Butterflies
 http://everydaylearning.handinhandhomeschool.com/butterflies/

Butterflies

Posted on April 20, 2012 by admin

Your kids already know some of the basic facts about the life cycle of the butterfly and how you should never touch their wings. Take your love for butterflies a step further with some new learning ideas.

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How You Can Explore the Day:

1. Science:
   Begin your butterfly exploration with the Florida Museum of Natural History’s Butterfly Discovery Game. You’ll find some basic facts and then your kids can use the free online interactive to create their own butterfly. The neat part about this learning tool is that after they get to mix and match body shape, wing shape and color pattern, they’ll see how it matches up to one of 20,000 real butterfly species.
    
2. Science:
   Migration or hibernation? The University of Minnesota’s MonarchLab offers some of the most kid-friendly explanations about butterfly migration. As you read about the butterfly’s sun compass behavior, get your own magnetic compass out for a bit of orienteering with your kids.
     Of course, not all butterflies leave their habitat for the winter. Most of them hibernate, much like a bear. The Butterfly Lab is not that kid-friendly of a site but it will help you learn some basic facts about hibernation behaviors and butterflies.
3. Geography:
   Monarchs are known for their migratory flights from Canada to Mexico. Grab a map and identify these countries. Better yet, visit the Monarch Migration website and use their historic data to track migratory patterns. Poke around the site because they have excellent images, activity ideas, and science journaling prompts to help your budding naturalist think like a scientist.
    
4. Science and Latin:
   Butterflies belong to the scientific order Lepidoptera. Help your kids be a word sleuth and break down what it means. Hint: It’s two words, lepido and ptera.
     Start with this Wikipedia chart of Latin and Greek root words commonly used in scientific names. Brainstorm other animals that may have scales and wings. Do they share the same Latin root words? (Think about certain dinosaurs and snakes.) Print out pictures of different animals and organize them in ways that show how they are similar and how they are different.

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Butterflies Posted on April 20, 2012 by admin Your kids already know some of the basic facts about the life cycle of the butterfly and how you should never touch their wings. Take your love for butterflies a step further with some new learning ideas. How You Can Explore the Day: 1. Science: Begin your butterfly exploration with the Florida Museum of Natural History’s Butterfly Discovery Game. You’ll find some basic facts and then your kids can use the free online interactive to create their own butterfly. The neat part about this learning tool is that after they get to mix and match body shape, wing shape and color pattern, they’ll see how it matches up to one of 20,000 real butterfly species. 2. Science: Migration or hibernation? The University of Minnesota’s MonarchLab offers some of the most kid-friendly explanations about butterfly migration. As you read about the butterfly’s sun compass behavior, get your own magnetic compass out for a bit of orienteering with your kids. Of course, not all butterflies leave their habitat for the winter. Most of them hibernate, much like a bear. The Butterfly Lab is not that kid-friendly of a site but it will help you learn some basic facts about hibernation behaviors and butterflies. 3. Geography: Monarchs are known for their migratory flights from Canada to Mexico. Grab a map and identify these countries. Better yet, visit the Monarch Migration website and use their historic data to track migratory patterns. Poke around the site because they have excellent images, activity ideas, and science journaling prompts to help your budding naturalist think like a scientist. 4. Science and Latin: Butterflies belong to the scientific order Lepidoptera. Help your kids be a word sleuth and break down what it means. Hint: It’s two words, lepido and ptera. Start with this Wikipedia chart of Latin and Greek root words commonly used in scientific names. Brainstorm other animals that may have scales and wings. Do they share the same Latin root words? (Think about certain dinosaurs and snakes.) Print out pictures of different animals and organize them in ways that show how they are similar and how they are different.

The Science of Fun-Seeing Cells: Lab Skills-Microscopy

In this experiment we are going to observe human cheek cells and chromosomes under the microscope to reinforce the idea of the scale of DNA molecules. Human body cells are diploid; they contain two copies of each chromosomes. Extracting DNA from cheek cells yield just a very small amount of DNA. Individual strands of DNA are too small to be visible to the eye. One million threads of DNA fit onto the period at the end of a sentence using Times New Roman, font 12 in WORD. The reason why we are able to see DNA in this activity is that there are so many of them, clumped together. 

We will extract DNA from their own cheek cells. This is Rootbeer scraping cheek cells off for viewing. 1) We took a glass slide and placed a drop of water in the middle. 2) We scraped our cheek cells off and the mixed the together with the water on the slide.

We then placed the slides in the heater to dry.

The next step was preparing slides of cheek cells, stained with methylene blue.   We placed methylene blue on the slides, rinsed it off and placed them back in the heater to dry.  

Rootbeer placing the slides on the microscope for viewing. 

The final picture shows the cheek cells that we viewed. (methylene blue stains the nucleus) and the size of nucleus, chromosomes, and DNA. The blue die makes it able for us to see our cells under the microscope.                                                     Biology/Life Science-Extract your own DNA from cheek cells

The Science of Fun-Fingerprinting

Who stole the butter from the butter tub? Other visible human characteristics tend to change - fingerprints do not.  Barring injuries or surgery causing deep scarring, or diseases such as leprosy damaging the formative layers of friction ridge skin (injuries, scarring and diseases tend to exhibit telltale indicators of unnatural change), finger and palm print features have never been shown to move about or change their unit relationship throughout the life of a person. In this experiment we are going to use four fingerprint details, of three individuals, to see who was scooping in the butter dish.

The four details we can find on Tammy's fingerprints were, Lake, Ridge dot, Island, and Bifurcation.

The four details in Mr. Wilson's fingerprints were, Ridge dot, Ending ridge, Bifurcation, and Bridge.

The four details found in Rodger's fingerprints were Bifurcation, Hook, Island, and Bridge.

The details that were found on the butter dish were, Ridge dot, Ridge crossing, Bifurcation, Lake, and Island.

Finding the different parts of a fingerprint to use for comparison.

We can see by the table that Tammy's fingerprints had the most matches. Therefore, Tammy had her fingers in the butter dish!! The History of Fingerprints

Out-And-About-With our Homeschool CO-Op Group

Light Speed Ahead-Experiments with Light

This was an optical allusion, like a hologram. Rootbeer attempted to "pick-up" the pig. However, it was at the bottom of the mirrored dome, but appeared to be on the top. 

Discovering that the pig was on the bottom, after the cover was taken off.

Alcohol can make flames appear to have different colors.

This was a great demonstration of white light and optical illusions!

Out-And-About-With our Homeschool Co-op

Energizer Machine-Physics in Action=Newtons Laws of Motion

It takes a lot of strength to get started!

It was even harder to keep it going!

The Science of Fun-Life in the Lab

Life in the Lab-Using Micro Organisms

We used bill bugs for this observation.....

Many people mistakenly think that pillbugs are insects but in fact, pillbugs are crustaceans as are lobsters, shrimp, and crabs. Both insects and crustaceans are classified in a larger group known as the arthropods. Arthropods are animals with exoskeletons and jointed appendages.

Rootbeer gathering four Pillbugs. 

Pillbugs are classified in a group of crustaceans known as isopods. There are about 4000 species of identified isopods. Most isopods live in marine habitats, some live in fresh water, and a few like pillbugs live on land.

Rootbeer placing the bugs under the microscope for observation.

Pillbugs are 5 to 15 mm long and have three body regions; head, thorax, and abdomen. Most of the pillbug's exoskeleton consists of shield-like plates. The body is flattened laterally. Each of the seven pairs of legs is identical. There is one pair of antenna and one pair of compound eyes.

Observing the activity and body parts of our bill bugs.

After our observation we touched them with the soft part of a paint brush to see which ones were Rollers or Hikers....Roller is a term used to describe a pillbug that rolls up in a ball. Hiker is a term used to describe a pillbug that runs when disturbed. All of ours were Hikers. 

Futher experimentation also showed that they prefer dark places over light.

http://outreach.mcb.harvard.edu/teachers/Summer05/ElizabethMick/PillbugBehavior.pdf     

The Science of Fun-Blood Typing

Transfusion Confusion-Blood Typing

Learning how to test blood to figure out a person's blood type...

These facts are crucial in knowing what type of blood a person would need for a blood transfusion or surgery.

Mixing serum with the synthetic "blood" to see what type it is.

After mixing the "blood" and serum together we observed to see what happened to the blood in the wells.

We learned that this person has blood type B because it clumped together. Further into our experiment, we also checked the Rh factor and found out that this persons "blood" tested positive for the RH factor, making them B+.

Without knowing the correct blood type, it is very dangerous to perform surgery or give a blood transfusion. In most cases it would be life threatening to receive the wrong type of blood. Only certain types of blood can be given to a person depending on the type of blood they have. Therefore, it is very important to know what your blood type is....

 

The Science of Fun-Lab Tools:Micropipet

Moving Microliters-Lab Tools: Micropipet

Learning how to use a micropipet to measure microliters of liquid..

Estimating what we think 10 Microliters will look like.

Rootbeer attaching the tip to his Micropipet.

Using the dial to measure the correct amount of liquid to move.  

Micropipets are important lab tools. They are used for many lab tests, especially for DNA testing for crime scene  investigations.

The Science of Fun-Rubber Bones

Science gone wrong-yucky bones!

The Secret Scientist's experiment-Rubber Bones! Supplies list; one test tube, a clean chicken bone, and vinegar. 1) Take a clean chicken bone and let it dry overnight. 2) Place the bone in the test tube and fill it with vinegar.  3) Let the bone sit in the vinegar for a week. Each day the bone will get more bendable. By the end of the week you should be able to tie the bone in a knot!

We waited one full week. We dried the bones off then tried to tie them into a knot. First, the bones felt so yucky, no one wanted to touch them!! They were bendable, but not bendable enough to tie into a knot. What went wrong? Additional ideas at:  Weird Science Kids-Rubber Chicken Bone Experiment