’t recommend microscopes that are essentially toys.  But this one actually works!

Update!
This digital microscope is about $34 on Amazon.  You plug it into a laptop or Chromebook and open the camera app.  The magnification on the microscope slides was terrific.

Apology Biology: Ecology Quiz

Today, we had a quiz.  I used the forest ecosystem species for the food web and these leaf dichotomous keys. (This is the second key.). The room is tight.  So every other student got either a food web or dichotomous key.  They did the second activity once finished with the first.  Wow.  Most did not know how to follow a key.  Some could create food webs.  We went through the key step by step and reviewed food webs.  By the end of class all of the kids submitted a food web.  I’m quizzing again Tuesday on keys.  Things are plodding along in a normal fashion.  Kids are going to drown if they don’t start completing assignments.   Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!!!!

Apologia Biology: Capture-Recapture Beans (Ecology—Module 10)

Today was Capture-Recapture with white beans.  This site has a good explanation, too.  We’re doing several classic ecology activities.  I introduced this with a brief discussion about measuring deer populations; this method is broadly used.  Each group had a large cup of white beans and removed a large handful to mark with sharpies and replace with the other unmarked beans.  The students mixed the beans together well and removed a small handful or a small sample.  Next, they counted and recorded the number of marked and unmarked beans for each trial.  My kids did six trials; three trials are the minimum.  They used calculated the population estimate and then percent error. 

For example, if the group marked 50 beans, and had an average of 11:72......
50/x = 11/72
x=327
Once, the group made an estimate, they counted the actual number of beans, say for this example the true number of beans was 357.

Percent error= 357-327/357 x 100 = 8.4%

One group did have less than 10% error.  The girls followed directions and mixed the beans well.  We had a brief discussion about population estimates.

We’re going to finish the vocabulary and food webs before proceeding.  I like to do a few ecology activities so the kids can sample what environmental studies might entail.  This activity also has a bit of math-another plus!

Apologia Biology: Ecology Quiz One

The first quiz is this week.  I’m going to give each child amdichotomous key to follow and identify 5-6 plants and a food web to creat with 10 organisms.  I like the assessments to mirror the topic and activities.  Here is the dichotomous key and the flower cards.  (Here is the answer key.)    I plan to distribute different sets of four pictures to each child to reduce the temptation to copy another’s answers.  I plan to practice tomorrow with these and quiz with this plant classification activity or this one.  Now here are two food web examples for a quiz.  This example uses cards with pictures of the organisms.  If your child has a learning difference, the cards may be easier to use to create a food web.  I am solution oriented.  Let’s find a way to see if the child understands the concept.

Apologia Biology: Button Dichotomous Key

The kids are struggling with the Button Dichotomous Key.  In fact one child is coming over for help. Perfect!  I’m a firm believer that a bit of a struggle is the way to make kids think.  There are several approaches kids can take to classify buttons.  I gave them plastic, wooden, and metal buttons in a huge variety of shapes, sizes, and number of center holes.  The kids can start by sorting them into colors, then shapes, then number of center holes, and perhaps, material: plastic, metal, or wood.  They can name each button and then sort them.  Once they have things sorted the child can prepare his or her key.  The key is a list of questions.
Step 1.  Is it wood?  Go to step 2.
Step 2.  Is it painted?  The button is Flora buttons
Step 3.  Is it plastic?  Go to step 4.


This is not complex, but mirrors dichotomous keys.  Fun, right?

The child came over and was stuck how to start.  My husband explained that these keys are like ‘if then’ statements in coding for computers.  You need a place to go for yes and a place to go for no.  I had the student sort his 25 buttons.  He sorted them by color.  I asked him what another method might be and he answered by shape.  The student, M., started with orange buttons.  Is it orange?  Go to step 2.  Is it round?  The name is Orange buttonus.  My only suggestion is to put all of the colors (or shapes or material, etc) in the first question.  Is it orange? Go to step 2.  Is it red?  Go to step 6.  Is it navy?  Go to step 10.

I should have given them 10 buttons and wish I had had more wooden and metallic buttons.  There are 17 or 18 kids and I have to justify expenses.  Consequently, most of the buttons are plastic-$10 per pound from Walmart.