Pollinators Love My Milkweed

 

I am loving how happy my common milkweed is in the side yard that I've allowed it to overgrow. Now that it's blooming, I'm even happier to see all the pollinators also loving it!

I really like this photo of the bee that I accidentally caught in flight:

The butterflies don't quite sit still enough to get their pictures taken:

All the pollinators are going to be even more thrilled when my perennial sunflowers begin to bloom!

Homeschool Science: Stages of Mitosis Cookie Models

Say that you're a high school junior whose mother assigned her a microscope lab to observe, identify, and sketch the stages of mitosis in a root tip. 

Say that you're worried that the stages of mitosis might still be a tad fuzzy in your mind, but you're pretty over all that sit-down-and-study business, because it's been a long week, and also you crave sugar.

You can study the stages of mitosis just as well by making cookies modeling the stages of mitosis!

We did this exact same activity a couple of years ago, during one of our (many) times studying cells, but those cookies were a lot simpler--though still delicious. One of my favorite things about spiraling back around to the same topic, and even to the same activity to study the same topic, is that every time you come back you can add to the kid's base level of knowledge, which then goes up every time you come back. You can contextualize, go into greater depth, perform more sophisticated analysis--all the good stuff! Two years ago, the kids' stages of mitosis cookie models were pretty simple, showing essentially just the cell membrane and the chromosomes. This time, Will also added the major cell organelles, because more candy is always better!

Will used my favorite cut-out sugar cookie recipe, and I made her a nice, big batch of cream cheese frosting to go on top. She carved the cookie shapes that she needed--

--baked them, and then it was time for the fun part!

Did you know that the after-Halloween sales are the best place to buy most of your decorating candy for Christmas cookies? You can divert some of them to stages of mitosis cookies, as well.

Did you know that if you microwave a Starburst for 3-5 seconds you can sculpt with it? It makes a great nucleus!

The food crafting got a little too sticky and chaotic for my tastes VERY quickly, so I don't remember what organelles most of these candy embellishments are supposed to represent, but Will knew what they were at the time, so that works for me. 

Thanks to her slightly unconventional study method, her microscope lab went swimmingly and now takes pride of place in her Biology lab notebook.

And the stages of mitosis were delicious!

P.S. Here's the book that Will's using to add a lab component to her biology study:

P.P.S. Want to see what other messy, chaotic, educational activities we get up to every day? Check out my Craft Knife Facebook page!

We Took Part in a Water Quality Sampling Blitz

 I think you'll agree that someone who has earned a 5 on the AP Environmental Science exam is now qualified to give service in the area of environmental science.

And if that someone can put another lab into their possibly-not-yet-terribly-robust APES lab notebook at the same time, then all the better!

A couple of weeks ago, the Limnology Department at our local university held a water sampling blitz for our local watershed, and Will and I were two of the lucky citizen scientists who took part. Our job was to drive to several GPS coordinates, figure out a way to access the creek at each location, then fill out a Qualitative Habitat Evaluation field sheet, measure the stream's pH and temperature, and collect water samples for more testing back at the base. 

We brought a lot of bug spray, because the streams were all beautiful, but accessing all of them basically required parking at the side of the road, inevitably anxiously near No Trespassing signs and Trump flags, then climbing down a steep ditch through underbrush and copperhead nests, always to end up somewhere quite magical:

Fortunately, I had an adept scientist at hand. While I got to admire the scenery and take photos, she buckled down and did most of the work:

Fortunately, even when we met a stream bank that was too steep even for my mountain goat lab partner, we still had a way to get our samples:

Seriously, how cool is that? It works because water doesn't change temperature very quickly, so the extra time to take a bucket sample doesn't effect the measurement. 

The bad news is that none of the streams performed particularly well on the Qualitative Habitat Evaluation or the pH tests--

--and considering how many cornfields, yards, and cow pastures we saw on the edges of our streams, I'm not feeling optimistic about the results of the nitrogen or fecal coliform tests that we also measured out the water for back at the base.

Nevertheless, many of the streams managed to look happy enough, and it was magical to tromp through somebody's yard, scramble through the underbrush, slide precariously into a ditch, and then suddenly find ourselves somewhere like this:

Just out of view cars were still driving down whatever country road we'd stopped on, cows were still mooing and corn rustling, suspicious people were still peering out their windows and around their giant Trump flags at our parked car, but at the bottom of every ditch it was just us, the birds, the crawdads, and a little piece of natural wonderland trying its best.

It was the best kind of science, and not a bad way for an eleventh-grader to spend a school day, either.

Perennial Sunflowers, all the Bees, and I am a Monarch Foster Mom

And to think that once upon a time, during the first full summer on our new-to-us property, we could not find a single bee.

Look at my yard today!

A few years ago, I failed in saving the seeds from our beloved Mexican sunflower, and instead, I impulse-purchased a perennial sunflower from an online seed company. It's even better than the Mexican sunflower, because not only is it big and beautiful and bright, but it also comes back to me every year without me having to have the very specific seed-saving skill-set!

Also, as I discovered just this spring, it transplants like a dream! When I was first planting things, I didn't understand at ALL how different my property's sun exposure would be in different seasons--that entire half of the yard that was sunny as hell all spring was... not sunny as hell after the elms leafed out, sigh. So even though I was terrified of killing it, I took a big leap of faith and tried to transplant some of that years-old perennial sunflower clump that was still beautiful and bright, but not getting so big anymore.

This whole sunflower garden lives on the other side of the house now, and it's flourished all summer, getting at least twice as tall as its sunflower sisters back over in the shadow of the elm trees:

Look at my BEES!!!

Way back in 2015, Will created a butterfly garden in this area of the yard, and although the rest of that garden is long-gone, the milkweed comes back every year, and every year we carefully weed around it and let it spread. It's a happy coincidence that right by this sunflower garden, then, is lots of lovely milkweed!

Every year, I also admire the monarchs that visit my flowers, and the monarch caterpillars that I see munching on my milkweed, but this year, I got the advice from my local native plants Facebook group that it's good to bring those little monarch caterpillars inside and feed them up in captivity, safe from predators. So when I went outside last weekend and saw monarch caterpillars all over my milkweed, never mind the fact that we were expecting a couple of friends of Syd's to come over for a socially-distanced backyard camp-out in just a couple of hours and I had not yet made our yard look like trash people do not live here, I nevertheless got a mask, got in the car, and went out solely to buy this exact kind of mesh hamper. It's perfect because it zips fully up and has openings in two sides, so it's easy to give my foster babies fresh noms twice a day. 

Look how much they love their noms!

I currently have one chrysalis at the top of my hamper, and four constantly-chewing caterpillars at the bottom of my hamper. I am so invested in their welfare, you guys!

Homeschool Biology: Let's Learn Neuroanatomy!

Neuroanatomy hit the requirements for a goodly portion of the kids' studies this past year.

Will needed it for AP Psychology. Syd needed it for Honors Biology. And just for funsies, I found a Healthy Brain Initiative Girl Scout fun patch that also included it!

Obviously, you can learn neuroanatomy simply by memorizing diagrams of the brain, spinal cord, and a neuron, but that's not super fun, now is it?!?

You know what IS super fun?

Making this wearable brain diagram, that's what!

The kids made both English and French-language versions--

--and tried to make one for Luna, as well, but alas, her brain is a different size...

To memorize the parts of the neuron, I had the kids create their own models using their own ideas, although they were allowed to do some research for inspiration. Even teenagers are obsessed with Pinterest! You can see Syd's Model Magic neuron above. Will's beaded neuron was equally impressive, but she built it on a table top and didn't realize that it didn't have any structural integrity until she picked it up and it collapsed into one long, beaded string.

It's a beautiful necklace, though!

So that the kids would have a diagram that they could study, I photocopied some of the pages from this awesome book--



--and had the kids color them and use them as their reference for memorization.

I also like to have the kids get their hands on real artifacts whenever I can, not just models, so although Syd objected and spirited herself away to a friend's house during this activity, Will was happily on board with learning how to dissect a sheep's brain with me.

It's a VERY good lesson in how complicated things are in real life, even when they look pretty simple in a color-by-number diagram!

That was enough neuroanatomy for all of our purposes at the time, but since this topic is one that we do spiral back around to regularly, I've got quite a big list of other games, activities, and other enrichment projects to enhance this study. Here's some of them!

• Crochet Pattern. Learning to crochet is absolutely on my to-do list, primarily so I can make lots of nerdy little projects like this one!
• DIY Model. This assignment is similar to the one that I assigned the kids for their neuron model--you just have to tell them the parts that must be illustrated and labeled, and let them go off to be as creative as they like!
• Ectomy. For those who love the brain hat as much as we do, The Basement Workshop also has a game to reinforce memorization of the lobes of the human brain.
• Fondant Brain. You know how much we love to turn everything into a cake or a giant cookie! One day, we'll bake ourselves one of those and decorate it with a fondant human brain. 
• Functional Neuroanatomy. This interactive site from the University of British Columbia is as detailed as you could ever possibly need. You can watch videos, look at models, and teach yourself a LOT of brain anatomy!
• Mold. We've got a plastic brain mold very similar to this one, which we use for Halloween baking--because of course! However, it's on my to-do list to one day use plaster of Paris, or perhaps my dream material--concrete!
• Quilled Neuron. Syd and I have done quilling before, and we thought it was really fun. I'm feeling like a quilled neuron is not beyond our skill set!

By the time you finish all of those projects, you're going to know your neuroanatomy really, really, REALLY well!

P.S. Want to follow along with our handmade homeschool and afterschool adventures? I post lots of resources, projects, and photos of our adventures over on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Homeschool Science: Model Chemosynthesis with Zometools

Earlier this summer, the kids and I worked through a brief Yellowstone National Park study that had us spiraling back to a favorite activity: modeling chemical processes with Zometools!

As part of that Yellowstone study, the kids and I looked at thermophiles, those heat-loving bacteria and archaea that make their happy homes in the different high heat zones of the park's hots springs. Some thermophiles, including these thermophilic archaea at Yellowstone, have a metabolism that uses chemosynthesis. It's cool and unusual, makes an interesting contrast to photosynthesis, and--just like photosynthesis!--you can model it with Zometools!

For our chemosynthesis model, we decided that our organism would be oxidizing hydrogen sulfide. There are other organisms that start with not hydrogen sulfide, but chemicals like methane or sulfide, and it would be another interesting project to model and compare various chemosynthesis pathways.

Syd used this chemosynthesis formula on the NOAA website as her reference, although when Will, who was reviewing the photosynthesis formula at the time, tried to use that same NOAA site as her reference, she discovered that the photosynthesis formula written there is incorrect! GASP!

You will be unsurprised to learn that I contacted their webmaster to inform them of the error.

One of the interesting challenges in modeling a chemical formula is figuring out the correct way to assemble each molecule:

This is frustrating for students who would rather assemble, say, hydrogen sulfide "their" way, ahem...

 Looking each chemical compound up, though, will generally also help you figure out its common name. H2S, for instance, is known as hydrogen sulfide. You probably already know that CO2 is carbon dioxide, but maybe you didn't know that O2 is called dioxygen:

So this chemosynthesis formula begins with hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, and dioxygen. The fuel for the change is the oxidation of the hydrogen sulfide. This source of energy allows all of the compounds to convert--

--into sulfur, water, and formaldehyde!

Good thing THIS isn't what plants do--you wouldn't want to try to breathe formaldehyde!

I think it's important, when kids study processes like photosynthesis, to make sure they understand right from the start that there are other ways for organisms to synthesize energy. You don't want a rigid scientific thinker, who can't imagine any other way for an organism to flourish. You want a creative thinker who can look at the surface and atmosphere of an alien planet and immediately start thinking of all the ways that an organism could use those formidable chemicals and that unusual energy to live!

P.S. Want to follow along with all the other ways that I insert the search for alien life into our homeschool? Check out my Craft Knife Facebook page for photos, resources, and other bits of the weird stuff we do all day.

Homeschool Science: Would a Blue Whale Fit in Your Driveway?

It would in ours!

Although, to be fair, we DO have a really long driveway...

Measuring whale lengths was the very last activity that I wanted the kids to complete to earn their Girl Scouts of Hawai'i Aloha fun patch, way back when it was actually a unit study based on our 2019 vacation to Kauai!

We just never got around to it last summer, though, and once autumn hit we had so many autumn things to look forward to that it was less tempting to dive back in. Now that we're spending so much more time on our property, however, and ESPECIALLY now that Will's AP exams are over (yay!), we actually do have the time to dive back into some of our unfinished business... and finish it up!

This activity was loosely based on the time that we drew life-sized dinosaurs all over a local park's basketball courts. My dream *had* been to go back to the basketball courts and draw life-sized whales, but we obeyed our governor's strictest stay-at-home order to the letter, and so to modify the activity to be able to be done on our own property, I wondered if we could measure life-size whale lengths on our driveway, and then just draw models of the whale next to its measurement.

Reader, we COULD!

I swear, these Smithsonian Handbooks are some of the best homeschooling resources that I own:

We have a whole stack of them. We used them constantly from the time the kids were toddlers... to today!

The kids each chose a couple of whales that interested them (fighting over who got to pick the narwhal, because OF COURSE), then I helped them measure that whale's length on our driveway.

Once they got the length measured, they focused on drawing a good model of their whale and learning its gross anatomy and some facts about it to share with everyone.

Here's Syd working on her blue whale, which does, indeed, just fit in our driveway!

I think everyone's favorite part of homeschooling is how we can interact with and love on our pets all day. They seem to know when the kids are doing something especially interesting or unusual, and they always want to join in!

Both kids really enjoyed this project!

Ah, here's one thing that I do NOT so much appreciate about homeschooling. Guess who's fighting again?

Someone threw a piece of chalk at her sister, and someone else kicked her sister. It's fine.

I also like homeschooling because generally, we're pretty chill about distractions here. Want to take a break from memorizing whale anatomy to chalk your father's freshly-washed hair?

It's art!

Spots also participated in Homeschool Art, which is what she gets for lying down on somebody's chalk rainbow:

Eventually, the kids remembered their whales, and finished their whales, and we all took a whale walk along the length of each whale, and then listened as each kid explained interesting facts about that whale's life and significant details of its anatomy:

And that's how we finally finished our unit study of Hawaii!

Six Months Ago: Teach Your Kids to Make Applesauce

One Year Ago: An Alice in Wonderland Birthday Party for She Who is Thirteen

Two Years Ago: Sports Legends and Space at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis

Three Years Ago: Physics and Force at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis

Four Years Ago: Homeschool Science: Zometool Crystallizations

Five Years Ago: I Let My Kids Drive the Lawnmower

Six Years Ago: Cahokia Mounds Homeschool Field Trip

Seven Years Ago: Zooming through the Montessori Green Series

Eight Years Ago: Geography with Montessori Pin Flags

Nine Years Ago: Tutorial: Easy Rainbow Cake

Ten Years Ago: My Child as a Confederate Soldier

Eleven Years Ago: Wildflowers, Interpreted

Twelve Years Ago: At Last, a Tie-Dyed Quilt!