About half of the Free-Ride silkworms (who you know from pictures and videos) have decided that it’s time to pupate.
Of course, we immediately broke out the video camera. But, then the truth started to dawn on us.
Category Archives: Kids and science
Friday Sprog Blogging: bigger silkworms (part 2).
We offer a couple more video sprog segments with the much enlarged silkworms. It won’t be long before they’re spinning cocoons (we’re guessing — and the mulberry trees are hoping), so these may be the last of their baby videos:
Friday Sprog Blogging: bigger silkworms (part 1).
Those wee little silkworms which you saw in videos last week are growing at an impressive rate.
Here, see for yourself:
Friday Sprog Blogging: meet the silkworms (part 2).
Here’s some more video footage of the Free-Ride silkworms, with color commentary from the Free-Ride offspring.
Let me note here that as “pets” acquired as the elementary science classroom winds down for summer, silkworms are pretty agreeable. As long as you have a stable source of mulberry leaves and keep feeding them, they seem pretty content. Another animal in our science classroom that is looking for a summer home is a Madagascar hissing cockroach. The handout from the science teacher says he eats romaine lettuce and cat food. Talk about a hard sell!
Friday Sprog Blogging: meet the silkworms (part 1).
This week, our first-ever video sprog blog. (Yeah, I know, I’m going to have to turn in my Luddite card now.) Because it’s hard to do silkworms justice unless you can watch them squirm!
Recall that these silkworms (who you’ve already seen in pictures) hatched from eggs that came home last June and stayed in the refrigerator until spring (when mulberry trees are nice and leafy).
Dr. Free-Ride’s better half warns that the silkworms are slightly out of focus in this video. I remind you that here at Friday Sprog Blogging, we make a point of protecting the identities of the very young. Yeah, that’s right, I meant them to be blurry! I don’t want these wee caterpillars to have to deal with creepy internet stalkers!
Meet Susan the Scientist.
You know and I know that science is cool, but for some reason kids can be suspicious of our declarations to this effect. (Maybe it has to do with our enthusiasm for vegetables that they don’t like, not to mention naps.)
However, Susan the Scientist is on a mission to let kids know that science rocks! Here’s a taste:
The very hungry Free-Ride caterpillars.
A few weeks ago, the Free-Ride family welcomed some new members.
About 14 new members (although it can be hard to get an accurate count when they’re squirming around).
Friday Sprog Blogging: life science from two points of view.
It being spring and all, the Free-Ride offspring sometimes get that wistful why-aren’t-we-4H-kids? look in their eyes.
Not that there aren’t critters aplenty in the back yard. The younger Free-Ride offspring sizes up the ladybugs and looks for a jar with holes in the lid that would be appropriate as a ladybug barn. (Then, I point out that the ladybugs are needed in the garden, right where they are, to keep the aphid population under control.) Most mornings, we have a delightful selection of colorful birds hopping around and eating (bugs, one assumes) right out our window. There are enough gastropods to set up a snail racetrack (although I’m not sure we could get licensed to accept bets on the races).
But these children seem to want more. This morning, they presented me with pictures of the sorts of critter encounters they’ve been dreaming of.
Math and science versus femininity.
Dr. Isis has some rollicking good discussions going on at her pad about who might care about blogs, and what role they might play in scientific education, training, and interactions. (Part one, part two.)
On the second of these posts, a comment from Pascale lodged itself in my brain:
I think a lot of impressionable girls, especially in that middle-school age group, get the idea that they can’t be good at science or math if they like clothes, makeup, and boys. Is it the science/math sterotype that is the problem, or is it that girls make other choices to pursue these alternate interests? “I want to be pretty, so I don’t want to be a scientist, etc” or is it “I’m bad at math and science, so I should be pretty and study art.”
Girls’ test scores and grades don’t fall behind boys in these subjects until that age, and I find it hard to believe that girls suddenly lose the ability to do math and science. If more positive role models were present, then girls might see that they can study science and be feminine as well. I think that may be the real issue to closing the gender gap in the sciences.
This has me wondering.
Friday Sprog Blogging: small, bigger, better, sproggier.
As captured in SprogCast #7, the Free-Ride offspring consider Mike Dunford’s Earth Day resolutions meme. We discover that a kid’s sense of scale is kind of different from a grown-up’s.
You can grab the mp3 here. The approximate transcript of the conversation follows.