Talk About The Weather

It has been a cool summer temperature-wise this year, but finally we had a day in the high 80's worthy of a trip to the beach.  Beautiful breezes kept us cool while we played in the water, and enjoyed a good book in the shade.

And since we're talking about the weather, Charlie had a chance to meet T.V. meteorologist Lauren Casey at our local library! Charlie is my in-house weather expert, and he was very excited to meet her. She even signed his weather guidebook!

International Space Station Contact-Round Deux

Astronaut Koichi Wakata

Ben and Steve will be part of the ARISS radio ground crew facilitating contact between The International Space Station and Hidden Oaks Middle School in Prior Lake, MN on Thursday, May 1st!   If you are interested in checking it out, you can listen to a live stream of the event at the link below. The window of opportunity for contact is short, and limited to the time when the ISS is passing directly above the location, so be sure to tune in prior to the start of the transmission. I believe streaming is set to start at 15:45 and contact is at 16:28 UTC/Greenwich Mean Time.  There is a link at the ARISS site to help you convert times to your area. Astronaut Koichi Wakata, Commander of expedition 39, will be answering questions from the kids in what should be about a 10 minute conversation. 

ARISS Audio Stream-ISS Contact

This is the second ISS contact Ben has helped with, and he is really excited to be a part of it!  The ARISS program is a cooperative venture of NASA, the ARRL and AMSAT, and other international space agencies that organizes scheduled contacts via Amateur Radio between astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the ISS, and classrooms and communities. 

Brrrrrrthday

The extreme winter weather we've had during December and January has kept us all inside more than we would like, but being hearty Midwesterners, we Pile on the Wool and Carry On.  Today though, is different.  Public schools in Minnesota and across much of Wisconsin are closed due to freakish wind-chill temperatures that freeze flesh in under five minutes and kill you dead if you're not careful! Sheesh.  Last night at around midnight, the temperature with the wind chill was 60 below zero.  Yep, that's right, -60 °F!!  Our side door blew open in the strong winds, and it took several tries to get it to latch closed again.  I have never felt such a frigid cold! 

Right now it is something like 45 below, and the furnace is running constantly.  Desperate times call for desperate measures, so we did what any self-respecting tundra dwellers would do; we boiled some water, grabbed a super-soaker and let winter have it! 

(P.S.  It is my birthday today.  I swear, Next year, I am moving my birthday to July so I have some reasonable chance of pleasant weather for a picnic, or a hike, or a BBQ or a lovely soiree around a campfire with friends....)

Late Summer Tornado

While we're not quite ready for full-time schoolwork  just yet, the boys have started doing their math programs (Teaching Textbooks all around!) and Charlie and I have been continuing with some fun, easy science explorations.  

Yesterday we read about violent weather from The Usborne Encyclopedia of World Geography, and then created a tornado in a bottle with the help of one of these.  

Thankfully this is the only twister I've had to deal with all summer!

Junk Food Science

It has been too stinking hot for much of anything lately, except oddball science demonstrations.  

Seems like science has been revolving around food lately.  First the delicious Oreo phases of the Moon, and then ....

The Mentos and Coke Geyser!  An oldie, but a goodie, and always a crowd pleaser!  Nucleation is the key! 

The Drama!  The Peril!

 

And today Will decided to fashion a pizza box solar oven and we made s'mores.   

I'm meeeeeellting!

We had a thermometer inside the box and it got a wee bit hot in there!

The temperature outside at the time was only 86° F, but with relative humidity at 70%, it gave us a heat index* of 95° F.  

It was so humid that it was unbearable to stay out and watch our s'mores cook for very long, and by the time they were nice and melty, no one was very interested in actually eating their sweet, gooey, campfire treats!  Not surprising.   

Temperatures are predicted to start dropping again at the end of the week, but I wish I would have thought of frying an egg on the pavement while it was super hot.  Oh well.  We'll just have to save that food science for another (miserable) day!

* A quantity expressing the discomfort felt as a result of the combined effects of the temperature and humidity of the air.

Delicious Phases Of The Moon

We started some of Charlie's science curriculum a little early again this year.  He'll be using REAL Science Odyssey Earth and Space from Pandia Press this year.  He loves, loves, loves this curriculum, and so do I.  (Last year we used Life Science.)  It is so easy to use, gets the information across in clear, concise lessons and is fun to do. 

So far this August we have been doing lessons from the weather unit and are now beginning the space unit with talking about the moon.  After reading the introductory information in the student notebook pages,  we chose to read The Moon Book by Gail Gibbons.

We then used this book plus free worksheet templates found here to do a tasty little activity...Oreo Phases of the Moon!  

I had the older boys do this activity too, in order to have any Oreos to eat.  No one complained.

Easy, fun and tasty science!

Surface Tension and Macroinvertebrates...or...Bubbles And Bugs On The St. Croix

Nature study this morning was a huge hit!  Will and Charlie's summer hiking group, WISE Kids spent a couple hours playing and investigating at the St. Croix National Riverway Center. 

Park Ranger April first led the kids through a scavenger hunt indoors to get acquainted with different animals and features of the river habitat, and then we watched a film about the St. Croix and Namekagan Rivers, with narration by local park rangers we all know and love.  

Next, we headed outdoors into the August heat and humidity to talk about, look at and hold different creatures that live in the river, including a crayfish, scuds, predatory beetles and a leech. 

The kids thought it would be cool to feed one of the insect specimens to the predatory beetles, but April didn't go for it. 

April  also talked about the special ability of Water Striders to walk on water, and how surface tension plays into that.  

Then, expanding on the surface tension idea, the kids had fun making giant bubbles with home made bubble soap.  I got lucky and snapped this cool shot of Charlie and Ranger April:

And here's Will looking like a pro.  I love how the River is in the background here. 

Just one week left of WISE Kids fun this summer.  I can hardly believe it.  The time flies so quickly...

Caterpillar Time

The weather right now is so beautiful, and early fall like, that it put me in the mind of hunting for Monarch caterpillars.  Last year we got a bit distracted by summer and actually did our annual hunt a bit late, and only found a couple big, fat guys who stayed around about a day before going into their chrysalides,  so it's good that this year we're out here earlier than any year I can remember; the hunt went well.

There are plenty of milkweed plants around the pond, so we started there.  Here's Charlie doing a close inspection of the undersides of some leaves.

In the small square of the pond perimeter that we checked, we only found this fuzzy guy- a Tussock Moth caterpillar.  He's so fluffy I could DIE!

 They compete with the monarchs for the milkweed, but really, we have so much of it, there should be plenty for everyone.  We've seen these guys before but have never raised one.  I think they take a long time to mature into moths. 

 After a bit, we decided to move away from the pond and check out near the barn where I saw another big bunch of milkweed.  Voila!  Charlie turned over this whopping leaf to find one little guy!

We continued to search on the same plant for some buddies, and Voila! again, we found an even tinier caterpillar.  Really, this one is so small, I wonder if we'll be able to keep track of it while it grows!  This guy is the smallest we've ever brought in. 

So now we'll just feed new milkweed each day and watch them grow fat.  One of our favorite fall nature traditions!

Hive Inspection

It has been a few weeks since we set up our bee hives for this year, and this past weekend we decided to inspect to make sure the queen is alive, thriving, and doing her job.  

When doing this type of inspection you look to see if you can spot the queen, check for brood cells (chambers containing larva), and check for larvae themselves.  We didn't spot the queens in either hive, but we didn't check each frame of bees for her.  We try to disturb the hive as little as possible.  We did however see many brood cells and larvae, so we are satisfied that all is well.

In pulling out one of the frames, a larger brood chamber was damaged and unfortunately, a bee pupa fell out of its chamber.  We left the pupa on the bottom of the hive, but before we had finished with the inspection, a worker hauled it outside, where I picked it up to examine it up close.  Looks just like an adult bee, only colorless. 

 I think it is beyond cool, but the rest of my family are not so impressed.  They just shudder and walk away.  What do you think?

Hamvention

Ben's presentation went off without a hitch last weekend! Will, Charlie and I found out about a live stream of the event in the few seconds before the start of the forum, so we were able to watch it, too!

It was a full house for the forum...about 350 people, and there was a great group of youth speakers, with a variety of interesting topics, including a 10 year old talking about radios and components he has built and tested.  Ten years old!  It was awesome to see the enthusiasm and confidence in these kids!

The whole trip was a great experience for Ben, and he met a bunch of like-minded kids who were able to talk intelligently about all the technical, science-y things he loves! 

Ben with youth forum mod Carole Perry(back row, right), and his fellow presenters.

 Ben and Steve pose for a picture just after Ben's satellite presentation at the Radio Club of America's youth forum. Ben received the personalized Icom knapsack he's holding and other gifts, including a new handheld radio for his contribution to the forum. 

Radio Road Trip

If you happen to be in the neighborhood of Dayton, Ohio this weekend, Ben will be speaking in the Youth Forum at the Amateur Radio Convention on Saturday!  His topic is Getting Started With Amateur Radio Satellites. He'll  be talking about his experiences  facilitating contact between The International Space Station and Farnsworth Aerospace Magnet last spring, 

Crew N9XH operating at Farnsworth. photo credit Rick W9WS

 as well as how to send and receive messages and images from various amateur radio satellites.

Image of Earth received  by Ben from ARISSat-1

Ben is one of  6 young speakers invited to Dayton this year by Carole Perry, moderator of the forum, and he is so excited for this honor!  I am, of course, petrified for him.  I hope all goes off without a hitch despite my unending anxiety, and that he has a great time sharing his interest with others!  I can't wait to see the photos!

Biology Lab: Flowers

With all the winter weather getting us down lately, it was nice to start a biology unit on plants and flowers recently. Ben continues to work from the Miller-Levine (dragonfly) Biology text, while Will is reading from The Encyclopedia of Nature.  Charlie continues to love REAL Science Odyssey Life.

 I stopped at the florist the other day and brought home a couple stems of lillies to brighten our dining room table, and to be our victims for a dissection lab.

They don't suspect a thing!

The Horror!

Here's a totally fake-y photo of my darling home schooled children, happily enjoying the hell out of looking at the reproductive structures of a flower.

While the older boys did some drawing and labeling of flower parts, Charlie colored in a diagram from his science program (RSO).

And then came the looking through the microscope at the pollen.  

 And here's what we saw...

120x

400x

I love looking at things under the microscope, and spend far longer than the boys, just sitting there and gazing at...stuff.  I find it fascinating.  Looking forward to any signs of actual spring here, so maybe I can collect more things to look at!

Candy DNA Double Helix Of Science!

 

And what did today's hands-on science lesson teach us? 

 That candy is tasty of course!

Science Museum of Science!

We took a much-needed field trip this past Friday to the Minnesota Science Museum.  The boys spent the afternoon exploring with friends, and I had a chance to catch up with one of my old friends as well!  

Pterodactyl, how have you been?

One of our favorite bits was The Cell Lab,  a very cool part of the Human Body Exhibit at the museum right now.  Each pair of boys did a different microscope experiment geared to their age level.

Charlie and his pal Liam had a chance to stain and examine their own cheek cells.  They needed very little guidance as a computer prompted them through each step of collecting, mounting, staining and viewing their slides.

Will and his friend Kian identified "mystery microbes" in their lab.  At this activity the boys had to stain, test, and identify one of four unknown strains of bacteria that are commonly found in and on the human body. The lab used equipment and materials typically found in a clinical bacteriology lab. 

Ben had the chance to do a more involved lab, intended for high school age kids. It involved staining DNA from fruit fly salivary glands and examining it in tightly packed chromosomes under a microscope. The specimens were actually live fruit fly larvae that he had to dissect under the microscope. He had to remove the head, find the salivary glands and then stain and process the slide.  He did really well though, and the resulting slide of the chromosomes had the volunteers all excitedly talking about using it as a sample slide for future visitors to the lab.  This was such a cool opportunity, as it wouldn't necessarily be a biology lab that I would be able to tackle at home!

 It was a perfect day of science until Ben stumbled into a nest of dinosaurs and had to run for his life.  This is the third time that this has happened.  You'd think he'd learn...

Meanwhile, Will and Charlie ran off to Egypt to build their own block pyramid...

...and take a spin on an ornery-looking camel.

There is so much to do at the museum that we never quite get to do it all in one go, but we're always satisfied and worn out ( in a good way) by the end of the day. And as long as one of us gets chased by a dinosaur, we know it has been a successful trip! ; )

What are your favorite must-see things at your local science museum?