Category: Find Out More (Page 8 of 20)

Hands-On Biology

For those of you working with middle school or older children, I just found a website I had to share. It is the Serendip page at Bryn Mawr college. First of all their philosophy of science education mirrors mine :
SCIENCE IS AN EXPLORATION (AND FUN)

Click on K-12 for teachers link and you’ll find Hands-on Activities for Teaching Biology. Although some experiments assume you have basic scientific equipment at your disposal (the first yeast experiment asks for test tubes), often you can make do with things around the house (old spice jars).

Right underneath is Off the Shelf Chemistry, which is “for high school students, using consumer products for experiments and not requiring a lab and specialized equipment.”

Take a look around and hope you have some hands-on science fun!

Bug of the Week: Long-horned Bees

Although the weather is uncomfortably hot for humans, things are still happening out in the garden here in Arizona.

sunflower

The sunflowers we planted for the Great Sunflower Project have started to flower.

The bees can hardly wait.

A few days ago these bees were sleeping on a nearby milkweed plant.

long-horned bee

long-horned bee

Long-horned bees (tribe Eucerini in the family Apidae) are named for the long antennae present on males. They have a habit of clustering in groups to sleep overnight on plants.

I’m not sure what species these particular bees are. There are over 30 genera in the tribe Eucerini, including Melissodes (the long-horned bees), Peponapis and Xenoglossa (squash bees), and Svastra (sunflower bees).

Hopefully we’ll be seeing bees on the sunflowers soon.

Weightless Water Balloons

For Wow factor, this video is pretty cool. It shows two engineers “studying” what happens when you pop a water balloon in zero gravity. Warning: the scientists do discuss in some detail how they were hit with air sickness during their initial experiences with zero gravity. If you think it might be a bit too much detail for sensitive youngsters, you can turn the sound off and narrate yourself.

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