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Free Science e-Newsletter, July 2006
What's Inside From the Editor: Steve Walden Backyard Science: Counting Raindrops More Backyard Experiments
From The Editor What I remember of my classroom experience in science is not much, at least not much in the way of books. The times I remember were actually getting involved in science by building and studying the actual prototype. By contrast, memorizing genus and species was perhaps the driest experience I can recall, and that's only because the Latin was interesting. Building, feeling, and exploring the world around me were the exciting elements of science, and during those fleeting moments, my understanding flourished. Kinesthetic, tactile ... apply whatever label you want. But if you believe that buying a textbook or software on science is all you need to educate your children about science, they may miss the point that science is everywhere! Erosion, hydroelectric power, radiation, photosynthesis, fossils, lasers, even the very computer you sit at--science encompasses so much of the world around us. How can we limit learning to a textbook and a worksheet or software and mouse clicks? Give me static electricity! Give me lasers! Give me steam, smoke, fire, and water! Give me rockets thrusting off the launch pad! Give me wind, rain, and thunderstorms! Give me the study of our planet, the heavens, and the great God Who made them all. All praise belongs to the Maker of the laws of the universe! Steve Walden Senior Editor, Free Science e-Newsletter Steve Walden lives in Colorado and, together with his wife, homeschools their three children, ages 10, 7, and 3. He is a freelance writer and editor with articles appearing in The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, Focus On Your Child: Discovery Years and Familymanweb.com. When he's not blogging at Dad's Corner on www.HomeschoolBlogger.com, he's searching for new opportunities to write about homeschooling, parenting, and connecting with God. His dream is to operate a retreat center in Colorado that promotes the concept of rediscovering God as our first love and the source of our strength. US Subscriptions: Whether you are new to our magazine or a long-time subscriber, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine has an incredible offer that you won't want to pass up! In the past, we couldn't offer the renewing subscribers the 19 free gifts - those were only for new customers. But for a limited time only, RENEWING subscribers get all 19 gifts (over $200 value), too! I'm a new subscriber…what do I get? With your paid two-year subscription to TOS you'll receive: •A 2-year/3-year subscription to The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine •19 FREE gifts for you All this for ONLY $39 for 2 years and ONLY $59 for 3 years Click Here to Purchase Online Or, call 1-888-718-HOME Already a subscriber? Renew now and receive: • Two or Three more years of your favorite homeschool magazine and 19 FREE gifts (valued at over $200)! All this for ONLY $39 for 2 years and ONLY $59 for 3 years Click Here to Purchase! Or, call 1-888-718-HOME The first 3,000 two-year or three-year new subscriber or renewing your two or three year subscription, you will receive (by USPS mail) NINETEEN free homeschooling gifts. But you don't get four gifts - you get 19! And yes, even the shipping is paid for - and you are not required to buy anything again - EVER. Hurry! Promotion will sell out fast! - TOS Staff (US Residents Only) Click Here to View the FREE Gifts International Subscriptions: Whether you view your subscription as a gift for yourself, a homeschool conference delivered to your door, a professional journal, or simply a wonderful opportunity to fellowship with other homeschool families around the world, subscribe now to insure that you are in the first 2,000 and receive this incredible International Subscription Homeschool Gift Pack! 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Promotion will sell out fast! - TOS Staff (International Residents Only) Click Here to View the FREE Gifts Back Yard Science: Counting Raindrops   By Steve Walden Summer is well underway, and opportunities abound for backyard science. Even if you have taken the summer off from homeschool, informal educational opportunities are lurking around every corner. For example, here in Colorado, we had a period of extremely wet weather recently. It rained off and on every day for over a week. For a place that sees 300 sunny days a year, it was a deluge. I was working in my office here at home, and I caught my 7-year-old son gazing out the window at the rain coming down. "Hey, bubba, what are you thinking?" "Hmm? Oh nothing. I was just--Never mind." "No, seriously, what were you thinking just now?" "I was wondering how many raindrops were falling just now." Immediately, my mind saw an opportunity. "I can tell you." "You can?" My son's eyes widened. "More or less. We have to do some measuring, though. First of all, were you wondering how many drops were falling everywhere, or just in our backyard?" "Everywhere." "It would be kind of hard for us to do that, so what if we just did our backyard?" "Hmm, okay." "First, I need you to get one of the plastic cups from the kitchen." Here, I broke a cardinal rule of home science: Never use kitchen supplies for science experiments. But, since it was only rainwater, I figured it would be okay. My son returned with a tumbler saved from a kid's meal at a local chain restaurant. It was exactly 3 inches across at the mouth when I measured it. It would do nicely. "Now, bubba, get your shoes on and put this cup out on the table on the back deck." He started getting excited. After all, Dad told him to go out in the rain ... on purpose! He placed the cup out on the deck, and I started a timer. Then he went off to do other things. He came back about 18 minutes later, and I had him wait until we had 20 minutes on the timer. When he brought it in, we measured the water using some measuring glasses and found we had 1.25 ounces. Castle Heights/Westbridge Academy Castle Heights publishes science instruction guides for teaching and learning science at home. Lab manuals which accompany any text, hands-on subject-based unit studies, and books which make teaching science easier. Nature study helps and field journals designed for young people. Pathways in Science curriculum. Gifted Children at Home. Westbridge Academy is a classical, college preparatory school. We create personalized plans for the academically accelerated, gifted, able learners, or those who want to be. We offer great Ideas courses, and honors, professional, math and science, and humanities plans. Professional, experienced consultants. Transcripts, diplomas, record keeping. Early childhood through graduation. Bright Ideas Press In 1992, Maggie Hogan started Bright Ideas Press. Soon, she and her husband Bob began having way too much fun writing, creating, and finding practical, fun, and affordable homeschool resources. Visit them at www.BrightIdeasPress.com - home of the award winning series: The Mystery of History and the Christian Kids Explore science books. Now the math came into play. I walked him through what I was doing, half-expecting him to lose interest, but he hung in there remarkably well. My style of education is based on the philosophy that I would rather have him drink from a fire hose than die of thirst (and boredom). I told him briefly about square inches, square feet, and how Pi helped us figure the area of a circle. Then I told him about estimates and how they can be used to take the place of what we don't know for certain. For example, I wasn't going to go out and measure the yard while it was raining, but I could estimate the size of the yard. We figured it was about 3,000 square feet. Multiply that by 144 and you will come up with 432,000 square inches. "Now, we need to figure out how much rain a square inch got in those 20 minutes." I figured that the area of the cup mouth was 7.065 square inches. By doing some simple math, I calculated that 0.17693 ounces of rainwater fell on one square inch in 20 minutes. Multiplying that times the square inches, we found that 76,433.1 ounces fell on our yard in 20 minutes, or a little over 597 gallons (128 ounces in a gallon, thanks to my son's memorized measurements). By dividing that by 1,200, the number of seconds in 20 minutes, we learned that 63.6943 ounces fell--on average--every second. "Now," I told my son, "let's see if we can figure out how many raindrops are in an ounce." Doing some research on the web, we found that, true to life, raindrops varied in size from a drifting mist to large globules that spattered when they hit the ground. So, we had to guess. Based on some of the figures I'd seen in our research, I estimated that we had 100 drops in each ounce (nice round number for a moderate rain and an amateur's estimate). "Bubba, we estimated that there were 6,369 raindrops falling in one second in our yard!" "Cool! That's a lot!" We didn't talk too much more about it, and I wondered if our experiment really had opened his mind up to the possibilities of science and math. But then his sister and mother came home, and within half a minute he was telling his sister how many raindrops had fallen in the backyard. He really found it interesting, and I found that postponing my work for 30 minutes had opened my son's mind to a new world of estimates, measures, and answering the questions that start with, "I wonder…?" More Backyard Experiments   By Steve Walden There's much more to do in the backyard, and a lot of it can be fun and open the door to further learning. First up at bat is Creative Kids at Home with their Free Kids Science Projects. These are projects that use common items found around the house or at your local store. From recipes for "flubber" to explore polymers to building the wing of an aircraft to discover the principles of lift in flight, this site offers a lot of simple projects parents and their children can do together. Batting second, About.com offers Backyard Science - Experiments/Projects - For Adults and Kids. If you have a hankering to explore space, this is your starting point, with star charts and a crater experiment. One that I'm interested to learn about is how scientists measure the distance to stars. Third in the lineup is weather. Have a budding meteorologist in your family? You might be interested in FamilyEducation.com and their guide to setting up your own backyard weather station. If your child takes a real interest, you might even check into what it takes to be a weather spotter for your local news station, or get a group of homeschoolers together and take a tour of their weather forecast center. Batting cleanup is Care2.com with their advice on creating simple birdfeeders. While this may be something you may want to pursue when the weather gets colder, plan ahead and pick up a guide to bird watching at your local bookstore. Pick up some inexpensive binoculars and go to your local park. Then, as natural food sources dwindle later in the year, birds will begin to take an interest in your feeder. You can study migration and what God does to protect His feathered creations. Remember, the most important part is actually enjoying what you're doing. As the parent, you have a lot of influence on whether learning is fun or a chore. Find something that interests you both and go for it! From Steve Walden and the rest of The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine team, thank you for subscribing to the FREE Science e-Newsletter! As Senior Editor, I welcome your feedback and comments. Please e-mail me at FreeScience@TheHomeschoolMagazine.com. Don't forget to check out our website and magazine. Have a great summer! Disclaimer and Warning: Activities, projects and experiments presented or contained in this newsletter ("Activities") are intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. Some Activities may involve health risks or other hazards, including a risk of serious injury. Responsible adults should investigate and evaluate all potential health risks and other hazards prior to engaging in Activities alone or with minor children. Please exercise caution and take appropriate safety measures to avoid or lessen the risk of injury to people or property. Activities are not appropriate for children and teens of all ages. Children and teenagers should attempt Activities only under direct, appropriate parental supervision. The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC accepts no responsibility or liability, express or implied, for injury, loss or damage of any kind resulting from the use or misuse of Activities or other information contained in this newsletter.

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