To continue the theme of beach science from the last few weeks, today let’s investigate something else found at the beach.
Boats!
Children are fascinated by boats and floating. You can do a lot of interesting science projects with boats, starting with some basic questions: How can huge pieces of heavy metal float? How are boats propelled? Can you really make a boat out of paper?
We already have covered some floating and boat topics in previous posts.
Why Things Float contains some experiments on floating and sinking.
The Bathtub Buoyancy Challenge asked kids to find ways to propel boats across a bathtub without using their hands or electrical motors. The Bathtub Buoyancy results show several ways to propel toy boats.
It is always fun to build bathtub-sized boats. This video shows two handmade boats powered by battery packs and small electric motors that my son invented recently. A modified toy car powers the paddle boat; the air boat fan is a modified toy airplane propeller.
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!
This week we are continuing our series at the beach. Check previous posts for sand science and seawater science.
Have you ever found something plant-like on the beach and wondered what it was?
Seems like a lot of beach plants are hard to classify. Are they algae, a sort of seaweed, or are algae and seaweed the same thing? Are algae plants or do they belong to a different kingdom? These are all good questions, and scientists are just beginning to answer some of them.
Many of the plants and plant-like creatures you see at the beach are technically algae. For example, kelp are giant brown algae.
Algae come in many colors, like these red ones.
The green algae are often found in freshwater ponds and lakes.
Ready to learn more? Here are some suggestions for activities to investigate algae. I’d love to hear your ideas, as well.
Activity 1. Make an algal collection
Gather algae on the beach and keep it moist in seawater. If you have never worked with algae, the Hawaii Botany Department tells you how to make an algal herbarium. Or if you don’t want to disturb nature, you can take close up photographs of what you find.
Once you have a collection, visit these websites to help you identify what you have.
Find out as much as you can about food chains in the oceans. Gather, print and cut out pictures of ocean critters to illustrate your own posters of food chains or webs.
Once you have an idea what to look for, head to your kitchen and check to see if you have any foods that contain carrageenan or other products made from algae. Look at the cookbook listed below (or a similar one), and make some of your own dishes using algae. Asian markets are often an excellent source of ingredients.
If you are interested, a fun research project would be to investigate all the ways people use algae for food throughout the world.
Activity 4. Other important uses for algae.
See if you can make a list of other uses for algae. Here are some I found:
Algae are thought to make much of the oxygen we breathe.
This video shows a camera zooming in on the leaves and then the cells of a common water plant, Elodea. In the cells you can see the chloroplasts moving around. The chloroplasts are the sites of photosynthesis, the process that turns sunlight into chemical energy we can use as food. A by-product of photosynthesis is the release of oxygen. Although Elodea is actually a vascular plant, the process in green algae is the same.
If providing food and oxygen weren’t enough, now scientists have discovered ways to use the oils found in algae to make biodiesel. In fact, algal oils can be made into jet fuel. See this previous post for more information about algal research at ASU.
If you are interested in algae, here are a few books you might want to try:
by Patricia Lauber and illustrated by Holly Keller
by Rose Treat and Randy Duchaine
