Middle and High School … from a Montessori Point of View
As an exercise to transition from ecology to biochemistry in Biology class, I had students follow the energy from the Sun to humans via potatoes. After all, we’ve been putting together food webs, following energy through the food chain, and now I want to start talking about the short and long chained biochemical molecules like … Continue reading “Following the Energy”
I caught a grasshopper in the bushes this morning. They’re a bit of a pest at Heifer so I didn’t feel too badly about bringing it in to inspect under the microscope. The students found it to be curious as well. So much so, that one decided — of her own volition — to diagram … Continue reading “Grasshopper”
Yesterday, Dr. Sansone was kind enough to lead my Biology class through a small mammal dissection (details here). He’d brought in five New Zealand White rabbits (2 male and 3 female) that had been raised for market by an Amish family in northern Missouri. Over our two-hour class period, we had time to examine the … Continue reading “Rabbit Dissection”
References Linn (2000) has a good overview of general rabbit biology and the internal organs in Rabbits: Biology (pdf). For lots of detail on how to dissect a rabbit try Bensley’s Practical Anatomy of the Rabbit (free on Google Books) AnimalLearn.org has a good list of free and for fee online dissections of various organisms. … Continue reading “Preparing for Rabbit Dissection”
While walking through the woods to recover the skeleton the other day, I picked up, or rather was boarded by, a few ticks. So when I got back to school I plopped them under the stereoscopes to try to identify them. They were both lone star ticks (Amblyomma americanum): one adult and one juvenile. Under … Continue reading “Ticks in the Woods”
Following closely after the first pictures of atoms we now have pictures of molecules reacting:
Sulfur hexafluoride is transparent, so if you fill a fish tank with it you can’t really see that that tank’s filled with anything other than air. However, since sulfur hexafluoride is denser than air, you can float a light boat on the invisible gas for a cool demonstration of density. Note: Air is about 80% … Continue reading “Sulfur Hexafluoride Density Demonstration”
When we looked at the patterns in the periodic table, one of the things I had my student graph was the electronegativity. Electronegativity is the ability of atoms to attract electrons to themselves. You’ll note that chlorine’s electronegativity is high, while sodium’s is low. So chlorine will attract electrons to itself strongly, while sodium will … Continue reading “Electronegativity”