I am a bit out of sync with my homeschool schedule with the rotation of what I teach, so I decided to do earth science this semester, starting with astronomy.
BUT I never finished a couple lessons from our biology year, so I went back, and we had a lesson about ecosystems, biospheres, and environment. I think the kids liked it. I have a different group of kids than other years. We are evolving. I only have one class and they are all the "youngers" who are not that young anymore. We often have a visitor I don't know who comes to test the waters of my classes. I think they usually like it. My favourite "experiment" for that week was assigning each child a part in the ecosystem. Someone was grass, another a grasshopper, another a bird etc, and we made a web to see who ate/depended on the other. Then we got rid of one of the kids, and the entire ecosystem was effected.
The next week we studied plants. I should know the most about this subject, since this is the "official" subject I studied the most in college for science, but I feel like I forgot lots, and I forget why/if there's a distinction between nuts and seeds and other things like that.
We did talk about Xylem and how plants carry water, and we put carnations in different coloured water to prove this, and we put limp celery in water to revive it.
Then I felt like we had officially done "enough" for our biology year, so I started our galaxy unit, and we started with the origin of the galaxy which starts with a bang....a big bang...haha...that was a lame joke lol.
But first, we talked a lot about light since that is the way main way we study the universe. We talked about prisms, bending light, lasers, and telescopes in general. I brought out our huge lens for this.
So the next week we learned about the big bang and red shift. We talked about cannibal galaxies, black holes, and all that...you know...bigger than life stuff.
Inspired by Veritasium, I made this chart to show the order of size within the universe (don't worry....we talked about how some moons are bigger than some planets etc.). When Veritasium went out on the streets, the average person couldn't put these in the right order, so I felt it was my duty to teach my kiddos so they wouldn't be as inept....or at least if they didn't know, it wouldn't be my fault.
Then we talked about stars and constellations the next week. Including why stars twinkle and planets don't, how hotter stars are brighter, star's life cycles, and showing how our constellations are only visible from earth because if we looked at them from somewhere else in the galaxy, the stars would not make the same designs.
The next week we studied the sun and introduced our solar system. We talked about orbits, solar observations, sun dials, and how the sun effects us. As part of this, I threw a ball as levelly as I could and the ball followed a curved path as gravity pulled it down, and we talked about how the planets and moons are just constantly falling.
(Do you see the earth ball?---maybe I should have uploaded the video. Oh well.)
And also we talked about the Aurora Borealis and how the earth's magnetism effects that, so we had our own "energetic particles from the sun" (ie iron fillings) rain down on our "magnetic earth" (ie just a magnet under a paper)
The next week we talked about the inner planets. This had us talking about the size and distance of planets, Mercury, Venus, and a little bit of Mars.
As part of this, I asked them what mnemonic they wanted to use "My Very Educated mother just served us nine pizzas," or the one my class made up when I was little "Many Vampires Eat Monsters Jumping Squares Using Nut Pillows." And they decided they wanted to come up with their own (and I encouraged them to include Pluto....because I'm a 90s girl....) so they cam up with "Magnificent Vengeance Exterminates My Junior Siblings Using No Patience." Uhhhhhh yeah, that's a little harsh for a saying, but they had fun reciting it every time we had science.
The next week we learned about the outer planets, but I hadn't finished Mars, so we did that first, and as part of that, we did the experiment where we had sand in one jar and sand that had yeast in it in the other and then we added sugar water to both, and the yeast interacted, but without the yeast it didn't. (This was supposed to simulate trying to find life on Mars.)
Then we learned about the astroid belt, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and of course (again, I'm a 90s mom) Pluto. As part of this, I kept saying Your-in-us and the kids kept on going on about the pronunciation, so for better or for worse, I showed them this video (I told the parents that I did this)
By the way, EVERY movie about planets that CGP Grey makes is SOOO good! And we watched at least one more of his (about the mostest closest planets.)
And then We learned about other elements of the solar system like meteors and comets.
And we talked about the moon. This is one of my favourite lessons I do because I was so confused about the orbit of the moon as a child, and I feel like I didn't truly understand everything about it until I watched this youtube video by Mark Rober:
We get out an earth, a moon, and a sun, and we act out exactly what happens so we have a hands on experience with the moon's orbit. I find this so important because it can be confusing, but hardly anyone came!!!! I remember back during the pandemic when I taught three full classes of kids! Now I guess I'm just not popular, But hey! At least my own kids know about the moon's orbit.
Oh, and we talk about craters, tides, the moon's reflection, and a bit about space exploration.
About this time of the year, the Artemis II mission blasted off!!!! I WAS SO EXCITED! and I was so pumped that my kiddos were prepped to be excited about this because of all that we were learning. WE ARE GOING TO THE MOON!!!!
Then we talked about EARTH. Yes, we didn't really get to Earth when talking about the inner planets. We talked about seasons, Zodiacs, the earth's rotation, more about how sunlight effects things, and more about the earth as a magnet.
As one of our biggest activities for this, we made "season trees" by glueing on little bits of tissue paper onto trees to represent the seasons. I know, I know. This is more of a craft than an experiment, but hey, they seemed to like it.
The next week we talked about the age of the earth (when doing this, I said this to the parents...who are all LDS...."We talked about the age of the earth today. I talked about how, starting with Brigham Young, and going on to other prophets, they have consistently refused to have an absolute doctrine on how old the earth was, because it's not necessary for our salvation.
I said some believe creation was literally 6 days, some 6,000 years, and some say a "day" is a time period that could be millions or billions of years. It's okay to believe what ever way you want, because we don't know for sure and God hasn't told us for sure, but then I said what science is saying today (the billions of years scenario)"
We talked about fossils and contour maps. We talked about natural resources, conservation, energy, and pollution. As part of the pollution thing, we talked about how oil and water don't mix.
The next week we learned about Structure of the Earth. During which we talked about the mantle, the earth's "wobble" the rock cycle, minerals, and even more about the magnetic properties of the earth. As part of this, we took a "core sample" of an egg to show how taking a core sample of Earth's crust works.
Also, in this year's science, I would always realize I didn't get to something, or needed to review something, and this day, I just HAD to show my kiddos an experiment I had seen online that showed just how far away the moon was from the earth....it's much farther than you think!!!
The next week was ROCK COLLECTION WEEK! (Don't get too excited...none of the kids brought any cool rock collections or had any rock to share....this was different than every other time I've done this....kind of a let down.) But regardless, we studied igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. we also talked about crystals, coal, oil and gas. As part of this, we looked at crystals under the telescope and showed how pressure melted things....like ice.
The next week we learned about shifting plates, plate tectonics, mountains, plains, and plateaus. As part of this, my wonderful hubby helped me make these "faults" and then, when we were learning about them, Abraham insisted that we draw in them, and I actually think it added so much value to the experience! It's fun, but also educational...fossils and history, right?
The next week we learned about Earthquakes, seismic waves, magma, and VOLCANOES! My boys know a thing or two about volcanoes...have GONE to one...
We learned about waves using a slinky, and we talked about how magma can be made out of lots of different things, and of course, we made our own little volcano out of baking soda and vinegar. The good ol' science fair standard.
By the way. I know I usually only show one photo to represent a whole week of science, but there's so much I don't capture. Here's my supplies at the beginning that I needed to gather to do all the experiments that I wanted to do:
And here's the picture I would show that doesn't capture all the other experiments:
The next week we learned about mechanical and chemical weathering, and soil. We also talked about erosion, abrasion, slopes, water, wind, and glaciers. This is a really DIRTy lesson, but I feel like I did it way better last time I taught about this. For some reason, I could not get my hoodoos to work. All the sand got wiped out under the coins instead of leaving hoodoos under the coins. I wish that had worked because I think it is so educational about why we have certain formations, but it didn't and I was too lazy to figure out how to fix it.
The next week we learned about the water cycle. And we talked about filtering water. We also talked about oceans including currents. As part of this, we put hot water inside cold water, and saw the hot water current move through the cold water. We also showed hot water staying on top of cold water. (we do that in our chemistry year too...but I love it enough to do it multiple times a science cycle.)
The next week we learned about atmosphere. Air, gases in air, wind, and atmospheric layers we the order of the day. To show that there is oxygen in the air we did the egg getting sucked up into a bottle trick (an egg that has a birthday candle on it gets sucked in after the flame eats up all the oxygen...another experiment we do multiple years.)
As part of this we made pinwheels, because they're fun.
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