Tuesday, June 26, 2012

More About Molecular Monday (aka yesterday)

Tropical storm Debby did a number on our backyard. It was super windy! This included toppling a whole section of of our privacy fence. When Mike began repairs (which was on the quick side because we have a puppy and a toddler) the hole filled with rainwater. So, as a bonus to our Michael Faraday lesson and snap circuits we also took a look at a rainwater specimen from the hole yesterday. The storm related power outages also tied in nicely with our discussion of generators.

We did an electromagnetic project with Isaac's snap circuits. It was supposed to lead to discussion on how the energy is stored and released. Unfortunately, Isaac put a piece on upside down and decided he liked it better that way, but he eventually got the drift. His favorite thing that we talked about was the Faraday Cage. He read the passage from the site I linked to yesterday and burst out "Like an airplane!" and then later they used that as an example.

We got out Isaac's microscope and put a couple drops from of rainwater from the hole in on a slide to examine. We didn't see much on our first attempt. Toy microscopes just don't have stellar magnification. We have a better one, but the last time he used Mike's microscope he caused serious damage to it. On our second go we poured all the specimen into the dish instead. Isaac was beyond thrilled when he saw something!

I made him draw what he saw and list at least 10 descriptive words. He saw two "somethings" in the end.

After we were done we watched this:

Next week we'll discuss Volta and do the lemon battery experiment!

1 comment:

  1. I wish I had his toys growing up. One of these days I'm gonna get a microscope and look at everything I can get my hands on. Aymee

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