This morning, over breakfast, the Free-Ride offspring and I discussed the environment. You can hear the conversation (that crunching is from English muffins). The transcript is below.
Category Archives: Kids and science
After school experiment: dyeing eggs with plants.
Tomorrow being Easter, a day on which there is some expectation that there will eggs for which to hunt in the backyard (weather permitting), the Free-Ride offspring and I decorated some eggs. We had an old package of oil-based dyes to make “swirled” eggs (the basic idea being that you float drops of the dye on top of cold water, then lowers the egg into the patches of dye, creating a sort of Jackson Pollock swirly effect on the shell).
But for the next dozen eggs, we thought we’d try something a little different. So we gathered some plant materials we thought might have pigments that we could use to create homemade dyes.
Here’s our basic procedure:
Friday Sprog Blogging: leverage.
This morning, I came upon the younger Free-Ride playing a game.
Younger offspring: I’m playing “launch the bear”.
Dr. Free-Ride: Oh, really?
Friday Sprog Blogging: chatting about math.
Since we’re trying to get out of town for the weekend, Casa Free-Ride is a hive of activity. (As we seem to be passing another cold back and forth, it’s also a hive of mucus. Ew.) But we have time to update you on recurrent topics of conversation this week around the Free-Ride kitchen table.
This week, it’s been all about math.
Friday Sprog Blogging: the science fair cometh.
Well, the school science fair looms (as school science fairs are wont to do). While the actual event isn’t until May, we have reached the point at which the science teacher is vetting the proposed projects.
In which the elder Free-Ride offspring proves there is no largest prime.
It’s a proud day for any parent when offspring start getting interested in formal proofs. So I felt a little thrill when the elder Free-Ride offspring sat down with Dr. Free-Ride’s better half to consider whether it was possible for there to be a largest prime number:
Friday Sprog Blogging: fish fry.
This Friday marks the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Accordingly, in SprogCast #5, the elder Free-Ride offspring marks the change of season by describing a local release of trout-fry.
You can download the sound file and pretend that the bathtub sounds are the gentle tides of the lake. The discussion is transcribed below.
Friday Sprog Blogging: a song with secret science content?
This week, in SprogCast #4, the younger Free-Ride offspring sings and then suggests that the song bears on the planetary subject of the very first Friday Sprog Blogging entry, which also involved singing.
You can download the sound file for the a cappella performance and the discussion that follows. The transcript is included below.
Friday Sprog Blogging: field trip to the Math/Science Nucleus.
The younger Free-Ride offspring would like to report on a recent field trip to the Math/Science Nucleus.
Younger offspring: What’s a nucleus anyway?
Dr. Free-Ride: It’s what’s at the center of things. The cells in your body have nuclei, and so do the atoms that those cells are made of.
Younger offspring: The atoms of different elements?
Dr. Free-Ride: Yep.
Friday Sprog Blogging: energy (part 2).
This week, we finally get to the elder Free-Ride offspring’s part of last-week’s bath-night conversation about energy. Here’s the audio of the discussion, complete with splashing bathwater and odd squawks from my computer.
For those who prefer words on the screen, the transcript is below.