Science Lessons

Red (or White?) Oak Borer

(click here for cool info)

William declared this a smart spider.

She built her web by our front porch light,

where she catches lots of moths and other insects.

The "S" Word

Yes, yes, I know.  Not a word from me in weeks.  I can barely make it through the winter, and no blogs write themselves in my brain.  See, I don't write.  They write themselves.  And for some reason, "they" have been quiet.  Perhaps the winter killed them or they're in hibernation.  Today I had the first stirrings, so perhaps not all is lost.

We were in Bloomington these past two days, checking out Indiana University.  Seeking to find a diversion for William, who suffers the fate of being dragged along on college visits, we visited the Wonderlab Science Museum.  We had the pleasure of being there at the same time as two bus loads of first graders.  A cacophony of little voices greeted us, yet this was the only time we could be there so we persevered.  I'm glad we did, for we discovered many wonderful things, including a whirlpool generator that gave a "lab" to the History Channel program on whirlpools we'd watched the night before at the hotel.

What gave me greater joy, however, was the 45 minutes my son spent with an elderly woman and a snake. By now, the bus loads of kids had left.

With a snake draped about her neck, she talked about snakes, hissing cockroaches, and walking sticks.  They shared stories about snakes they've seen, and her dog that recently passed.

She sat at the saltwater aquarium, pointing out the camouflaged fish and shrimp.  

The snake helped show her humorous side and that this type of snake, a corn snake, was not to be feared.

They were enjoying themselves so much that her "quitting time" (she volunteers) came and went.  Suddenly, she looked at her watch.  Oh!  Past time for her to leave.

Why do I write about this?  So many times, I am asked how my child(ren) will be Socialized.  How will they know how to get along with others?  Mostly, what questioners really mean is how will they get along with kids their own ages?  But how many of today's 9 year olds sit and companionably spend nearly an hour with a stranger who is decades older in an even exchange?  (And, I might add, that I hope to be like this woman when I'm her age.)  Not that there aren't schooled children that do this - my nephew is one.  But not that we homeschoolers miss out.  We socialize and are socialized plenty.

Science Friday

As a homeschooler, I am often asked about what curricula I use. For example, how do I teach science? For this subject, I am amazed that anyone can think that science can be found in a book exclusively, particularly a textbook. We use "real" books from the library and things we find in our environment mostly. I decided to make Science Friday a regular feature of my blog, inspired by one of my favorite radio shows Talk of the Nation: Science Friday and post something we've studied that week. This week: Cicadas.

Brood XIV of the seventeen year cicada is here, and while feeding chickens, William discovered them crawling out of a stump of a tree.

Once we started looking, we found they were everywhere.

Here is one shedding its brown nymph shell to become
an adult cidada with wings.

As it emerges, the cidada is white at first, with very red eyes.

William would like to comment that with the black spots, it looks very much like General Grievious (Grievous, actually but he insists it is Grievious) of Star Wars.

We found them in various stages of emergence. Here Daisy is investigating a nymph that has just come up out of the ground and is rock wall climbing to find a good place to begin its transformation. Next to it, is one that has begun splitting it's shell.

When they first come out, they are very white. An unnamed teen in our house said they were gross and they looked naked.

Having successfully gotten out of its shell, the cicada now sits and dries its wings. I wonder what process occurs to change it from the white cicada above, to the finished black cicada below.

This cicada we took back to the house to watch it "hatch". It is a very slow process. The cicadas seem to be very vunerable at this stage, as they can't really move once they start the final process. We found that the chickens loved eating them. In fact, did you know that cicadas are eaten by humans? In case you are inspired to cook up a batch, I found many recipes on the web. I can just see it now. Mom, what's for dinner? Cicada tacos. Right. Perhaps if I were starving and it was like, oh, 1100 A.D. and Kroger wasn't down the road with perfectly good chicken breasts all cleaned and ready to cook.

From the recipe: "Before you start your cooking you need to remove all the hard parts: "Before you start your cooking you need to remove all the hard parts: wings, legs and head. These parts don’t contain much of the meat either but may be very sharp, so its best to get rid of them. Right. Now, I don't eat things I have to coax out, like oysters, crab legs, etc. Call me spoiled, but I just don't visualize myself pulling the wings off of live insects and popping them in the oven on a cookie sheet for a tasty treat or frying them up in a pan. Gag. I did find a recipe for chocolate covered cicadas, which maybe would be a possibility. Nah, why spoil a good thing?

Back to science lessons, we downloaded some good diagrams and information from EnchantedLearning.com and spent the day hearing from William, "MOM. COME LOOK!" He determined that he could not climb his favorite tree without squishing cicadas, or really even walk in the grass. The most amazing thing to think about for me is that this variety of cicada laid the eggs for this brood before my kids were born, before we moved here, and when I was newly married. All done seventeen years ago on days when I was busy in my life, unknowing that 20 miles from where I lived, insects were busy preparing a science lesson for me and a little boy not yet born.