Homeschool Biology: CK-12 Biology Chapter 4--Photosynthesis and Cellular Respiration

The kids and I are using CK-12's 9th/10th grade Biology textbook as the spine for this year's biology curriculum--for Will, who is in the eighth grade but who is taking high school-level coursework, this will be recorded as Honors Biology on her transcript.

In addition to that textbook, we're using The Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments as our lab manual, and of course we've got a plethora of other reading/viewing/listening resources and hands-on activities to enrich our study.

Chapter 4 of CK-12's Biology textbook is a meaty one, with lots of awesome hands-on enrichment to do--there's molecular modeling, experiments and demonstrations, and lots of observation. Here's what my lesson plans for the chapter looked like:

We split this chapter into three entire weeks--you could do this in one week, but it would be an awfully science-heavy week for you. The kids read the chapter in sections, and then complete the review questions at the end of each section, writing their answers in their science notebooks. On other days, we explored the reading/viewing resources that I'll list at the bottom of this post.

I also assigned specific resources and hands-on assignments for each section. After reading "4.1 Energy for Life," the kids read the entry on photosynthesis in The Biology Book. This book is awesome because it's a historical encyclopedia of scientific discoveries in the field of biology--you get a factual explanation of photosynthesis, but you also get to place its discovery and study into historical context.

Syd also watched the BrainPOP movie on photosynthesis, then took its comprehension quiz. She LOOOOOVEES BrainPOP!

After reading this section is also when the kids practiced modeling the process of photosynthesis at a molecular level, using Zometools:

This exercise is a good math and chemistry enrichment, but most of all, it helps kids understand that photosynthesis is a concrete process that can be measured. And that's good, because we're about to measure it!

I helped the kids run an experiment from The Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments--Procedure IV 1.1: Observing Carbon Dioxide Uptake:

It's a surprisingly accessible experiment, although you'll have to order many of the supplies online, and it's super cool, demonstrating not just the process of photosynthesis but also the fact that science?

It's magic!

Will later remixed this experiment as part of her academic scholarship application for Space Camp, so it also lends itself to testing a ton of other variables. If I had it to do over again, I would probably run this experiment with the kids first, then require them to design and run a remixed experiment, variables of their own creation, independently. Will got a LOT out of having to do that for her application.

After the experiment, I required the kids to answer the questions about it in the lab manual. These were a little tough for Syd, but do-able.

We also ran the experiment Procedure IV 1.2: Determining the Effect of Light Intensity on Photosynthesis. I didn't want to buy the bulb that the book recommends, because it's spendy, so instead I used one of the heat lamp bulbs that we use to brood chicks. The kids still got results, but it took a LOT longer than it would have if I'd bought the proper bulb:

 I'd suggest buying the right one, but perhaps finding someone else who's experimenting with photosynthesis this year and splitting the cost.

Again, the kids both answered the questions about this experiment in the lab manual.

We didn't do any hands-on activities for the cellular respiration and anaerobic respiration units in this chapter, although Syd did watch the BrainPOP movie on cellular respiration and take the quiz afterwards.

Here are the YouTube videos that we watched during this chapter--I generally always use CrashCourse, SciShow, Khan Academy, and Ted-Ed as resources on YouTube:









And here are some of the other resources we used!

• The Magic School Bus: Sea and Stars
• Our Sun: Biography of a Star (chapter on photosynthesis)

I'm randomly posting my lesson plans for Honors Biology out of order, because my life isn't confusing enough as it is, so although I haven't yet posted our work in chapters 2 or 3 of CK-12, here are my lesson plans for chapter 1 of CK-12 Biology.

Stay tuned, because we're on to the cell cycle now. Today, we're making meiosis cookies!

Homeschool Science: Demonstrate Carbon Dioxide Uptake and the Necessity of Light in Photosynthesis

The kids and I are using CK-12's 9th/10th grade Biology textbook as the spine for this year's biology curriculum--for Will, who is in the eighth grade but who is taking high school-level coursework, this will be recorded as Honors Biology on her transcript.

In addition to that textbook, we're using The Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments as our lab manual, and of course we've got a plethora of other reading/viewing/listening resources and hands-on activities to enrich our study.

Time for more photosynthesis! After reading the chapter on photosynthesis in their textbook, exploring some other reading/viewing resources (more on that another time), and successfully modeling the chemical process of photosynthesis, the kids were well-prepared for a science lab that would allow them to see photosynthesis in action.

If you're following along with us in The Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments, which makes a great lab manual for CK-12's 9th/10th grade Biology textbook, this is Procedure IV-1-1: Observing Carbon Dioxide Uptake. To perform this demonstration, we needed bromothymol blue, hydrochloric acid, several test tubes with rubber stoppers, and several sprigs of elodea, a water plant. If you're not doing this in the late autumn or winter, you can likely find elodea, or a similar water plant species, just by hiking to a local pond, but I bought ours from AquariumPlants on etsy. I've actually purchased elodea from this shop twice, because Will also wanted to use elodea for the experiment that she had to design and perform as part of her Space Camp academic scholarship application.

To set up this demonstration, we must turn the kitchen table into our science laboratory. That involves removing everything from the table, wiping it down, and laying newspapers down.

Boom! We have a science lab!

Syd measures out the correct amount of distilled water into a beaker:

Will adds bromothymol blue until its color is distinct:

Syd adds the blue-tinted water to select test tubes, some of which have sprigs of elodea already in, and some of which are going to be left empty:

The bromothymol blue solution in those test tubes will be turned slightly acidic not with carbon dioxide, which we know is required for photosynthesis, but with hydrochloric acid, which Will is adding a teensy drop of to each tube (notice the appropriate protective gear for once!):

Now we have some acidic solutions, but we expect that the bromothymol blue indicator will not change color when this plant is exposed to light:

Next, Syd introduces carbon dioxide to the remaining bromothymol blue solution, by the expedient means of blowing into it through a straw:



Science IS magic!!!

Now all Will has to do is fill the remaining test tubes with that solution--



--and here we have two springs of elodea, both in acidic solutions:

The kids put a test tube with elodea and bromothymol blue solution with carbon dioxide; a test tube with elodea and bromothymol blue solution with hydrochloric acid, and a test tube with only bromothymol blue solution with carbon dioxide into a dark room, and another set of the same in a sunny window:

They visit all of the test tubes every ten minutes to make observations. Within the hour, however, their experiment has a positive result:

See that test tube on the left? Its bromothymol blue is turning from yellow back to blue, and doing so first in the vicinity of the elodea sprig. This tells us that the solution is changing from acid to base, but the only thing added to that solution to make it acidic was carbon dioxide. The test tube with the hydrochloric acid solution is not changing. This tells us that the carbon dioxide is being depleted from that solution, but the only thing added to that test tube was elodea. The empty test tube with carbon dioxide added is not changing. 

This tells us that the elodea is depleting carbon dioxide from the solution. It's only doing so in the test tube that's in the sunny window; the matching test tube in the dark room shows no change.

This, then, tells us that photosynthesis takes carbon dioxide and requires light. 

And that was a good afternoon of science!

I'm slowly writing up our complete lesson plans for each chapter in CK-12 9th/10th grade Biology; here's chapter one.

How to Make a Super-Easy, No-Sew Pillow Cover

One of our planned family activities over winter break was a day trip to IKEA. Everyone loves IKEA, right? I mean, surely there is nobody, whether you're a hipster or a Gen-Xer or a Millennial, who could possibly hate affordable, clean-lined, Swedish interior design.

Surely, right?

You can definitely go overboard on it--I remember a decade ago visiting the rental house of a couple of friends for the first time. I walked in, looked around, and was all, "So... you guys like IKEA, huh?"

"I KNOOOOWWWWW!!!!" Molly wailed miserably. It was... a little much. Nobody really expects to walk into an Indiana student rental and find an Icelandic living room, you know? But everyone I know has some IKEA shit in their homes, and it's all pretty awesome.

And considering that the rest of the furnishings in our own house come from 1) our local university's surplus goods store, 2) the street, or 3) our own hands, and it shows, IKEA is a major step up for us.

On a related note, Matt found this sweet vintage music cabinet thing just sitting out by a dumpster the other day! It's hanging out in our garage for two weeks to make sure it doesn't have bedbugs, but then we're totally bringing it inside. Friends, when I was in college I slept on a second-hand mattress that my friend gave me when he moved, and HE found it by a dumpster before he slept on it for four years. Do. Not. Judge. Me.

So our trip to IKEA was supposed to result in a new mattress for one kid and a new computer/schoolwork station for both kids (all of which we found and Matt and I did not divorce over sawhorse-style table legs, although it was a close thing, and I got completely disoriented approximately 30 feet into the store and never really did find my bearings again), but all *I* really wanted were wooden magazine files to hold our comic book collection--classy, I know--and a shit-ton of throw pillows to hide our ugly yet comfortable couch that we bought from our local university's surplus goods store approximately 12 years ago, and who KNOWS how long the university used it in one of their dorm lounges, or how many students sat on it and did weird things on it?

I've replaced all the cushions, but trust me: you want my janky denim slipcovers and all the throw pillows you can fit on it.

Pillows are SUPER cheap at IKEA! I bought four 20"x 20" pillows and two 12"x 24" pillows, knowing that I can go back for more if I want, and I'm totally going to go back for more! The pillow covers, now, they were NOT super cheap, but if there is one thing that I have in spades, it is the fabric in my stash to make pillow covers out of.

And the fabric that I have the most of in stash these days is fleece, leftover from the making of mermaid tails and shark blankets.

This no-sew pillow cover, made from fleece, actually takes longer to tie than it would to sew it, but the tied fringe makes it look a lot nicer than a plainly-sewn fleece pillow cover would, and it's certainly much kid-friendlier of a project. In fact, for most of it you can use my tutorial for making tied dog/cat blankets, which my Girl Scout troop did with Brownie Scouts in September.

And yes, I DID make this pillow cover while watching Season 2 of The Crown. I am also spending my free time watching a bunch of dorky documentaries on the royal family bootlegged on YouTube, so there you go.

To make this super-easy, no-sew pillow cover, all you need are fleece, scissors, and a paper cutting template that measures 1"x 3". A rotary cutter and self-healing cutting mat will help you cut the fleece to size, but you could do without, if you had to.

Step #1: Put your fleece wrong sides together, two layers thick. Measure the fleece to dimensions that are 6" longer than your pillow on each side. For the 12"x 24" pillow that I'm covering in these pics, I measured my fleece out at 18"x 30". Cut out through both layers.

Step #2: Make a cutting template out of paper, dimensions 1"x 3". Use that to cut the fringes along the entire perimeter of the fleece, making sure that you cut through both layers each time. For the corners, you'll find that you naturally cut an entire 3"x 3" chunk out of each corner--that's okay! It's supposed to look like that!

Here's a gratuitous photo of Matt and Syd putting together one of the two computer workstations. Matt won the argument over what to get, and fine, they're perfect, whatever.

Step #4: While watching season 2 of The Crown, begin to tie each pair of fringes into a square knot. I give a little more detail in my tied blanket tute, but it's not hard.

Step #5: Only tie together three sides of your pillow cover. When you've got those three sides tied together, insert the pillow form and then tie the fringes on the fourth side. If you wanted to take the pillow out later, you could just untie them, but these throw pillows can be thrown entirely in the wash. 

I had meant to use all of the throw pillows that I bought for the couch, but after I made that black tied pillow cover, I realized that the Girl Scout fleece that I bought last month would be perfect for pillow covers for the 20"x 20" pillows, so I made one for each of the kids:

They use them as throw pillows on their beds, or cushions when they're hanging out on the floor, but they're also planning to use them as the pillows they take on a slumber party later this week, and I think they'd also work well for camping and summer camps.

Will liked hers so much that she made an identical one as a birthday present for a friend.

I'll show you the two pillow covers that I sewed out of faux fur another time (and why on earth I have so much faux fur in my stash pile I can't really tell you...), and when the kids and I head up to Indy to volunteer at the Children's Museum later this month, I think I'll make another trip to IKEA afterwards.

Obviously, I need to replace those three throw pillows that aren't going on the couch now, and I could use some more magazine files for my comic books...

Christmas 2017: A Shark and Two Mermaids (But No Pony)

Christmas at home.

I never wanted to give up spending Christmas with my Pappa--one thing about being raised by your grandparents is that for as long as you can remember, you've always known that we creatures are frail and mortal--but I've known for years that after he passed, I would dearly love to spend Christmas at home.

Last year, my first Christmas after he (and then Mac--god, what an awful year that was) had died, was me mostly getting through the holidays intact, which I did. Mostly. This year, however, I was able to find the sweet as well as the bitter, and as I thought I would, I dearly loved spending Christmas at home.

Thirteen, as well, is being kinder to my Will than eleven and twelve were, but frankly, being more comfortable in her skin has made her into even more of a terror, although in a different way. She consented to visit Santa this year, for the first time since she was ten, so that I could have my Christmas picture, but she came away from that meeting telling everyone she met that Santa was going to bring her a pony.

"Uh, no he isn't," Syd would try to correct. "He said he couldn't fit a pony cage on his sleigh."

"Huh-uh!" Will would insist, smugly, daring her father and I to so much as try to talk sense into her, "Santa SAID he'd bring me a pony!"

Strangers would ask her what she wanted for Christmas. "I'm getting a pony!" she'd announce, and just smile brattily at us when we tried to react to the excited squeals of everyone listening.

That kid. I swear.

Thankfully, Santa DOES have the sense that his mother gave him, because this is what Will found on her stocking on Christmas morning:

Her father and I have told her ever since we moved into this house that we would be happy to buy her a horse, but she'd need to do all the research and legwork to figure out exactly what infrastructure we needed and how to install it first, and figure all of the expenses so that we could work it into our budget. Thank goodness that Santa is on the same page!

Fortunately, Santa's replacement surprises seem to have hit the mark:

That's Choc-ola, a local chocolate soda that's actually not full of crap, so yay!

This  little one also had plenty of surprises:

She was just as excited to receive HER favorite dream food, gummies--and lots of them! 

My little crafter also made everyone else's gifts, too. She made Will a beautiful black lab out of Sculpey:

You can't tell as well from this angle, but she made me my favorite My Little Pony character, DJ Pon-3:

And she wrote a book for Matt, in a book that she actually bound herself:

That kid, I swear. 

We tried to make her gifts special, too:

Fat unicorns are kind of an inside joke in our family, so this is a fat reindeer.

Over the course of The Nutcracker run, I convinced all of the Mother Ginger Boys that they were in fact Mother Ginger's deadly assassins, and then I had to deal with them karate chopping and high kicking backstage when I was supposed to be keeping them quiet. Oops!

 

The kids thought that the present that they picked out for Matt was the funniest thing on the planet:

It's a potholder that says "Pizza's here!" on it, and has a picture of a family eating pizza around the dinner table.

Get it? We don't cook and instead order a lot of pizza!

Good times.

I had meant to make most of my family's gifts, but wow, why didn't y'all tell me that handmade gifts take a billion years to make! It was INSANE! In the end, I managed to make one small and one big gift for each kid, and the stuff that I had intended to make for Matt he's just going to have to get on our anniversary, because man, that did NOT happen. I had to send Matt and both kids out on a bunch of fake errands all day on Saturday just so I could finish panic-sewing Will's big gift.

 But yes, it was crazy, but it was so worth it. We now have a small mermaid--

--and... 

...a girl-sized mermaid!

We also have...

...a girl-sized shark!

It's not a pony, but I do think that she managed to like it, nonetheless:

I love the fact that Christmas is at the beginning of the break, because now we can just enjoy each other, put together puzzles and do crafts and read together, and I don't have to panic-sew a single thing.

How to Make a Fuzzy Ball Christmas Ornament

The kids and I made the cutest Christmas ornaments ever quite by accident:

I was attempting to make a wool dryer ball (which I did, and I'll show you how another time!). I didn't want to use wool roving, so I was instead using wool yarn. I made a giant pompom out of the yarn, and was about to stuff it into some old tights, tie it off, and toss it into the wash, but Syd got to it first and started playing with it.

I let her play while I worked on another, and she played with the wool yarn pompom so much that she unraveled all of the yarn strands and turned the pompom into a adorable, soft, fuzzywuzzy fuzz ball. We have a couple of these now sitting on random tables as fidgets, but the cutest couple I strung up on the tree as ornaments, and we adore them.

And here's how we made them!

You'll need some chunky yarn, 100% wool. Something like this wool yarn would work, although ours is this wool from We are Knitters.  

Make a giant pompom around your hand by holding the end of the chunky wool yarn between two of your fingers--

--then wrap the yarn loosely around your hand approximately 50 times:

Slip it off of your hand and use another piece of yarn to tie it off tightly in the middle:

Cut through the loops and you'll have yourself a giant wool yarn pompom!

The pompom would be super cute as a gift topper, but if you play with it a while, fidgeting it around in your hands (which won't be hard, as it feels super soft and awesome!), the yarn strands in your pompom will unravel, and now it will look like this:

Ugh, I love it so much!

To make your wool fuzzy ball into an ornament, thread a nice color of embroidery floss through that tie in the center--

--and tie it into a loop.

It's so pretty!!!

We're not really ornament buyers, and so although we've got a few store-bought ornaments on our tree, I do love that the vast majority of our ornaments are vintage ones from Mammaw and Pappaw's Christmas tree when I was a kid, and homemade ones from our years celebrating Christmas together as a family.

I'm really crushing my goal this year to have an ornament for every single branch of our Christmas tree!!!