A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

Science

Learning about Telephones

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One of the things I am aiming to do is give my lad a taste of different trades he could get involved in.  I don’t want to push him into the trades as he has the heart of a teacher/preacher/explainer of life.  BUT as I tell him, if you have a trade that you can do, that you like it gives you options in life.  You can work and make some money to put yourself through school.  It can be a point of ministry if you work, giving you abilities to answer questions for people or help them with projects.  If you can’t find work in your chosen field, you have a trade to fall back on.   To that end, I’ve collected some electronics for my son (and I) to take part.

Today we started our Electronics Study with The Telephone. Stay tuned for a free worksheet!

Our basis for study

Or at least a background support and hopefully we’ll eventually work through it.  Make Electronics. 

First Project

We have some old phones that I collected.  Did you know that people are awesome at Yardsales when you go around end of day asking if they have stuff to help your lad out?  The stuff I collected that way is amazing!  🙂   But today.. Telephones.  

We started off with two basic telephones.  Then we examined their exterior noting what the cords were like and where they were connected.  We noted the white one was significantly heavier than the black.  later we learned that was due to bigger components and weights in the base of the phone. 

I gave my son dibs on the phone he wanted to dismantle.  He chose black.  He cut off the telephone cord before I had a chance to show him how they just pull out.  

Opening them up proved a bit problematic.  We undid screws thinking that would open them up WRONG.   We ended up using screwdrivers to pry them apart until we found hooks holding them together. Pushed those in until the upper and lower parts released. 

Once opened we gave them a good look see.  It was hard to take pics as we moved at different speeds and were fascinated with different things which of course took us in different directions.  🙂

As soon as my lad had the black phone taken apart he was fascinated by how the black number pad had sensors on the bottom that would react (or contact) with small computer sensors underneath.  At least this is the supposition that we formed.  🙂

You see that grey thing at the bottom with lines running through it?   We counted the press pads and the number of lines and we think that is how  the older white phone communicated with the phone over what numbers were being called.   

The ear listener part in the black phone was VERY firmly attached to the phone.   We didn’t see any wires connecting it to the speaker part in the black phone.   We did take the listener part apart (needed to put it through the vice grip to snap the seal. 

Comparisons

Comparing the interiors, seeing the difference between just a few years in these telephones.  How the computer sensors and electronic needs got smaller. So many less wires in the newer phone than in the older white.

We learned about capacitors and resistors, diodes, light emitting diodes and more.  The older phone had more of these than the newer phone.  A few things we saw we didn’t know what they were.   It was fascinating to see how different the capacitors were. 

Tools Needed

We saw a few things we didn’t find out our helpful resource sites but extrapolated what they were for.  Like the part that hangs up the phone.  The external part was obvious, the internal part somewhat less so until we did comparisons and saw the switches in action.   The older phone had more click and hold features than the newer one. 

As we hope to reuse pieces when we more formally study electronics we collected everything we could on a plate and later stored them in a small box.  I forgot to mention we gathered items like screwdrivers, wire snippers and strippers before hand.   We also made use of our vice grip to help with cracking seals and phone cases.   We used a battery pack with wires to help test the phones.

Testing our Knowledge

Want to join us in testing our knowledge?   I made up a sheet so you can find capacitors, diodes etc with us.  You’ll find the link here.   You’ll need to use the helpful resources below.

Helpful Resources

We used the book to give us ideas, but also googled.   We found this page helpful. Electronics Club Components.  As well as uCHobby and wellpbc. 

The next stage

My son has a goal now, he wants to build an intercom using two old phones.   He already knows that he needs to learn how to solder. 

I hope you enjoyed our walk-through tearing apart two old phones.   Have you ever done things like this? Figuring out how things work?   Let me know in the comments below eh?   Thanks!

Science Comics Rockets Defying Gravity

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Do you have a love of rockets?   Do you have any idea of the history behind rocketry?  Science Comics Rockets Defying Gravity uses a graphic novel format along with humour and a well-told story to bring the reader the history of rocketry. 

From the Cover:

In Rockets we explore the 2,000 years that rockets have been in existence. We dive into Newton’s Laws of Motion – learning all about gravity, force, acceleration, and the history of rockets made in the past and rockets to be made in the future!

What You Get:

Rockets – Defying Gravity uses excellent graphics to walk you through the history of rocketry.   You will meet visionary physicist, chemists, engineers and entertainers.  Animals played their roles as well from sheep, to monkeys, to spiders and to mice.   Many more animals than I would have thought.  Honestly I thought they really only used dogs and chimpanzees. 

The author used an excellent sense of humour to portray the facts of history.   The end result is a forward-moving book that imparts more information than you expect.  It’s an easy going read that keeps you interested the whole while.

My Thoughts

I have to admit, at first I wasn’t sure what I thought of this graphic novel.   A bunch of critters yapping about rockets.  As I read the book though, I realized that through humour and animal characters, they were giving the history of rocketry and showing how animals were part of the process.  By the time I was 1/3 of the way through I was hooked. I eagerly read the rest of the book, being surprised frequently.. I never knew that sheep were a part of rocketry history! Did you? 

The graphics were well done, the font easy to read.   Over all I found it to be a well done introduction to rocketry for middle school students.

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Trench Foot Experiment

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Over the course of this year I’ve been documenting our studies through World War 1.  Last week I talked about our studies concerning Trench Warfare.   Today I thought I’d talk about the experiment that we conducted.

We started off with three pig feet along with dirt from the construction site.  We also had vaseline, one towel, several protective gloves (we used blue nitrile gloves), a container for dirt/water mix and several socks. Our goal to see how the pig feet will stand up to no care, wash/dry/change sock, and wash/dry/add vaseline/change sock.

Day One

Day one we put socks on and put the socked pig feet in dirt.  This first day the lad didn’t use the nitrile gloves.   The pig feet were clean just out of the freezer.  I told him.. people use them for food, it’s no different than touching hamburger.  🙂  Putting this foot in he forget to wash and dry his hand first before putting the wash/dried pig foot in the sock.

The socks were used were old stretched out ones the lad had outgrown.  We bought a container JUST big enough for the pig feet.  The dirt he made wet and sloppy like the dirt in a trench would be.  This was a big of guess work as we couldn’t actually feel the consistency we saw in pictures. 

I will make the suggestion that you catch your experimenter BEFORE he starts doing this on the kitchen counter!   We moved the experiment outside thereafter!  

The smallest pig foot was our “we don’t know any better” foot.  Change the socks once a day, but otherwise no care given. 

Then the other feet,

  • One was wash and dry thoroughly with a new sock.
  • One was wash, dry, and slather with vaseline (we had no access to goose grease) with a new sock.  

We originally planned to change them three times a days but only found time (due the Christmas season being upon us) to do it twice a day.   

Foot inspections were taken very seriously by the army.   Each time we changed the socks we examined them carefully. 

Day Two

The lad noted the little foot (no care) was starting to stink. Not bad just enough he noticed it. He also noted the foot pads were not in good shape and it had a couple of dark patches on it.  Wet/dry and Vaseline foot were looking okay.  The cracks in wet/dry were looking dark. 

Day three

This foot, even I with a horrible nose for smelling things, noted ICK.  Careful examination revealed decay and rot.  Mostly on the extremities.  But also between the digits. There were patches that were dark and “felt slimey” we didn’t cut into them.  The lad was well…not handling the smell well.  (he is a sensitive nose like his dad) so once we did our gross examination we called it a day. 

Today we noticed more degradation on wet/dry foot.  The exposed flesh were it was damaged by a knife had definitely started to rot and changed colour as well.  The lad said this area definitely smelled worse than the other areas.   

The lad was wildly impressed.  Vaseline works mom!   This foot hardly stinks at all, and look!   The meat isn’t a wrong colour!!!   

My mom thoughts… WOOT WOOT!!!!   IT WORKED!!! 

Want to teach your children about caring for their feet?  Why it’s important to keep them clean and dry?  Replicate this experiment.  My suggestions are to do it in the spring or fall so you can do it outside as much as possible. 

Here’s a science experiment lab report to help you report your discoveries. 

Dinosaur Museum

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Do you have a person in your life who likes dinosaurs?  Well.. I have this GREAT book for you today.   Seriously, Lonely Planet Kids has done an amazing job with Build your Own Dinosaur Museum.  In it you will find 5 prehistoric pop-ups to make and display.  Loads of interesting facts pepper the pages as you uncrate dinosaur bones to build your very own dinosaurs.   

Build your own Dinosaur museum

From the Book Cover: 

Calling all dinosaur experts! We need your help.
We have just received a crate of dinosaur fossils – and they need assembling! Fast! Can you find the right room for each skeleton and build them in time for the museum’s big opening? There are five pop-up dinosaurs to put back together, including a Triceratops, Stegosaurus and T-rex. It’s going to be roar some!

Lonely Planet’s Build Your Own Dinosaur Museum is an activity book with a difference, where you get to play chief paleontologist. The museum rooms are ready, but there aren’t any skeletons to display. It’s up to you to figure out which one is which and where they need to go.
Fun, interactive and with lots of facts to discover, this book is perfect for any dinosaur fan, budding biologist or model maker.

What you Get:

When I opened this hardcover book I discovered several pages in the front of the book that were taped securely closed.  Being the curious duck that I am I immediately opened up the tape. By the way, the tape sticks over and over and over again.  I tested it about 15 times and then my lad did a couple more times for good measure. 

Build your own Dinosaur museumThese pieces are colour coded and easy to tear out. They also give instructions so you know which page goes with what display page.  The pieces have bends in them so once you put them in the book they will indeed pop-up. This is excellent for young dinosaur enthusiasts. 

Build your own Dinosaur museumIt does follow the evolutionary theory of the earth’s development, and how animals came into being.  I find this is pretty normal with most dinosaur focused books.  I learned many new facts like did you know there was a triceratops group?  This is a group of dinosaurs with a similar head shape but the horn count was different!  I learned how some dinosaurs found safety in numbers, and some dinosaurs were like ostriches…dependent upon their speed to elude predators. 

Build your own Dinosaur museum

Five of the pages were dedicated to the pop-ups, where-as other pages had spots for adding in interesting details, like this egg. 

Build your own Dinosaur museumThere are so many builds for the dinosaur enthusiast, they should be kept busy learning and playing for a good amount of time.  The great thing is, the text is interesting enough they they’ll keep coming back to it to read it again. 

Build your own Dinosaur museumThe reader gets to learn about 

  • What dinosaurs are
  • Triceratops
  • Dinosaur defense
  • Stegosaurus
  • Plant eaters
  • T-rex
  • Predators
  • Marine Reptiles
  • Liopleurodon
  • Flying Reptiles
  • Pleranodon
  • Where in the World?
  • End of an era

Build your own Dinosaur museum

My Thoughts:

I am enamoured with this book, there is so much information, and so many things to keep busy hands well… busy, it’s just great!   From a homeschoolers’ perspective this book would be an excellent addition to a dinosaur unit.  Helping students to hone their attention on five specific dinosaurs and learn how they were put together. Big bones, small forearms, land moving, earth shakers, flyers and more.

This book is a perfect companion to Dinosaur Devotions that I reviewed last week.  AND.. if you are a member of SchoolhouseTeachers there is a great dinosaurs and the bible program you could work through.  Seriously, you should invest in it, it has so many programs that would be helpful to you and your students it’s amazing.  BUT anyways, Build your Own Dinosaur Museum is a must have for the young dinosaur enthusiast in your home.  It would make an excellent Christmas present don’t you think?

Build your own Dinosaur museum

Build Your Own Dinosaur Museum
Jenny Jacoby
illustrator: Beatrice Blue
Lonely Planet Kids
6-8 years, hardcover, Pop-ups, Build your own
Dinosaurs, history, science, biology
Nature, how it works, archaeology

Reviewed for: Raincoast Books.

Other dinosaur books for you to check into:

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Seven experiments for Science Co-op

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Seven Co-op science experiments

I’ve been teaching a science class this current co-op season.   I had a couple of books that inspired me The Element in the Room and The Electric Pickle.   Here are seven experiments for a co-op science class. 

We discussed hydrogen and oxygen and learned to separate them with electrolysis. 

We learned the iodine turns purple when it connects with a starch.  This also gave us the opportunity to discuss diffusion. 

iodline

We had a lot of fun playing around with mentos and pop.  We got a lot of different pops, let the boys figure out an hypothesis, and test their ideas, their goal.. figure out why mentos reacted strongly with some pop but not with others.   They got pretty close to figuring it out too!  We ended up turning to the internet for the answers.  It’s a combination nucleation and the the gum arabic and gelatin ingredients of the Mentos, combined with the potassium benzoate, sugar or (potentially) aspartame in diet sodas.   The boys were shocked that the no sugar pepsi had the greatest reaction and had traced that down the aspartame.  And my son had mentioned the bubbles that form on the mint mentos.  We actually took two class periods to research this. 

The boys were delighted to test out chip bags in the microwave.  They excitedly showed them off to a homeschool mom who asked “did you do those in the oven?”  They told her the microwave and she asked about sparks.  We learned that two seconds in the microwave works fine. It was NOT my idea to do one with the contents still in it, but the boys thought it pretty cool.  🙂

chip bag microwave

Magnetic fun

One day we played around with magnets. I hadn’t anticipated this one but came prepared in case they were curious.  I brought four different kinds of cereal and some milk.   They floated the cereal and determined which ones had the most iron in them.  Fruit loops of all things!!!!!   Crushed them and discovered tiny amounts of iron filings.   This was a total eye opener for them.   Then of course, boys being boys, they played magnet hockey…in the process discovering north and south, and how magnets vary in strength. 

iron filings

Our last experiment was in discovering the joy of black snakes. Working with carbon was very exciting for these two lads. It was a windy day so we struggled getting things going and the bbq lighter was a bit of a challenge to use. 

Since we are on vacation this week I didn’t actually plan an experiment for day six.  I expect the lads will be too busy just setting things up and I always have stuff we can play around with.   🙂

Arty Facts: Our Bodies & Art Activities

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Are you doing a human body study and looking for art projects to enhance your learning adventures?   Arty Facts is a wonderful book to enhance any study of the human body.  Let me tell you about this excellant art book resource, entitled Our Bodies & Art Activities, that will nicely round out your studies.

arty facts: our bodies & art activities

What do you get:

21 Chapters with titles such as strong bones, taste buds, touch and feel, brainbox and sound catchers, the human body is discussed and art activities suggested for each area of the body.

arty facts: our bodies & art activities

This isn’t just an art book with a little bit of info, it’s also a science book with good information about the body. I found the text geared to grades three and up.  There is much younger children could learn, but for reading independently, probably grade three as a minimum level. 

arty facts: our bodies & art activities

Each page of learning comes with an accompanying art activity.  There is a great range of activities from working with paper Mache, sewing, or drawing etc.    You get to work with paper, glue, buttons, foil, shells, paint, sponges, sequins and more.  Some of the crafts are “Salt Dough Fruit Basket”, “Textured Touch Art”, “Circuit Board Collage” and “Puffing Bellows”.   I found that the crafts ranged in complexity, some being suitable for upper elementary students, and others for lower.  Pick the crafts/art activities that match the level of your students.

arty facts: our bodies & art activities

You’ll notice that the list of needed supplies in done on a red sidebar with pictures and words.  The instructions were clear making it very easy to teach.  There is a materials guide at the close of the book which tells you what some of the materials are and what suitable alternatives could be used.

My thoughts:

I think this is a great book and makes me want to go out and gather a bunch of kids together. Then I can do art and learn about the body at the same time.  This book is great for kinetic learners to cement learning.  I was pleased they didn’t include the Robotic Hand which I often find in stem and art books about the human body. 

arty facts: our bodies & art activities

 

Our Bodies & Art Activities
Editor: Ellen Rodger
Crabtree Publishing
48 pages, softcover,
Art, Kids Crafts, Human Body, Science
Series: Arty Facts.

 

 

The Element in the Room

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Did you know that I am teaching a science class?  My goal was to base it solely in the periodic table, but I didn’t get the student numbers hoped for, so I’ve kinda turned it into a basic science class.   We are still mostly doing the periodic table as the basis for our learning though, as elements make up EVERYTHING in the world you know?  To that end, The Element in the Room, that I received as a review book from Raincoast Books has been immensely helpful.

The Element in the Room

From the Cover:

Did you know that without the ‘lead’ in your pencil, there would be no life on Earth? Or that diamonds and coal are both made from exactly the same thing? Or that the deadly ingredient used to make the most dangerous weapon in history can also be found in your bottled water?

Absolutely everything in the universe is made up of just 92 elements! And from aluminum to zinc, many of these atomic ingredients can be found in your very own home.

This funny and fascinating guide to the elements is bursting with brilliant facts about the ingredients that make up everything around us. Join the great scientific sleuth Sherlock Ohms as he explores the elements hiding in your home, and help his enquiries with explosive scientific experiments.

Ohms’ investigation will sort the isotopes from the allotropes, put the Able into Periodic Table, and electrify your electrons! Along the way, Atomic Comics show you the savvy scientists who discovered the elements and their extraordinary effects.

What you get:

Quite frankly, you get a delightfully informative book all about the periodic table.  You start off learning the basics of what makes up an atom, what an electrical charge is, and building up from there.  It does touch on the “big bang theory” as many science books are apt to do. Through talking about the stars and the how they fuse elements we are led into the periodic table.

The element in the room

As you can see, the elements are broken down into colour zone with what type they are labeled. Understanding that there are more than 100 elements leads to the question of how do they combine, so that explanation is given just before we delve into the world of the different elements in the room.

Each of the elements is discussed, some as part of a page grouping, others getting a page of their own and yet others spreading over two pages).  In each case we are told where we can find the element in the world around us, the colour, how safe it is and it’s general use.

The element in the room

A sense of humour is evident through the pages.  The author evidently enjoys science and wants to help the younger generation enjoy is as well.  This is seen not only in the comics, but in the language and illustrations used.

The element in the room

The somewhat oversized book closes with the question…how many more elements will be discovered as scientists continue to make new ones.   Will they be as unstable as the ones created thus far?    Will one of today’s readers be the one to discover it?

To help the reader understand new terminology a glossary is provided at the close of the book.

My Thoughts:

What a delightfully informative book.  There are several different ways to approach it.

  • You could read the comics all the way through from start to finish so you get the whole story at once.
  • Or you could learn about the specific element you are interested in
  • Learning the elements in their groupings
  • Checking them out by what state they are in  etc.

In my co-op class we used it as a go-to for quick answers and for stimulating our thinking. We then took that knowledge to the internet to learn more details.  One of the things I really appreciated was being told where we can find these elements in everyday life. It was an excellent Start here book for the 13 and 14 year olds I’ve been teaching. The comics weren’t just for fun, but to help us learn more of the history behind different elements being discovered.   It’s led me to want to know about the Curie’s.

I disliked that the big bang theory as exactly that wasn’t introduced as the theory it is rather than being presented as fact, and… we can’t know that this theory is true.  Evidence might point that way, but we still can’t know the truth. A theory should be taught as a theory, especially to impressionable young minds.

Combining The Element in the Room with The Electric Pickle has been a good combination for my co-op class. The boys are asking excellent questions as we do science.
The Element in the room

The Element in the Room
Mike Barfield
Illustrator: Lauren Humphrey
Laurence King
Hardcover, 64 pages, 7 and up
Science, chemistry, periodic table

Reviewed for Raincoast Books.

Where to buy Amazon.

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