Bees n beans project and soil experiments

Back in April we sent off for the Bees n Beans free kit as part of a research project by Sussex University. 

The kids dutifully planted their beans. 

It was a slow start, but the broad bean plants grew a little like children do some slow and squat, and some skinny and tall. Finally, after a few days of hot weather last week, the plants have suddenly burst into flower. Not all are fully blooming yet, so we wont be able to do the hand pollination bit until later in the week. Bad timing considering half of us will be in Spain, so poor dh will be left with 'pollination' instructions along with a long list of dd's busy social schedule :)

A while back, when I had a chance to think of things other than IGCSE exams and robotics championships, we did some hands-on things.

One of them was to do with soil samples. It was inspired by an experiment from this old book that we picked up from the swap shop, along with other old textbooks.

The kids collected soil samples from different areas of a local nature reserve/woodland and followed the above instructions

Watching soil settle is a bit like...er...watching soil settle.

Three days later...


 and we compared our bottles of the different soils

This is what they should have looked like:

Our results were, um, not quite so well defined...

We planned to do pH testing of the same samples, but the pH paper is still in its packet on the windowsill and the soil samples are bagged up and going slimy in the greenhouse. Perhaps that will be next month's project?

The weight of air (stand back, we're doing science!)

In another attempt to restore balance to what has become our far-too-table-based home education, I've been trying to carve out some time for some hands-on science.

I've been attempting to finish Ellen McHenry's 'Cells' with the two boys, but there are always other priorities for the eldest (IGCSE-related) so it's been slow progress.

But these past couple of weeks we've got as far as the dissolve-egg-shell-in-vinegar-and-demonstrate-osmosis-by-dunking-egg-in-syrup-or-water experiment.

It was supposed to take about 3 or 4 days for the egg shell to dissolve to the point where there was just a floppy sack of white and yolk. 8 days in and, apart from some minor bubbling at first, not much was happening. Just as I was wondering how much longer I would have to display softened smelly eggs in vinegar on our windowsill for the neighbours and anyone passing our house to see, I had an idea.

The problem, I deduced was that, being a cheapskate thrifty person we'd used a jar of old pickled onion vinegar. (We have a plentiful collection of random jars of pickled onion vinegar in the cupboard taking up much needed space, but alas I simply cannot dispose of them.)Trouble was, this old pickled onion vinegar was probably more dilute than nice fresh shop-bought vinegar...and it had year-old bits of pickled onion skin floating around in it which may have somewhat contaminated the experiment.

When we changed to fresh vinegar the eggs positively fizzled and the problem of *there's nothing happening mummy* was solved. 3 eggs fizzing on our windowsill...and later 3 eggs floating in syrup and water.

Does air weigh anything?

This is the question recently posed by the other science course we're using Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding (BFSU) Vol 1

 With a bit of scientific experimentation (otherwise known as fiddling the results) we discovered that if you dangled two bags on strings on a ruler, on a shoelace from the handle of a saucepan, over the edge of a table, then, yes, air does actually weigh something. It was just a little don't-move-or-you'll-mess-it-up amount of something.

We really don't need to be starting yet another science 'course'. We have a huge shelf of science books, many of which we never get around to reading or using. But... I love the idea behind BFSU. I love the discursive aspect of the course. I love how it's not just another 'do this experiment, get this result' science book.

But it is a very wordy book, and it does take some prep to be able to use it. The parent really has to be on board to lead/steer a discussion. It's written for a class of same-age children, so although it is home-ed friendly, it's not always easy to implement with a smaller group of different age children. Trying to lead a discussion ds2 (who is 12 and knows most of the answers)  and dd (who is a young 10 and would rather be blowing bubbles than pondering the difference between a liquid and a gas) takes some managing. The book is also supposed to be approached in a manner whereby the kids are doing biology and chemistry and physics side-by-side in an ongoing web of related activities and discussions. It does my head in just thinking about trying to juggle all of that. I've not seen anything like it before and it takes some getting used to. This is our second attempt at the book, and I'm hoping it will get easier as we go along.


And today...our BFSU science required some blowing of bubbles ('little packages of air particles')

And not all science is *that* sort of science. This is science too. At least I think it is science. Because I can't understand why else a child would play on the computer with a box on their head. Surely it's *got* to be an experiment.

Ellen McHenry The Elements (2013)

We've done The Elements before with ds1 and ds2. It was a fun hands-on approach to chemistry and a fabulous stepping stone to GCSE level science. Ds1 did no other chemistry than Ellen before starting IGCSE  chemistry and recently passed (at age 14), so Ellen McHenry was obviously a great start..

This time dd is joining in with ds2. The games and nick-nacks that go with the course are already prepared from our last run-through, so that's saving us some time. 

I've written up a plan for the sessions (will post that up later for anyone who wants to use it). After doing the fly-by-the-seat-of-pants approach to home ed for many years it dawned on me that what I need is planning. Out goes chaotic use of resources, where we open the book only to find out we haven't got what we need. and in comes an organised session plan that makes those resources 'open-and-go'. Well, that's the theory. 

Electrolysis of water

Bubbles of hydrogen and Oxygen forming at the electrodes

Fishing for Elements

The Periodic Table game

Plant Science 2: photosynthesis and chlorophyll (my pestle and mortar will never be the same again)

We love those Dorling Kindersley 'How xxxx works'. Even the maths one is great, though I have to confess it's better to read than to attempt any of the maths hands-on things which seem to require a huge amount of preparation.

This is a page out of the plant section of 'How Nature Works'. The experiment to separate out the pigments in plants looks cool, so we decide to give it a bash.




Literally.



We try several different sorts of plant 'matter'.




Mashed and dissolved (apparently, though ours was more a lumpy mush) in acetone. [May I note here that I actually had to go and buy nail varnish remover. 'Oh I've got some of that' I say. Only to find that the only bottle of nail varnish remover I possess states in large letters on the front 'ACETONE-FREE NAIL VARNISH REMOVER'. Great.]

I would show you the finished blotting paper chromatograms except that they didn't look very good. At all. Nope. They just looked like very pale - almost coloured - damp strips of blotting paper.

So you might as well just look at the ones in the 'How Nature Works' book.

Like all good scientists we looked at why the experiment didn't work.

Our conclusions:

1. We got bored mashing and should have used the liquidizer instead but that would have involved getting a load of plant material and we couldn't be bothered.

2. See 1.