Fossil synchronicity. Electricity (again). Gravity (again).

A student brought in a nice chunk of petrified wood to show around. Interesting timing, because I had chosen today to bring in my favorite Ammonite and Trilobite fossils. So we had a good ole time sharing fossils. Actually the Trilobite fossil technically belongs to my daughter who was somewhat territorial about letting others touch. That works okay for me, because as a class we are trying to learn to "look with your eyes, please, not your hands". It is terribly difficult but we are beginning to manage it. Trilobites are pretty cool. They were wildly successful all over the earth, possibly because they were the first critters to have eyes, which must have given them a fabulous advantage over everybody else. Unfortunately things got rough for them when some fish showed up with the first ever Big Sharp Teeth, and – well - that was it for the Trilobites. Three hundred million years at the top of the heap, and then - - pfffft. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Last week (which didn't get blogged due to post 'flu fatigue), we actually devoted almost the whole Discussion Portion to . . .
Leeches
Interesting surprise. One among us wanted to know how leeches eat, and the topic proved irresistible to one and all. Can they see? Can they smell? Where do they live? Do they live in Texas? (hint: yes). Unfortunately the library (which until now never let me down) is very weak in its selection of Leech books. I have, however, hunted down a couple good ones elsewhere, and will bring them in next Wednesday.

I don't seem to be able to get away from this electricity demo with the portable car starter battery and light bulb. Somebody wanted to know does salt water conduct electricity, and I cobbled together a lovely demonstration showing how brass and steel and copper all conduct electricity, and wood and plastic don't (the light bulb comes on when you have a good conductor). But when we got to the salt water - - fizzzle - - the current was too weak and the bulb didn't go on. That was last week. So this week I brought in our friend Mr. Multimeter and we could see the relative amperage levels when passing current through copper versus salt water, but after class I realized I had never got back to the original question which was salt water versus plain water. So I think the same apparatus has to come back one more time next week for another variation. In a way this is very instructive, because at least 75% of all experiments are miserable failures the first few hundred times you try them, and it really does take a bunch of tinkering to get them to show good results!

By the way, I do emphasize a good deal about safety and protective eyewear and Do Not Touch Certain Things, but a little home enforcement would probably not hurt. Something like, "No, honey, you can't go to the garage and take the taillights out of the car and hot wire them to the battery all by yourself. Let Mummy help you with that".


There was a pretty good sidebar on gravity, too. Apparently the question of No Gravity in Outer Space has been hotly debated ever since Deborah's spectacular Story Of The Universe show. A week ago I talked about gravity quite a bit (before we switched to the All Leeches All Day channel). This week one of the kids who had been out last Wednesday asked about gravity and outer space all over again. We all agreed that we'd already talked about it, but - - did we all get it? I don't think so. So it's good that the student opened an opportunity for a little repetition. From the responses I got it seemed the idea was sinking in better this time.

I like all the concrete and informative stuff, and I like how children catch on to things we know and how we learn them, but I have a certain special fondness for the real mind-bender questions they offer up with such generosity. Such as
"What would happen if you tried to push the whole universe?"
(My answer: "Before I try to answer: if you are going to push the universe . . . at the moment you are pushing . .. where are you?" You could see in their eyes. They totally got it. It was a hoot)

Looking at each week's new cards in the Question Box, I notice a dramatic improvement in the writing and spelling on these cards compared to last fall. How cool is that?