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Category: Find Out More (Page 5 of 20)

Summary of Science Experiment Posts

October 3, 2010 / / 1 Comment

Ever have those little organizational tasks you know you should do, but there never seems to be enough time? Today I finally finished one of those. I’ve made a list of all the science experiments posted here at Growing With Science, organized by topic. Now you can click that little button that says Experiment List at the top of the page and you can quickly (hopefully) find a fun science activity. Looking for a science fair project? The list should help you there as well.

if you ever have any questions about the posts, would like to know more, or if you have a topic you’d like to see covered, please feel free to send me an e-mail at growingwithscience (at) gmail (dot) com.

I was so excited about the new summary, I’ve included here. Enjoy!

Below is a summary of the science experiment blog posts, organized by topic. The links to the posts are in red.

Biology

Mycology (Fungi)

A Fungus Among Us

  1. Making a spore print

Exploring yeast

  1. Characteristics
  2. Decomposition Experiment

Ecology

What’s Under a Rock?- Exploring a habitat

Green Roof

Botany

Growing plants indoors

Algae

  1. Make an algal collection
  2. Investigate food chains
  3. Investigate how humans use algae for food
  4. Algae produce oils that can be used for biofuel

Mosses, Ferns, Liverworts and Horsetails: Science Activities

  1. Identification
  2. Searching for Spores
  3. Moss habitats

Trees -botany

More tree science

  1. Tree Transpiration
  2. How far does the water have to travel from roots to top of the tree?

Experiments with Tree Leaves:


Leaf litter decomposition

Tree leaf age

Putting the leaves back on the trees- leaf identification

Fall leaf color chromatography
Saguaro Cactus Activities

  1. Why Spines?
  2. Waxy Coating

Ornithology (Birds)

Bird Counts – trends

Bird Migrations

Shore Birds

Zoology (Animals)

Goats and Sheep

  1. Fainting goats

Experiments with Isopods (pillbugs or rolypolies)

Frogs and Toads

  1. Identification
  2. Frog songs
  3. Eat or be eaten

Ocean and Shore Animals

Learn about Steller Sea Lions

Investigate an animal (sea slug) that can make its own food

Sea Horses and Other Fish

  1. fish anatomy
  2. moving through water

Shore Birds

Science with Pets

Mouse running a maze

Cat communication

Cats’ sense of smell

More cat experiments

Observing cat behavior

Science with your pet mice

  1. Identification/Classification of Rodents
  2. Food/Nutrition
  3. Making Houses and Toys
  4. Animal Behavior
  5. Mouse Development

Do cats have cold feet?

Entomology (Insects)

Honey Bees

  1. Gardening for bees
  2. Honey bees and water
  3. Honey bee communication and dances
  4. Bee nests

Where do insects go in the winter?

Ants

  1. Ant anatomy
  2. Ant pheromones

Human Biology

Experiments with the senses of taste and smell

Chemistry

What is in seawater

Smart Materials

  1. Shape-memory alloys
  2. Shape memory polymers
  3. UV beads

General Chemistry Projects

  1. Density
  2. A Density Column
  3. Elephant’s toothpaste
  4. Acids and Bases
  5. Using chemicals to make light

Glowing Chemistry

  1. Glowing under ultraviolet light
  2. Light sticks
  3. Day-Glo

Colors and acids and bases

Classic lemon experiments

Growing crystals

Making cheese

Fun with bubbles

Chemistry Links

Physics

Activities having to do with hunting for planets outside the solar system.

  1. Make a rainbow
  2. Activity: Make your own spectrometer from a cereal box.
  3. The Doppler Effect

Investigate the amount of light pollution and how it effects how we see the stars at night

Build a telescope

Experiments with movement of floating trash

Soils

Sand Experiments

  1. Test sand samples with a magnet
  2. Make sand

Experiments with ice

  1. Ice spikes
  2. Ice cube rescues
  3. Freezing and thawing water
  4. Floating and sinking
  5. dry ice

Boats and Floating

How long can a paper boat float?
Results of paper boats

Can you make a boat travel across a bathtub without touching it?
Results

Do pumpkins or apples float?
Why do they float?

Movement of water in small containers

All about parachutes

Toy car physics

Meteorology

Does building shape influence damage level by hurricanes?

Iridescent clouds

Insect Common Names

May 10, 2010 / / 0 Comments

A few posts back I talked about Latin and Greek and scientific names for organisms. Today let’s look at some conventions used with insect common names.

A. Is it honey bees or honeybees?

When in graduate school, I learned a convention from Dr. Roger Morse for insect names (I have since learned the idea originated with Robert E. Snodgrass). The insect names that are taxonomically correct, such as honey bees are actually bees, should be written as two words. Insect names that are not accurate in identification are given as one word. For example, whiteflies are not really flies, but are relatives of aphids, and thus should be one word.

Quiz (answers at the bottom of this post):

Pick the correct common name according to this convention:

butterfly

1. Butter fly or butterfly?

crane-fly

2. Crane fly or cranefly?

dragonfly

3. Dragon fly or dragonfly?

lady-beetle

4. Lady bug or ladybug?

leaffooted-bug

5. Leaf-footed bug or leaf-footedbug?

Bumblebee

Photo from Wikimedia

6. Bumble bee or bumblebee?

The convention is only a rule of thumb, however, because there are definitely exceptions:

Velvet_Ant

Photograph by Craig Pemberton. Wikimedia

Although this creature is really a wasp, it’s common name is velvet ant (2 words).

B. Mantis or mantid?

This distinction is more difficult. I had learned that either is correct, that is the two terms are interchangeable. There is, however, a growing convention that mantis only be used for the insects of the genus Mantis, and that all others be called mantids. (Whitney Cranshaw, Colorado State University).

I personally like to use mantids for the plural, it is just easier.

For a searchable list of common names for insects of North America, see the Entomological Society of America

Let me know if you have any questions about insect names or would like to learn more.

Answers:

1. butterfly

2. crane fly (two words)

3. dragonfly

4. ladybug (Note: if you use beetle, then it is two words,  lady beetle or ladybird beetle)

5. leaf-footed bug (2 words)

6. Bumble bee (2 words)

Interesting Science Links and Thoughts

May 4, 2010 / / 2 Comments

There are a lot of things going on this month.

Look for Space Day celebrations May 7-8, 2010. In the left sidebar is a set of middle grade lesson plans to download for free. The “Other Resources” is a .pdf file of a chat with four former astronauts. There are also games and links.

The NSTA (National Science Teacher’s Association) blog has a number of interesting posts.

The first is a short list of websites with information about the recent oil spill.

I was particularly interested in the post:  Are children getting enough direct experience with natural materials? The middle and high school teachers were bemoaning that most of the children in their classes had little exposure to real organisms.  For example, most of their students had never seen a real grasshopper! The teachers in the blog post blame the elementary teachers, but I think that is unfair. I recently was going to visit a second grade class room with live insects, but my visit was canceled because the classes were too busy with standardized testing.

Elementary teachers have an enormous amount of pressure to get their students through a battery of standardized tests. Their jobs may be at stake. But obviously this emphasis on testing has unforeseen consequences for the students’ future success, at least in science.

What do you think?

For more information on oil spills for children:

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