Science Fair 2011

Question:  Where has Dawn been lately?

Research:  Sources indicate that Dawn has a tendency to overcommit get really involved in her community and to tell people what to do organize large events.  Satellites have tracked increased science activity in her hometown in recent weeks.

Hypothesis:  Dawn led her homeschool group's science fair committee this year.

There is no need to test this hypothesis because I have photographic evidence to verify its validity!

Okay, so I'm not in this picture of all the science fair participants.
I could not find a picture of me anywhere!
I guess I was too busy
giving orders
serving the group
to pose!

I worked with six other terrific moms to organize the first annual Super Duper Home School Association (SDHSA) Science Fair!  (FYI, that's what I will be calling my local support group from here on out.  I am tired of typing "local support group" over and over again!)

The SDHSA ladies and I started working on the fair in August.  There was a lot to accomplish: writing rules, holding registration, finding judges, gathering prizes, creating a judging rubric, providing a training session, etc., etc., etc.  However, from the start, we divided the work, and I cannot believe how well everything came together!

The competition was tight, and there were soooo many fabulous projects.  Take a look at these incredible boards!

On the home front, I had two participants of my own to manage.  I demanded the boys decided that they should work together on just one project since I had my hands full leading the committee.  Of course, the one topic the boys could agree on felt enthusiasm for was bird watching. 

Here is their project...

Question:  What color feeder will attract the most birds?

Orville (left) and Wilbur (right)
in front of their feeders of different colors.
Which one do you think will attract the most birds?

Research:  Their research indicated that birds' eyes contain "more cone cells" than humans'.  For this reason, scientists believe birds see colors in saturated tones.

This picture shows the cages in a saturated hue,
a guess as to what
they look like to song birds.

Hypothesis:  The boys believed their research indicated more birds would be drawn to the brighter colored feeders, particularly yellow and red.

Are the boys correct?

Will yellow and red win?

The Experiment:  Dad spray painted four suet cage feeders in four different colors: yellow, red, blue and black.  The boys decided to leave one cage in the original green color as a control.  They also hung the cages on the same tree to prevent environmental factors, like temperature, from skewing the outcome.  They also used the same brand of suet feed for each cage and filled each with the same weight of feed.

The Control Cage

They frequently observed the cages for one week and took note of how many birds of which species visited each color.  At the end of the week, they took the cages down and weighed the amount of uneaten suet.

They repeated the test on a different tree in a different part of the yard, keeping the controls in place from the first test.  Again, they observed for one week, took notes, and then weighed the remaining contents.

Data and Results: 

• Test One (from lightest to heaviest):  yellow, black, green, red and blue. 
• Test Two (from lightest to heaviest): yellow, red, green, blue, and black.
• Total Ranking (calculated by adding the weights from each test): yellow, black, red, green, and blue

Conclusions:  Because yellow ranked first (meaning the most was eaten from it) in both tests, the boys believe yellow is a good color for feeders.  However, because red was 2nd in one test and 4th in the other, they cannot say with certainty that their hypothesis is correct.

Orville (right) is disturbed their hypothesis was not valid.
Wilbur (left) is just happy he participated in the science fair!

While collecting data, they also noticed that more birds ate from a feeder similar in color to its body than at a feeder of a different color.  They want to do more research and testing to see if there is a correlation between body color and desired feeder color.

SDHSA awarded participants medals based on their judges' rubric score.  Everyone who participated received at least a bronze science medal.  Those whose judges' scores were between 80 and 89% of the total possible score received silver medals, and those who received scores of 90% and higher earned gold medals.  Local restaurants donated coupons for free pizza, ice cream and sandwiches, too!

Orville and Wilbur (far right) won gold medals
and took first place in their division!

Good job, Orville and Wilbur!

Bronze and Silver Medalists

Good job, science fair participants!

If you are interested in starting a science fair in your area, I would be happy to offer support.  I learned a lot the hard way this year!  Just drop me a line, and I will get back to you soon.

Happy Experimenting!

Dawn

Science Choices

Are you Considering Homeschooling?  This is the next post in my series on selecting a curriculum.

Here's a confession.

I hated science in school.  It was my least favorite subject, and my score on the science portion of the ACT was low enough to bring my overall score down considerably.

CONSIDERABLY!

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest.  It has been bothering me for almost twen... um, three or four years now. ;)

My attitude started to change in college, however, when I was forced to take a course on teaching science.  I had a dynamic professor who truly loved the study of science and taught us how to bring the study to life.  Her enthusiasm was contagious, and I caught a little bit of that bug.

Then I gave birth to two inquisitive, deep-thinking, kinesthetic-tactile BOYS.

My daily routine became very much about science from the moment Orville could talk.

What makes the car go?

Why is the bottom of the refrigerator hot?

How does the light get in the light bulb?

The moment Wilbur became mobile was when I started calling the two of them Orville and Wilbur because suddenly everything had science experiment potential.  I felt like we needed to build a workshop on to the house so the "Wright Brothers" could tinker.

We did not build that workshop, but during The Early Years, science for us was all about them posing questions and mom and boys working together to find answers and conduct experiments.  In other words, lots of visits to the library, to the zoo (to observe and to talk to the zoologists), keeping a garden, watching the world around them and drawing pictures to explain observations, and any simple experiment I could find from a variety of resource books.  I will list some of those at the end of this post.  :)

During their elementary years, we have used three main resources:

1. Apologia offers a series of unit studies called the Young Explorer Series.  The author, Jeannie Fulbright, writes in a living-book style.  The text is an easy read and can be comprehended by early elementary students.  However, the study is not watered down.  My boys have learned TONS from these units.  In fact, the book on Flying Creatures sparked their interest in bird watching.  Each of the books focuses on one of the six active days of creation and presents information from a young earth, creationist perspective.  My boys' faith has been strengthened through these studies, and they are taking steps toward being able to defend their worldview as a result.
2. Christian Kids Explore: Chemistry:  We took a break from Apologia this year because Orville REALLY wanted to study Chemistry, and Apologia does not offer a course in Chem for elementary students.  CKE has been a good study.  It teaches from a creationist point-of-view, as well.  It also has a very readable text and has made a difficult study easy to understand (even when I flub up).  
3. Lyrical Life Science, Vol. 3: The Human Body:  This is not a study in and of itself.  It is a collection of science songs set to familiar tunes.  The lyrics teach important science facts.  It makes a great addtion to any science study because there are other volumes available to fit different science topics.

One thing that all three of these resources have in common is that they make the study of science fun, just like I experienced in college.  My boys are always sad when science time is over, and I highly recommend each of these resources.

Return soon to read about Our Year with Tapestry of Grace.

Happy Curriculum Hunting!
Dawn 
Other favorite resource (not all are Christian, so please use with discernment):

• Answers in Genesis offers a variety of science resources for homeschoolers.  Highly recommend them!

• Lakeshore Learning offers a number of great hands-on science kits and tools.

• You can find just about anything you need to teach science from pre-school through high school at Home Science Tools.  Their prices are good, too.

Disclosure:  I am an Amazon affiliate and will receive a commision from any purchases that result from the links to their site I have listed in this post or elsewhere on my blog.  I am not an affiliate for any other company listed in this post and will not receive a commission from them should this post result in any purchases of any of their products.  I have not been compensated for this article.

If All of the Raindrops

If all the raindrops
Were lemon drops and gumdrops
Oh, what a rain that would be!

I'd stand outside

With my mouth open wide
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah….

Can you picture it? Four-year-old Orville and three-year-old Wilbur dancing around the living room, singing this song, and sticking out their tongues in hopes of a real lemon-drop rain! If you’re a mom, you've probably witnessed it yourself. Kids love this song and the idea of candy falling from the sky, don't they?

One day while I watched them sing and dance, pretending to catch candy with their tongues, I wondered if it really would be great to have candy fall from the sky. As I imagined being pelted by rapidly falling lemon drops and having to wade through mounds of sticky gum drops, I realized that this song might be giving my kids a few wrong ideas and I had an idea for a science experiment.

We planted five seedlings in separate cups and measured each plant's height. I explained that one plant would be watered with water and the other four plants would be "watered" each day with one of the following: lemon juice, sugar water, chocolate syrup, or milk. Each plant was assigned one of the four liquids and watered only with it for the next two weeks. Each liquid represented an element of the song… lemon juice for lemon drops, sugar water for gum drops, chocolate syrup for the candy bars mentioned in the second verse, and milk for the milkshakes (also in the second verse).

On the first day, we recorded information about each plant's health and size in a journal, made a note as to which plant would receive which liquid, and stated a hypothesis. Because the boys were little, they proposed some very interesting hypotheses. There were thoughts of plants growing candy or turning sugary like a gum drop, so we read about plant growth and photosynthesis. They decided that the more sugary the liquid, the better the growth would be since the result of photosynthesis is the production of sugar.

Each day we sang the song, "watered" the flowers, drew pictures of the plants and took measurements. We recorded this information in the journal. After a couple of weeks, as you can imagine, we had to end this experiment because the results were becoming unbearable to the eyes and the nose. The plant watered with lemon juice grew a little but eventually turned brown and began to shrivel. The sugar water plant did better, but not as well as the control plant (the one watered with pure water). The milk and chocolate syrup plants were disgusting! They were shriveled, smelly, and covered in mold. YUCK!!!

The conclusion?

Plants need water… plain and simple.

The life lesson?

God is infinitely wise and a mighty Creator and He gives us exactly what we need. Instead of singing "rain, rain, go away", we should praise him for replenishing the earth. Instead of wishing for a world of lemon drops and gum drops, we should trust Him for all that we need and be content with what He supplies.

Let us take every opportunity to teach our children to praise the Lord for "he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." Matt 5:45b