My son counted:
Mourning Dove – 8
Inca Dove – 1
Anna’s Hummingbird – 2
Black Phoebe – 1
What was a very noticeable change from his count last year was a lack of house sparrows and house finches. It could have been the time of the day he counted, and the fact it was cold and rainy.
We weren’t worried about house sparrows, because we still see them all the time. Here’s one from the park the other day:
But we had already noticed fewer house finches in our yard, even though we were feeding the same kinds of seeds in the same kind of feeder. Checking the previous count totals for our city in previous years we see 138 house finches were counted in 2009, 102 in 2010 and now only 31 so far this year. House finches are native to the Southwest, so we checked to see if the trend carried throughout the state. Sure enough 7,978 house finches were counted in 2009, 7,132 in 2010 and only 3,821 in 2011 (not all reports made yet).
(Photo from 2009).
The Black Phoebe is an interesting new addition, although I noticed this morning that the male Anna’s hummingbirds are giving it trouble so I don’t know whether it will stay.
What birds did you count this year? Do you have house finches?
Did you search through the counts from previous years?
Our science fun this week was inspired by the nonfiction picture book Pop!: The Invention of Bubble Gum by Meghan McCarthy. Kids will enjoy the lively story of how accountant Walter Diemer started mixing this and that ingredient (at the factory where he worked), until he had invented a gum that could be used to blow bubbles. What a sweet tale!
This book just cries out for some hands-on activities.
Activity 1. Which type/brand of gum blows the best bubbles?
Gather:
Several brands of bubble gum and regular gum
Ruler (decide on inches or cm)
Pair of tongs or cardboard bubble caliper (see below)
Volunteer(s) to chew the gum and blow bubbles
Paper and pencil to record the results
The most difficult part of this project is finding a standard way to measure bubbles that are often a moving target. Check this website for a photo of a “bubble caliper” used for measuring record bubbles. Think about how you might build something similar or find a pair of kitchen tongs that might open wide enough to accommodate the largest bubbles. Try to find the widest point of the bubble. Practice on a few bubbles to make sure your system works and is relatively consistent.
Predict which brand will produce the biggest bubble. Now give the volunteer(s) each one stick of each type/brand of gum. Allow them to chew the gum for a few minutes and then blow bubbles. When they are confident that they are blowing the best bubbles they can with that type of gum, have them blow a few more and measure them. Decide how many bubbles of each type of gum you are going to measure in advance, so you record the same number for each test.
When you are done, add up the size of the bubbles for each type, and then divide by the number of bubbles you measured for that type. This will give you an average. You might want to graph your results with a bar graph to easily see the differences between the brands/types.
Activity 2. What happens to the gum when you chew it? Does it gain weight from the moisture in your mouth, lose weight, or stay the same?
Gather:
accurate kitchen scales
gum
wax paper to protect the scale (or the wrapper)
watch or timer
First, predict what you think will happen. Take the wrapper off the gum. Place a piece of wax paper on the scale, and tare or zero the scale. If your scale does not tare, the record how much the wax paper weighs. Next place the dry gum on the scale. Record the weight (subtract the weight of the waxed paper if you did not zero it). Leave the wax paper in place.
Now chew the gum for one minute and weigh again. Record the weight. Weigh again at five minute and then at ten minutes of chewing. What is happening? Did the results follow your prediction? Try to figure out why or why not. Test more sticks and different kinds of gum, and have your friends and relatives try it, too. See if you get the same results.
Activity 3. Make your own bubble gum.
This video shows how bubble gum is made in a factory.
You can find kits and online recipes to make your own bubble gum (for example at Steve Spangler).
Try some other formulas, too. Be sure to write down what ingredients and the methods you use. Maybe with some time and the right ingredients, you could be the next Walter Diemer and discover something thrilling and new.
Have you seen a beaver dam? We saw one in northern Arizona last summer.
We figured out it was a beaver dam because we saw their webbed footprints in the mud, we saw where trees had been gnawed off, plus we found a skull. How did we know it was a beaver skull? We recognized it because the four front chewing teeth were bright orange. The orange color comes from the iron that strengthens a beaver’s teeth.
Beavers build dams to create deeper pools of water — called the beaver ponds — within a shallow creek. The structure where the beaver lives is called the beaver lodge. We didn’t see anything that looked like a traditional beaver lodge near the dam we found, but a book we read suggested if the conditions are right, beavers may simply use holes in the stream bank for homes.
Activity 1. Find out more about beavers.
Have you ever seen a real beaver?
Beavers are large rodents. A big one can weigh up to one hundred pounds. They are brown and have a large flat tail. Their feet are webbed for swimming. They eat plants, especially bark and twigs from the trees that grow around their ponds.
Building Behaviors
A new dam is started by a young pair of beavers. Young beavers set out on their own at roughly two years old. Beavers mate for life, and the mother beaver has babies each year. The yearlings from the first year stay and help with the new babies. Once their mother has her second batch of young, however, it is time to leave.
If you think about it, not only do these young beavers go on to build dams and lodges in a new place and under different conditions than their original home, but also their only previous experience has been to help their parents repair the structures that had been already in place before they were born. They have never built a dam before, yet they are able to do so. That’s pretty incredible!
Activity 2. Build a model of a lodge or dam, or even a complete diorama in a shoebox.
Gather:
Pencils and colored pencils
Twigs and small branches
Chenilles
Blue construction paper or plastic wrap to represent water
Glue
Modelling clay
Pebbles
Age-appropriate scissors
Cardboard for base/support
Research how a beaver lodge is made, and then draw or build a model. Draw some beavers in the pond, and add some trees for them to build with and eat. If you do an entire diorama, be sure to include the beaver dam. You might even want to add the canals that beavers use to float the trees to the lodge or dam.
Check out videos online that show beavers at work for ideas. Here’s a short one from PBS:
Beavers generally have at least two entrances to their lodges that are underwater. Under a pile of branches and stems, there is a space for them to eat and sleep. At the top is a chimney for air circulation.
(Photo from 2009).
