Classification of Living Things!

 Now SCIENCE!!!

Okay, so I left off talking about DNA. Well, I felt like I needed to do even more about this subject, so we continued talking about DNA the next week and we cut gummy bears as an "experiment." 

Now we had talked about all the systems of the body (musculature, bones, excretory, digestive, circulatory, respiratory, nervous, and reproductive) BUT we had not talked about the five senses. so first we talked about hearing. We made a model of the ear with household objects and we also showed how sound travels better through solids (like string.) I love this experiment where they ding spoons connected to strings. It's always surprising. 

However, the experiment where you put clay in the folds of your ears to mess up your sound direction didn't work! Maybe we needed to try it outside where there was no echo.

Then we talked about sight. I was so sad I couldn't find my glasses that turns everything up side down! Those were the coolest, and make an important point. But we DID get two cows eyes to dissect, and unlike last time, these were from a cow that was NOT blind, so there actually was a lens, which was awesome to feel. It wasn't as solid as I thought. I completely squished it at the end of the dissection.

Then we learned about taste and smell. (We did these the same week.) We did a lot of taste testing and mapping of our taste buds. I made some chicken green to show how our senses work together to give us clues about how things will taste and if they're safe.

One week we also learned about touch. I don't think I have any photos of our actual class, but we did this experiment that I had seen on facebook, and it DID NOT work....well not totally. You were supposed to be able to touch this fake hand and trick your brain into thinking it was yours, but (unlike the Facebook video) if you didn't actually touch your hand, you couldn't feel anything.

Now that we had thoroughly studied the body, we needed to study the classification of living things. We started out by "classifying" our shoes. This is the only thing that I did in school that I remembered and carried into my science class. We take everyone's shoes and put them into categories until we have a full taxonomy of shoes.

The next week (or did we have enough time that week? It's all jumbled in my memory) we talked about the different kingdoms. We focused mostly on the fungus and bacteria kingdoms. 

I had them take petri dishes and go through my house and collect cultures from things in my house. Over the next few days, this became very disgusting:

This one I got from my ice maker....which instills all kinds of confidence in the cleanliness of my house.

 Then we learned about invertebrates. We were running out of time to be done for the year, so I tried to do as many invertebrates as possible. We did worms, (and played with worms) and molluscs (and ate snails.) Speaking of eating snails, 4 years ago when we had this lesson, I just had them eat escargot right out of the can, but as I was going to buy them this time, my Francophone friend said I had to cook it in garlic and butter or it was gross, so I did that this time. Last year, only one kid was brave enough to eat it, but this time, I think they all did! It pays to know how to cook!  

But then we also talked about bugs. I had them take "butterflies" and stick them in "pollen" (ie glitter) and then into another bowl of "pollen" and see if they could spread the different kinds of pollen around. They went CRAZY and I think I still have glitter in my dining area!

I had asked them to bring any bugs that they had caught to show to the class. ZABY was a STINKER and had brought this huge jar that he had covered with a tea towel. I though I was going to see an ant, and was confused when I thought I saw the bottle move a bit. This put me a little on edge, and when I lifted the towel, I saw a WET GOPHER! (For some reason, it being wet was sooo disconcerting.) I of course screamed and Zaby was so proud because my scream had been his goal.

Then the next week we finished invertebrates by doing arachnids and crustaceans. Honestly, they seem incredibly closely related. Think about a scorpion and a lobster....brothers! We dissected a crawdad. We had enough for everyone to dissect one! And boy did they STINK! I've never had a dissection that stunk so bad. But I think they all thought it was pretty fascinating. 

We learned about reptiles and amphibians. Yes, I taught them in the same lesson because summer was closing in on us. We of course dissected a frog. The tongue always gets me. So crazy.

The next week we learned about fish. I put it on facebook that I needed a fresh fish that had all its guts, and a super nice fisherman jumped at the chance. (Any excuse to go fishing seemed to please him! LOL.) Fresh specimens are so superior to things preserved. The swim bladder was even still inflated. 

Then we learned about birds. One of my favourite dissections ever is dissecting owl pellets, and they are expensive online and four years ago, my friend had brought a ton extra that were just in her backyard (she's in the country...more than me.) So I thought I could get some, but it was a bit of an adventure.

Since my friend's owl had deserted her, yet again I said on facebook I needed them, and when I was driving one day, a friend tracked me down (I had a very distinctive car) and told me (all conspiratorial) where to get a huge amount of them. I thankfully knew of the farm he was talking about, and boldly went up to the farm house later that week and asked if I could look on their farm, and they said yes.

I looked for half an hour, I kid you not, and had only found a few. Suddenly I found a huge pile of them. I looked up, and sure enough, there was a nest. My advice: look for a nest before you look for pellets.

We had more than enough for everyone, and I think they had a blast looking through the pellets for bones.

Our final class was dissecting a PIG! I have never received a specimen this way:

Yep. That's a pig in a bucket of formaldehyde. Yum

Honestly, it was well preserved, and it really was a good culmination of everything we've learned all year. We opened the bucket and dissected it OUTSIDE. I had learned my lesson from the crawdads that this did not need to be an inside affair.

That middle photo is of the brain. Everyone was pretty insistent that we get to the brain. That was a hard thing to do! The brain was so well protected by the skull! Which was a lesson in and of itself. You can see me comparing it to the small intestine because they looked similar. 

Oh! And we had a bonus science class. My sister-in-law asked me to come over with all my ideas of how to play with dry ice. You don't have to ask me twice! I knew exactly what to do with dry ice. It turned out she had buckets and buckets and buckets worth of dry ice! (By the way, it's really hard to get ahold of dry ice in Canada.) I guess what had happened was that her friend was using the dry ice to brand her cattle. Instead of heat burning them, they cold burned them (if that makes sense.) And we got her left overs.

We had so much fun, but there was so much even after, so we went with some of those left overs to another friend and had even more fun. We put a ton in their sink and it filled up the room (DO NOT WORRY! We were in a ventilated area with doors open and made the kids run outside every 2 minutes.) It was so much fun!

And that's is for science for the year. Did we get to plants or ecosystems? No. Does that bug me? Yes. Will I do anything about that? Not sure.

The Systems of the Body

 SCIENCE

We have been learning the systems of the body. Last time I told you about the muscular system and the skeletal system, now let's cover the other systems!

First we learned about the nervous system. Dustin got me this awesome model of the brain which really helped explain things. I feel like I was so much better at knowing about the brain now that I've taken all those psychology classes. Especially my cognitive psychology class---by the way, of subject but I'm on the waiting list for my master's program! Keep your fingers crossed!---

We talked about memory, and how you have a better memory if you can put things into a picture or story. That was what all these shapes is about. Also, I had all of my crew make "brain hats" that are really awesome that map out where everything is in your brain. And also, we have a cat now...not sure if I've mentioned that before....but she likes to be in the centre of things. Especially when I'm trying to get ready for things.

And now for the dissections. I again got my butcher friend to help me out. Here is me planning all the different dissections I'm going to need:

For the excretory system, we digested kidneys. I will never forget four years ago when we did this and soon after I got huge kidney stones. As I was cutting one of the kidneys open, I accidentally squirted Abraham with what was most likely urine from the kidney! He won't forget that any time soon! 

And since the skin's sweat is part of the excretory system, we talked about skin too and talked about our unique finger prints.

Then we learned about the respiratory system. I got lungs connected to the heart and trachea. This was absolutely the most involved and bloody dissection of the year, and one kid started dry heaving. THAT's never happened before!!! We saved the hear for next class, but we tried to fill up the lungs with air. It didn't work quite as well as it did four years ago.

Then we learned about the circulatory system. This is when we dissected the heart. We also did other things, like seeing if we were as fast as a heart beat at moving liquid from one place to another. 

And we learned a bit about blood. (I went over time...I always do...) I taught them about blood types and I had three blood test kits. I had two people get their blood tested, but they were both O-. I thought I did the test wrong. What are the chances that both kids (William and Rosina) would have O-, the most rare kind of blood?! But the next week, we tested one more kid, and they ended up to be A+, so I think I did it right. I made the mistake of saying "If William and Rosy get married, all of their kids would be O-" which made William give a huge smile and say "I didn't say it!" since he has a crush on Rosina. Rosina had no comment.

The next week we learned about the digestive system. I just got a liver from the store. We learned about how long the small intestines are. That's what this photo is supposed to show.

And we also talked about the importance of teeth as part of digestion, which is a good excuse to get out disclosure tablets, which the kids LOVE.

And we did an experiment with the liver that worked really well. We basically made a volcano from liver parts and hydrogen peroxide and then we proved it turned into oxygen by reigniting some fire with the oxygen.

That leaves just the reproduction system left.

My little group was NOT about to get an anatomy lesson about the reproduction system. In fact, I always put up this poster:

And my little people almost died of embarrassment from it. I had to explain quite sternly that there was nothing naughty about it, and gave a little lecture about when things were not naughty, but they still were squeamish. 

SO I strictly stayed to DNA and heredity when talking about the reproductive system.

I had them make a DNA strand from themselves, and I think this is by far the BEST way to explain DNA and how it replicates. 

Also, we talked about dominant and recessive. I even had them get into pairs and roll dice to find out if their genes went into their "babies" that they made together! Hahahaha

Oh, and that's Abraham in that photo up there, with his DNA he made out of candy.

Skeletons and Muscles

 For science, we learned about skeletons. Dustin actuall bought me an entire skeleton to help me teach, and that was super fun. We learned about the make up of bones, the different kinds of joints, and we made a "Back-bone" that had a balloon as a head, and vertebras from rolled up paper and intervertebral discs from soft candy discs. 

Then we learned about muscles. I was not as prepared for this class as I wish I had been. I had made this muscle model every time I've taught biology, but this time, I didn't give myself enough time to make it so it was a sloppy job and didn't work, which is a shame because it really shows how muscles work. I tried to explain it, and maybe they got it. 

We focused a lot on tendons, and I had a hand for every kids where they could pull their "tendons" to close their hands.

And....that's it for science.