The Science of Christmas

Since 1825, December has been the month for The Royal Institution of Great Britain’s “Christmas Lectures for Young People”, established by Michael Faraday, who presented 19 of the early lectures himself. According to the RI, the lectures “serve as a forum for presenting complex scientific issues to children in an informative and entertaining manner, and are particularly well-known for students’ participation in demonstrations and experiments”.  Since 1966, the lectures have been on television thanks to the BBC, and many are available free online; registration, which is free, is required and highly recommended.

Some notable lectures and lecturers: in 1964, Desmond Morris on “Animal behaviour”; in 1973, David Attenborough on “The language of animals”; in 1977, Carl Sagan on “Planets”; in 1991, Richard Dawkins on “Growing Up in the World” (which is also free online here).

This year’s lecture is “The 300 million years war” presented on Saturday, December 5th by Prof. Sue Hartley:

Plants might seem passive, defenceless and almost helpless. But they are most definitely not! Thanks to a war with animals that’s lasted over 300 million years, they’ve developed many terrifying and devious ways to defend themselves and attack their enemies. Vicious poisons, lethal materials and even cunning forms of communicating with unlikely allies are just some of the weapons in their armoury. Using these and other tactics, plants have seen off everything from dinosaurs to caterpillars.

You can watch a number of Royal Institution lectures for Children at the RI’s web archives.

Also available online at the RI website: games (What’s Inside an Element?, The Science of the Elements Quiz, Build Your Own Skeleton, and more) and pages of educational resources for teachers and others.

Science for all, and all for science

I’m still catching up on my online reading, so I only just saw Bob Thompson’s especially thorough August 1 piece at Make: on choosing a microscope, along with exciting news from the Make: folks,

We’re in the process of working on a new area of Make: Online that we’re really excited about. It’s called the Make: Science Room. We’ll have a full announcement and launch in a few weeks.

Bob Thompson is the author of the Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders: From Novice to Master Observer, as well as the Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture, which we like very much and which I’ve written about here and here. To go with the home chemistry book, Bob maintains the good HomeChemLab website.

Here’s to an imminent launch of the Science Room!

Star party

On Saturday night Tom, the kids, and I attended a stargazing party at our provincial park to help celebrate the International Year of Astronomy. It was our town’s “Galileo Moment”. While we live in a rural area and don’t have a local astronomy club, observatory, or planetarium in where we live — though we do have the benefit of almost no light pollution  — we do have some passionate amateur  astronomers who put together two presentations (including the video “Eyes on the Skies”, more here on it) and set up eight telescopes, including a Celestron 14″ in diameter.

The kids ran from telescope to telescope, viewing the moon, Saturn and its ring, nebulae, and more.  Just after 11 pm, we watched an iridium flare as the sun shone briefly on a travelling satellite. We’re planning on keeping our eyes open for more, since the bigger ones are visible to the naked eye.

As with all the best parties, ours had refreshments (hot chocolate, juice, and cookies to keep everyone warm on a cool Spring evening) and party favors, most courtesy of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada: an assortment of AstroCards to collect (one from each telescope owner); Star Finders; the May/June issue of SkyNews, the Canadian Magazine of Astronomy & Stargazing*, which has a constellation chart for late spring and a 2009 summer star party calendar; promotional postcards and brochures (one for 2-for-1 general admission to Edmonton’s science museum, and Cosmic Journey at the Strathcona Wilderness Center); “Become a Sidewalk Astronomer” booklet, also available to download; and also a copy of a new Canadian children’s astronomy book, aimed at those from grades 1-6, Mary Lou’s New Telescope by Don Kelly and illustrated by Michael McEwing, which can also be downloaded and printed.

If we had such a stellar happening in our little town, I can’t imagine all the offerings and special events available in larger cities to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s use of the telescope, wonderful ways to introduce, or further studies in, astronomy for your kids and your family. At the International Year of Astronomy website, click on your flag to your country’s IYA website and see what’s available in your country; this is Canada’s offering.

And no matter where you live, you can supplement your stargazing with starlistening, with the podcasts at 365 Days of Astronomy, Astronomy Cast, The Jodcast, and Slacker Astronomy.

* For anyone not familiar with the magazine, the editor is astronomer and writer Terence Dickinson, author and co-author of a remarkable selection of astronomy books, including The Backyard Astronomer’s Guide, Nightwatch: A Practical Guide to Viewing the Universe,  Exploring the Night Sky: The Equinox Astronomy Guide for Beginners, Exploring the Sky by Day: The Equinox Guide to Weather and the Atmosphere, and Summer Stargazing: A Practical Guide for Recreational Astronomers

,

A telescope in every pot

New to me today, via CBC Radio’s “Quirks and Quarks” science show, hosted by Bob McDonald:

The Galileoscope, an International Year of Astronomy 2009 Cornerstone Project, US $15 each plus shipping to just about anywhere in the world.

You can also win a free Galileoscope in the Quirks and Quarks astronomical limerick contest, but I figured what the heck and just ordered one for each child.

Tentative high school science plans

I’ve been working for the past few weeks on what I’m going to do for science with Laura from grades 9-12; she’ll be starting 7th grade this fall, but like many home schoolers I feel more comfortable starting to plan sooner rather than later.  Of all three children, Laura, the eldest, has struggled the most with math (though this year has begun to enjoy the subject, perhaps because she’s also now finding it easier), and is also a keen naturalist, animal lover, and excellent young farmer.  Science, as well as math, are the two high school subjects I feel least comfortable winging and feel best having set out as some sort of plan.

My tentative plan, always subject to change, has involved cobbling together my own choices of books, some of which are already on the shelves at home, along with Teaching Company DVDs, based more or less the Well-Trained Mind rotation of biology (9th grade), earth science/astronomy (10th), chemistry (11th), physics (12th).  There’s also the option, I decided the other day, which I’ll give Laura for 12th grade of another year of biology instead of physics, concentrating on something she’d find interesting; in that case, we’d probably work through one or both of the Teaching Company physics courses (see below) over a couple of summers. She can specialize in ornithology, animal behavior, evolution, botany or whatever she chooses. We’d probably sort that out at the end of 10th grade, after two years of high school science.

I’ve selected completely secular textbooks where necessary (rather than “living books”), but I have tried to make sure they are written by experts in their respective fields who, preferably, are also good writers who make the subject engaging, rather than by committee.

A note: there are so many excellent, worthwhile and worthy books and documentary series on the sciences that I had a hard time winnowing things down.  There is probably more winnowing ahead.  As always, my choices were informed by own preferences.  I’m keen on the works of Chet Raymo, Isaac Asimov, and have recently become a fan of Timothy Ferris.  You might have your own favorite scientists and writers, and I urge you not to be confined by my own preferences and prejudices.  This is science, not rocket science, and there’s more than one way to do this.

OVERALL: We’ve been unschooling science for the most part.  Starting this year and next with Laura for 7th and 8th grades, and of course the boys will be around (so they’ll have two sessions), I’d like to go systematically through one of the first Teaching Company courses I bought, “Joy of Science” with Professor Robert Hazen, along with the book Science Matters by Prof. Hazen and James Trefil; I think their textbook version would be overkill for us at this point.  Also, with Laura’s love of her iPod, perhaps too the audiobook version of Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything.

Aside from the four-year breakdown, over the course of high school I’d like to do a light survey of the history of science using the book and new-on-DVD series “The Day the Universe Changed” by James Burke, of “Connections” fame. I’d also like to see each of our children involved at least for one year in high school on the executive of our local naturalist club

BIOLOGY (9th grade): We’re actually going to do a fairly specific farm study, using the provincial Green Certificate program for young farmers, with the specialization of cow-calf beef production.  She’ll also be able to use the program as her 4H project for the year. I’d also like to see if the each of the kids could take a course at the agricultural college in town in connection with the Green Certificate program, in the animal sciences department (anatomy and physiology or genetics of livestock) and/or an internship at the vet clinic. Like most good cattle farmers, we have a copy of Beef Cattle Science by Ensminger on the shelf, for the kids to work through. Also to read: Cattle: An Informal Social History by Laurie Winn Carlson and Raising Steaks: The Life and Times of American Beef by Betty Fussell; possibly the new Beef: The Untold Story of How Milk, Meat, and Muscle Shaped the World by Rimas and Fraser.

The more general stuff we’ll use, especially if we can’t manage to arrange for courses at the local agricultural college: the Teaching Company class “Biology: The Science of Life” taught by Stephen Nowicki of Duke. To read: The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher by Lewis Thomas; The Way Life Works: The Science Lover’s Illustrated Guide to How Life Grows, Develops, Reproduces, and Gets Along by Mahlon Hoagland and Bert Dodson; if we weren’t planning on the beef cattle approach, I think I’d use Hoagland’s textbook version of The Way Life Works. Also, In a Patch of Fireweed: A Biologist’s Life in the Field by Bernd Heinrich (not as good as his later Snoring Bird, but more manageable for ninth graders).

EARTH SCIENCE/ASTRONOMY (10th grade): the combination “Nature of Earth” courses from the Teaching Company (“An Introduction to Geology” and “Understanding the Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy”), along with 365 Starry Nights: An Introduction to Astronomy for Every Night of the Year by Chet Raymo; Seeing in the Dark: How Amateur Astronomers Are Discovering the Wonders of the Universe by Timothy Ferris; The Crust of Our Earth: An Armchair Traveler’s Guide to the New Geology by Chet Raymo; A Field Manual for the Amateur Geologist: Tools and Activities for Exploring Our Planet by Alan M. Cvancara or The Practical Geologist: The Introductory Guide to the Basics of Geology and to Collecting and Identifying Rocks by Dougal Dixon; Isaac Asimov’s Guide to Earth and Space (for general reference); and The Natural History of Canada by RD Lawrence, for Canadian content. Also perhaps one of New Yorker writer John McPhee’s series on North American geology, Basin and Range, In Suspect Terrain, Rising from the Plains, The Control of Nature, and Assembling California; if you don’t have the individual titles, as I do, you can by the one-volume collection, Annals of the Former World which includes all but Control. Additional DVDs: Timothy Ferris’s “Seeing in the Dark” and “The Creation of the Universe”, and Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos”; and Iain Stewart’s “Earth: The Biography”

CHEMISTRY (11th grade): working through Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture by Robert Bruce Thompson, with the help of his HomeChemLab website; and either Hands-On Chemistry Activities with Real-Life Applications: Easy-to-Use Labs and Demonstrations for Grades 8-12 by Herr and Cunningham or what WTM recommends (Chemistry: Concepts and Problems: A Self-Teaching Guide by Houk and Post). I don’t know that we’d need the TC course (High School Chemistry) for this, but perhaps. Also to read: Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sacks; Nature’s Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements by John Emsley; Creations of Fire: Chemistry’s Lively History from Alchemy to the Atomic Age by Cathy Cobb and Harold Goldwhite. Also, if necessary, by the co-author (with Basher) of The Periodic Table: Elements with Style!, high school chemistry teacher Adrian Dingle’s chemistry pages; and my own periodic table round-up.

PHYSICS (12th grade): I was leaning toward the WTM recommendations (this and this) until I ran across How Things Work: The Physics of Everyday Life by Louis A. Bloomfield; while/before Laura works through the textbook, I would work through Dr. Bloomfield’s How Everything Works: Making Physics out of the Ordinary. At his reassuring website, Dr. Bloomfield has a guide to physics homeschooling and an instructor resources page.  Plus either “Physics in Your Life”, “Einstein’s Relativity and the Quantum Revolution: Modern Physics for Non-Scientists”, or “Great Ideas of Classical Physics” course from the Teaching Company, and the puzzle/brainteaser books by Franklin Potter and Christopher Jargodzki.

I have to admit I’m also intrigued, more for the boys than for Laura, by Richard Muller’s “Physics for Future Presidents” course (with webcasts) and books (there’s a textbook edition and a general trade edition).  Also intrigued, more for Laura than her brothers, in the classic Physics for Poets by Robert March, which is also an option depending on how things go through high school; I like this additional bibliography. To read: Understanding Physics by Isaac Asimov; First You Build a Cloud: And Other Reflections on Physics as a Way of Life by KC Cole (recommended by JoVE); and, if manageable, Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics By Its Most Brilliant Teacher by Richard Feynman.  On DVD, NOVA/“Einstein’s Big Idea” and NOVA/”Physics: The Elegant Universe”. Free online from MIT, Physics I: Classical Mechanics with Prof. Walter Lewin.  And some Leon Lederer links: FermiLab, and QuarkNet.

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Other useful links:

MIT OpenCourseWare

Free online MIT course materials for high school (biology, physics)

Writer, home educating mother, and GeekMom Kathy Ceceri’s Home Biology blog and Home Chemistry blog; be sure to check all the links in the sidebars

The Periodic Table: Elements with Style! co-author Adrian Dingle’s Chemistry Pages

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The Farm School Science page (at the top above, to the far right, over the carrot leaves)

Science

Farm School blog posts/General Science:

Tentative high school science plans

Do It Yourself Science

Science with Tom Edison

Learning to think like scientists, and learning how to think about science

More food for thought: connections and disconnections

Science Summer School

In search of freedom and independence, and big bangs

The beautiful basics of science

A virtual education, about the debate on virtual science classes

Farm School blog posts/Biology:

Darwin and evolution resources for Darwin Day aka Darwin 200: Charles Darwin’s Day

I typed this all by myself with my opposable thumbs

Charles Darwin Has a Posse

Celebrating Darwin Day: Many happy returns

Farm School blog posts/Natural History:

Nature writing and writers

Farm School blog posts/Chemistry:

Do It Yourself Science

Retro Chemistry

Still sniffing around the kitchen: Chemistry with the Curious Cook; which means you might be interested in this review by Nicole at Baking Bites of How Baking Works: Exploring the Fundamentals of Baking Science by Paula Figoni

Review: The Periodic Table: Elements with Style! by Basher and Dingle

Farm School blog posts/Physics:

Spreading the love

Lists of Living Books for Science:

4 Real Learning “Great Outdoors” book list; nature study and natural history books for grammar stage and up, including picture books

Regena’s lists of science and history books

Paula’s Archive: Grammar stage science book list compiled by Carol Richey

Links and Resources:

The Society for Amateur Scientists (“Helping Ordinary People Do Extraordinary Science”), also known as SAS, and SAS’s Labrats program for children; both SAS and Labrats are headed up by Dr. Shawn Carlson

Dr. Shawn Carlson’s CD compilation of 72 years’ worth of “Amateur Scientist” columns from Scientific American magazine: Amateur Scientist 4.0 CD, “Science Fair Edition”

The Guardian‘s Science Course: Part I, The Universe; Part II, Life & Genetics; Part III,The Earth; Part IV, Humans; Part V, Energy; Part VI, Building Blocks; and Part VII, Experiments for Kids

Home Chemistry

Singing Science; free songs to download

Geekdad, from Wired

Charles Darwin Has a Posse: awareness stickers

Boing Boing

“The Way Things Work” two-disc DVD set by David Macaulay

Modern Mechanix

Scientific American article, “15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense” by John Rennie, September 2002

Science books from the Farm School bookshelves, library list, shopping carts, and wish lists:

Biology:

The Intelligent Man’s Guide to the Biological Sciences by Isaac Asimov; don’t hold the unfortunate title of the 1960 book against Asimov (for older children and up)

Scientific American: The Amateur Biologist by Shawn Carlson (for ages 9 or 10 and up)

Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth by Andrew H. Knoll (for older children and up)

Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin(for older and up)

The Fairy-Land of Science by Arabella Buckley; free online in book form here and as an audiobook at Librivox here (for younger children)

Natural History/Nature Writing (by author):

Edward Abbey

Liberty Hyde Bailey

Wendell Berry

Hal Borland

Rachel Carson

Gerald Durrell

Loren Eiseley

Edward Hoagland

John Kieran

Barbara Kingsolver

Joseph Wood Krutch

Gale Lawrence

RD Lawrence

Aldo Leopold

Barry Lopez

Bill McKibben

John McPhee

Farley Mowat

John Muir

Sigurd Olson

Ernest Thompson Seton

Edwin Way Teale

Henry David Thoreau

and also

Nature Writing: The Tradition in English, edited by Robert Finch and John Elder

American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau, edited by Bill McKibben(Library of America, April 2008

Nature Study:

How to Be a Nature Detective by Millicent Selsam, illustrated by Ezra Jack Keats (for young children)

The Listening Walk by Paul Showers, illustrated by Aliki; I prefer the original unrevised edition of 1961 with Aliki’s black and white, less cutesy illustrations (less distracting), but am glad to see that this one is still in print (for young children)

Exploring Nature with Your Child: An Introduction to the Enjoyment and Understanding of Nature for All by Dorothy Edwards Shuttlesworth (1952); out of print but worth buying secondhand

The Amateur Naturalist by Gerald Durrell, with Lee Durrell; out of print and worth tracking down (for the whole family)

The Amateur Naturalist’s Handbook by Vinson Brown (and also his How to Make a Home Nature Museum and How to Make a Miniature Zoo, two of my childhood favorites)

Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock (for the whole family)

The Beginning Naturalist: Weekly Encounters With the Natural World, A Field Guide to the Familiar: Learning to Observe the Natural World, and A Naturalist Indoors: Observing the World of Nature Inside Your Home by Gale Lawrence (for the whole family)

The Curious Naturalist by John Mitchell and The Massachusetts Audubon Society (for the whole family)

The Fieldbook of Natural History by E. Laurence Palmer and H. Seymour Fowler (originally published in 1949, revised in 1975, and which I suspect grew out of Palmer’s 1927 The Nature Almanac: a Handbook of Nature Education); Palmer, a professor of nature study at Cornell University, was a colleague of Anna Botsford Comstock (for the whole family)

The Nature Handbook: A Guide to Observing the Great Outdoors by Ernest Herbert Williams (for the whole family)

Naturalist’s Guide to Observing Nature by Kurt Rinehart (for the whole family)

Keeping a Nature Journal: Discover a Whole New Way of Seeing the World Around You by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth (for the whole family)

The Amateur Naturalist by Nick Baker (not to be confused with the Durrell title, but quite good)

The Study of Life: A Naturalist’s View by RD Lawrence

The Natural History of Canada by RD Lawrence, revised by Dr. Michal Polak

Entrusted to My Care by Grant MacEwan (older readers and up)

Collecting for the City Naturalist by Lois J. Hussey and Catherine Pessino (Thomas Y. Crowell, 1975)

John Kieran’s A Natural History of New York City: A Book for Sidewalk Naturalists Everywhere

The Urban Naturalist by Steven Garber

City Birding: True Tales of Birds and Birdwatching in Unexpected Places

Snowshoeing Through Sewers: Adventures in New York City, New Jersey, and Philadelphia by Michael Aaron Rockland

Suburban Safari: A Year on the Lawn by Hannah Holmes

Chemistry:

The Periodic Table: Elements with Style! created (and illustrated) by (Simon) Basher, and written by Adrian Dingle

Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture by Robert Bruce Thompson (DIY Science series)

Fizz, Bubble & Flash!: Element Explorations & Atom Adventures for Hands-On Science Fun! by Anita Brandolini

Mad Professor by Mark Frauenfelder

The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments by Robert Brent; out of print but available as a free PDF to download, and available in softcover via Lulu for under $30.

Basic Chemistry Experiments (A Golden Hobby Book) by Robert Brent; an abridged edition of The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments, also out of print. Keep your eyes peeled at garage sales.

How and Why Wonder Book of Chemistry by Martin L. Keen

Entertaining Science Experiments With Everyday Objects by Martin Gardner

Chemical Magic by Leonard A. Ford and E. Winston Grundmeier

Mr. Wizard’s 400 Experiments in Science by Don Herbert and Hy Ruchlis

The Joy of Chemistry: The Amazing Science of Familiar Things by Monty L. Fetterolf and Cathy Cobb

Hands-On Chemistry Activities with Real-Life Applications: Easy-to-Use Labs and Demonstrations for Grades 8-12 by Herr and Cunningham

On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee

The Curious Cook: More Kitchen Science and Lore by Harold McGee

Physics:

Physics: Why Matter Matters! created (and illustrated) by (Simon) Basher, and writtenby Dan Green

Physics in a Hardware Store by Robert Friedhoffer

Physics in a Housewares Store by Robert Friedhoffer

Rubber-Band Banjos and Java Jive Bass: Projects and Activities on the Science of Music and Sound by Alex Sabbeth

How Do You Lift a Lion? by Robert E. Wells

Gizmos and Gadgets: Creating Science Contraptions That Work (& Knowing Why) by Jill Frankel Hauser

Hands-On Physics Activities with Real-Life Applications: Easy-to-Use Labs and Demonstrations for Grades 8-12 by Cunningham and Herr

Understanding Physics by Isaac Asimov

Fear of Physics by Lawrence M. Krauss

Earth Science:

Basin and Range, In Suspect Terrain, Rising from the Plains, and Assembling California by John McPhee (available together in the collection Annals of the Former World)

Isaac Asimov’s Guide to Earth and Space by Isaac Asimov

Astronomy:

Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders: From Novice to Master Observer, first in the (DIY Science series) by Robert Bruce Thompson and Barbara Fritchman Thompson

Isaac Asimov’s Guide to Earth and Space by Isaac Asimov

The Stars: A New Way to See Them and Find the Constellations by H. A. Rey (of Curious George fame)

General/Reference:

Asimov’s Chronology of Science and Discovery by Isaac Asimov

The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science by Natalie Angier

How to Think Like a Scientist by Stephen P. Kramer and illustrated by Felicia Bond

The Way Things Work by David Macaulay

Why Science? by James Trefil

The Nature of Science: An A-Z Guide to the Laws and Principles Governing Our Universe by James Trefil

Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy by Robert M. Hazen and James Trefil