Apologia General Science, Module 15, The Human Lymphatic, Endocrine, and Urinary Systems

►Videos, etc. for M15

The kids did not find this module all that appealing.
I had no interesting games. =(
It was nearing the end of the year, and they all had spring fever.
It was about body systems that, frankly, few teenagers think about.

Some teenagers don't even know what a lymphatic system or an endocrine system is.  They knew about the urinary system, but didn't really care to absorb into their minds the vast knowledge I had to convey.  (lol, about as vast as a pea, haha)


Kidney System
As usual, I went straight to an experiment to try to get them interested, and then previewed other parts of the chapter.  (I usually do things out of order anyway, haha)
You may know that your kidneys are filters.  They clean blood and blood plasma.
But they only clean out chemicals that are not dangerous yet!  They aren't dangerous until they reach certain levels.  So their levels in the blood need to be monitored and maintained.

We did Experiment 15.2, A Model of Kidney Function
Very simple: tea bag, coffee filter, boiling water, you get the idea.

Boiled water poured over loose tea grains (no longer in the tea bag) 

Using a coffee filter in a funnel to strain out the tea grains

The first thing kidneys do to blood is filter out any large chemicals.

Folded paper towel, more filtering.

The water and tea ALL will go through the paper towel, but not all will end up in the glass.

Nephrons filter the water and chemicals in water out of the blood.  Then they put some of 

the water and chemicals back into the blood, and the rest will be sent out the ureter as urine.

Learning the path of blood and urine, etc. is a little complicated, so we spent some time discussing it and learning the terminology.  They listen pretty good since they know there will be questions later... and chocolate!
Not really a game, but they paid attention so they could get chocolatey goodness.  =)



Lymphatic System
In contrast to the kidneys (which clean blood and blood plasma), the lymph nodes clean... lymph!
You have probably had swollen lymph nodes before, but what is lymph?
(That's what the kids said.)

There is a clear fluid that is in between the body's cells, that leaks in and out of capillaries and in and out of cells, carrying out the exchange of oxygen and CO2 between the cells and the blood.
This fluid needs to be cleaned before it can return to the blood, and the lymphatic system does this.
This fluid is called interstitial fluid, but while in the network called the lymphatic system, it is called lymph.
The cleaning sites along the lymphatic system are called lymph nodes.
(See image)

I won't go into it here since you can read about it in your textbook or google it to learn more, but a lymph node has quite a job.



Endocrine System
I'm sure you've heard of hormones.  But what do they do?
Hormones send chemicals to cells, causing them to change their behavior in a specific way.
There are several kinds of endocrine glands.  (see image)
The hypothalamus has several jobs, including controlling the pituitary gland.  The pituitary gland is only the size of a pea, but controls other glands, and is often called the "master endocrine gland."
There is also the thyroid gland which affects the basal metabolic rate.
Adrenal glands, through a complicated series of one thing causing another to happen, are responsible for the production of adrenaline.
The pancreas is a digestive gland and an endocrine gland, and makes insulin.


These body systems are all rather complicated, and I don't know of one that isn't!
I can't imagine how someone can believe in evolution.  We NEED all these body processes to work correctly, and if they don't work correctly at birth, there are immediate problems.
How can someone say we evolved to be how we are today?
We wouldn't even live long enough to bear offspring!
I'm glad I know Who the Creator is!  =)


sMiLeS,

Apologia General Science, Module 14, The Human Respiratory and Circulatory Systems

►Videos and Resources for M14

Breathe!  Just breathe.
Isn't that wonderful?
Without conscious thought (except now you're probably thinking about it), we breathe and exchange carbon dioxide for fresh oxygen every moment of every day for our entire life.
How many breaths do you think you could have in a lifetime?
WikiAnswers says it could be 672,768,000!!!
Time how many breaths you take in one minute and figure it out!

We did this experiment to see how many cups of air our lungs can hold.
Experiment 14.2, The Capacity of Your Lungs

Abigail blowing ALL the air out, and her brother Caleb holding the jug still

Each one had their own length of aquarium tubing (about 2 feet each), and we filled up one jug while another was being blown into.  This helped speed things up a bit.
They filled the sink halfway with water, and filled the jug all the way up and put on the lid, then removed it once the jug was upside down in the water.  Keeping the opening down in the water, and the tubing just inside the jug (needed extra hands for all this, so usually another student held the jug still), they blew and blew and blew to see how much could be blown out with one long breath.
There are 16 cups in a gallon, so we measured what water was left and subtracted from 16.
Caleb and Abigail were able to blow all the air out of the jug, and JohnDavid was able to blow just a bit longer!
Courtney and Bethany blew almost all of it out (within 1/3-1/2 a cup), but Rebekah had a cold and only blew out about 12 cups of air.

Purple lungs!

Experiment 14.3, A Model of Your Lungs
I also made a model of lungs for them to observe.
Which didn't take very long, haha.
(Observe sounds better than look at, lol.  And yep, I do know that isn't even correct grammar.  But around here, we'd never say, "at which to look."  Could you imagine?)  =D
It looks pitiful, but it worked okay, lol.
I blew up the balloon to get it stretched, then when they pulled on the baggie (diaphragm), giving more room for the lungs, the balloon (lungs) inflated.
When you relax your diaphragm, it pushes air out of the lungs.
Yes, relax.
When you breathe out, the diaphragm is relaxed.
When you breathe in and hold it, you will feel more that you are holding a muscle in place.


In our lungs are bronchial tubes that branch and end in tiny sacs called alveoli. (see image, source)
These alveoli are covered with capillaries, like spider webs all along the surface.  These capillaries are the ends of branched out arteries.  They have branched many times, and now have such thin walls that they allow the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide.
They also allow nutrients to get into your system!  Did you ever wonder how the nutrients from food get to the parts of the body where needed?  They travel in the blood!
These capillaries cover the aveoli so that when you breathe in, the red blood cells in the capillaries that cover the aveoli collect the oxygen to carry to all the other cells in the body.  Oxygenated blood flows in arteries away from the heart to all parts of the body.
If blood flows away from the heart, it is traveling in an artery.

As blood cells distribute oxygen to all your cells, they also pick up carbon dioxide that is a waste product.  The blood is now DEoxygenated, and will travel back to the heart and lungs.  When blood flows toward the heart, it is traveling in a vein.
As the blood cells travel past the aveoli, they drop off carbon dioxide, which is then breathed out, and pick up fresh oxygen that has just been breathed in.  This is a constant process as a constant stream of red blood cells travel through the capillaries on the aveoli.  The capillaries are so thin, the blood cells travel through them in single file.

Blood carries gases (oxygen and carbon dioxide), nutrients, and wastes to the parts of the body where they need to go.  But the oxygen and carbon dioxide must be carried by a blood cell.

Kids like games, so after my preview lecture of Module 14, discussions, and lung experiments, we played this until class was over.
(Links to game and instructions, as well as the printable seen in the pic can be found at the Video link at the top of this post.)

Rather than using a spinner to move the playing pieces, I asked questions from the lesson.  If they got it right, their team went 20 spaces.  (I knew this was going to take a long time!)  If they needed a tiny hint, they went 15 spaces.  More of a hint, 10 spaces.  Teammates weren't allowed to give hints, only me.
I gave hints because (1) this was new material, and (2) I wanted them to think a little more, rather than just telling the correct answer because they didn't know it.
They knew questions would be repeated so they paid pretty good attention!
There were red blood cells for the oxygen and carbon dioxide to travel on, but the nutrients and waste products could jump right into the blood stream to travel to their designated spots.
►The first team to get all their oxygen and food to the cells, all the waste to the kidneys, and all the carbon dioxide to the lungs would win the game.

I was keeping individual points (2, 3, or 4 per question) because I knew we wouldn't be finished in time, and it would be hard to figure who won with pieces all over the board, some in their spots, and some partway there.  The team that won got candy, and the high scorer got extra.  =)

They had a really fun time.  I allowed them to look at the notes they had made in class on the backs of their heart model printouts, and I had a few things written on the dry-erase board that I left up.
The purpose of the game was to familiarize them with the direction of blood flow, and that blood cells are what carries various things, and where they go.
The questions further re-enforced other things we were learning in the module.

Close up:
All arteries flow away from the heart.
All veins flow to the heart.
     You can see the path of blood (starting with the deoxygenated blood, returning to the heart):
Vena cava (a vein), right atrium, right ventricle, pulmonary artery (not labeled, purple), lungs (where the dots are; drop off CO2, get more oxygen), pulmonary vein (not labeled, red), left atrium, left ventricle, back to the body through the aorta (an artery).

You can see that just for a moment, deoxygenated blood can travel through an artery when it is traveling away from the heart to the lungs.  Then oxygenated blood travels through a vein when it is traveling from the lungs back to the heart.
These are the exceptions to arteries carrying oxygenated blood, and veins carrying deoxygenated blood.  Arteries and veins are not distinguished by what kind of blood they carry, but whether they are traveling to or from the heart.


Fun, fun! =)

sMiLeS,

Apologia General Science, Module 13, The Human Digestive System

►Videos and Resources for M13

First, a magic trick.
Watch this boiled purple cabbage water turn red the instant it hits the glass!

Wasn't that awesome!?!

Well... I didn't say the glass was empty.  =)
Actually, in the bottom of the glass was a teaspoon of the Works.  →
When I bought it, I made sure it had hydrochloric acid (also called hydrogen chloride), was non-clinging, and I thought it was colorless until it was poured.
It was clear-blue, but apparently it was light enough, because it worked perfectly.

So what does a 'magic trick' have to do with digestion???

Experiment 13.2 was about Stomach Acid and Antacids.
Stomach acid contains hydrochloric acid.
Purple cabbage juice can be used to measure pH, and indicate the presence of chemicals that are either an acid or a base.
The chemical in the cabbage juice that does this is called an indicator.
When the cabbage juice hit the hydrochloric acid in this toilet cleaner, it turned red!  I had hoped for at least pink, but this was great!  The white TUMS was to act as an antacid, but didn't dissolve readily.
So I did what my mom always did when we kids had to take medicine, but couldn't swallow pills yet.  I put a TUMS in a larger spoon, and crushed it with the back of another spoon.
Easy-peasy, powdered TUMS.
Dropping the powder into the red liquid gave us this instant, foamy result:

TUMS have an ingredient that helps to neutralize acid.  That ingredient is calcium carbonate.
Cabbage juice indicates the presence of a base by turning blue/purple.
I wish I had the whole thing on video from start to finish, but we had to figure out the crushed TUMS (In the video above, you can hear my pollen-induced laryngitis voice instructing them, lol).

Then we needed to find out what would happen if there was more hydrochloric acid than calcium carbonate.
So pretty...  =)



Before you even start eating, you smell food which triggers your salivary glands.  In saliva are enzymes that help you start digesting starches.
If you remember from the last module, starch is a polysaccharide (many sugars).  The enzymes in saliva break polysaccharides down into disaccharides.
So digestion starts in the mouth!

Just lovely.  bleh!

Experiment 13.1, Seeing a Part of the Digestive Process showed that saliva does indeed break down polysaccharides.
One of the boys chewed half a cracker, then spit it into a small dish and mixed it with a tablespoon of water.  The other half of the cracker was crunched it up in a baggie and also mixed it with a tablespoon of water.  A few drops into each dish, and you could see the difference.
Iodine is used as an indicator of starch.  When starch is mixed with iodine, the iodine turns the mixture a deep blue color, and this is what happened when the iodine hit the crunched up cracker mixture.
The iodine in the chewed cracker mixture turned kind of dark and brown.


(We had no results before when using clear iodine from my SIL on the potato in Experiment 9.2, Finding Food in Plants.  So I emailed Apologia about what kind to use, and they said either betadine or tincture of iodine work best.  So dh found this for me, and it worked.
It says 10% Providone-Iodine, and in the yellow circle it says Compare to Betadine® Solution Active Ingredient. 
I do not know what the bottle of clear iodine said on it.)


When your food gets to the stomach, it churns the food with gastric juice until it turns into a liquid mush called chyme (kime), then sends it to the small intestine.
The small intestine cannot work properly in the presence of acid.  So if your stomach contains acid, what happens to it?  The pyloric sphincter (a ring of muscles) allows small amounts chyme to pass in spurts into the top section of the small intestine, called the duodenum.  There, the pancreas produces a base called sodium bicarbonate that mixes with the chyme, neutralizing the stomach acid in the chyme.
God just thought of everything, didn't He?  =)


We skipped Experiment 13.3, because it seemed redundant to do it right after doing Exp. 13.2 (the Works and TUMS), and I just explained about the pancreas producing sodium bicarbonate that was a base just like the calcium carbonate in the TUMS.
Also we needed to play a game!  =)
The kids have learned to listen well, because they like chocolate!  =)
We went over the parts of the digestive system first, seeing what they knew and explaining all the parts of the diagram.

Yes, I know that the pink line indicating the digestive tract goes right through the trachea!
(choke, hack, suck air!)  The kids caught it and corrected me though. (yay!)

I had 6 kids and 18 labels (super-sticky notes, cut into thirds), so I divided the labels in to easy, medium, and hard.  One at a time, I gave each kid three labels, and they put them on the diagram.
If it was a small organ, they had to specify what they were labeling.  The other kids had to pay attention because we planned to do it a few times, and I would give them different organs each time.
After each turn, we went over the three labeled organs, and I gave points for correct answers.  After a couple of rounds, they were doing pretty good!

I got most of this diagram here (and tweaked the position of the pancreas to match our textbook), and added everything else from the neck up.

We learned about the role and composition of each of the organs of the digestive system, and that some organs were part of the digestive system, but not part of the digestive tract.
The salivary glands, liver, gall bladder, and pancreas contribute to digestion, but no food passes through them, so they are not part of the digestive tract.
Some of the organs on the diagram aren't part of the digestive system at all.  The larynx, trachea, and lungs are used for breathing.  We learned about them because of the need to differentiate between the larynx (top of the trachea) and pharynx (throat); the trachea (windpipe) and esophagus; and the soft palate (keeps food and liquid from going into the nose) and the epiglottis (keeps food and liquid from "going down the wrong way").

We also learned about the micronutrients, which are vitamins, and which were fat-soluble and which were water soluble, and a bit more about those.

I really liked this module, but some of the kids do not like talking about intestines and organs, LOL!
(I also watch documentaries about other body systems, or how the brain works, etc, and yes, my kids do think that's a bit strange, haha.)
I'm amazed at the complexity and know that only God could have created our bodies, that for the most part, work the same with each new baby born into the world.  =)


sMiLeS,

Apologia General Science, Module 12, Energy and Life

►Videos and Resources for M12

Energy comes from the sun! ☼
I find that interesting, because Spiritual "energy" comes from the Son.  =)

When you eat a green plant, you're eating something that got its energy from the sun.
When you eat meat, you're eating something that indirectly got its energy from the sun.
When you read your Bible, you are getting your "energy" from the Son.
When you listen to preaching, you are indirectly getting your "energy" from the Son!  =)
Oh, I'm just thinking of all kinds of comparisons now!  Keep these thoughts in mind as you read this post.  =)


Plants are producers.  They make their own food.
I make chicken and broccoli, but that isn't really making my own food.  I'm just cooking food that is already "made."  =)
Plants produce food for many organisms.
Since I eat the food produced by plants, or eat meat that once ate plants, etc, I am a consumer.
If you are not a producer, you are a consumer.  (Unless you're an inanimate object, hehe.)
Even members of kingdom Fungi (such as mushrooms, yeast, or mold) are consumers.
But they do something special -- they do not eat, but decompose their food before ingesting it, so they are classified as decomposers.
We don't like mold to get on our food, but some molds grow out in nature, like slime molds.  Mushrooms feed on dead organisms, such as the leaves that fall.  If not, they would just pile up until you could no longer take walks through the woods!

2 pretty omnivores!  =)

Consumers can be further classified as:

• herbivores (eat only producers)
• carnivores (eat only other consumers)
• omnivores (eat both producers and consumers).  

All food chains begin with a green plant, so even though it is indirectly, almost all energy used by living organisms comes from the sun!  =)
The exceptions are some exotic bacteria that get energy from chemical reactions.  But that happens at the bottom of the ocean, so I'm not going to talk about them.


We get our energy from food through a process that is somewhat like combustion.  No, we will not burst into flame; our cells convert food to energy through a very slow combustion-like process.
In Experiment 12.1, What Combustion Needs, we learned that combustion needs oxygen.
That is why it can be very dangerous to open a window during a fire.  The flames will leap toward the window because oxygen "feeds" the fire.
When vinegar mixes with baking soda, it creates carbon dioxide, which does the opposite to fire than what oxygen does.
Watch this clip.



Our bodies need oxygen to help the process of converting food to energy.
In Biology we learn a lot more about this, and the process is called Cellular Respiration (takes place in the cell).  In General Science, this process is compared to combustion, but I went ahead and taught my students a bit about Cellular Respiration.
Here is a visual image of what is needed and what is produced by Cellular Respiration.

We take in food and oxygen, and produce water, carbon dioxide, and energy.
Since we don't need the carbon dioxide, it is called a waste product, or a by-product, and it is used by another organism - plants.

Plants take in energy from the sun, carbon dioxide, and water, and make food and oxygen.
This is called Photosynthesis.
The food they make is for themselves, but humans and animals eat it too.  The oxygen is not something the plant needs, so it is a by-product - and one from which we benefit.

Do you see the comparison between Cellular Respiration and Photosynthesis?  
The processes are opposite one another!
See this image:

God certainly knew what he was doing when He created everything!  And just think!  He didn't need to try several times to get it right.  He made it all from the beginning, perfectly.
Sadly, because of sin, things didn't stay perfect, but He also made a way of Salvation!  Isn't He wonderful!!!


We also did Experiment 12.2, The Products of Combustion.
We needed a balloon, and the kids got a little silly drawing faces on them.  I caught this shot of my daughter Bethany and Courtney.  Courtney looks like she needs a little oxygen!  =)

The balloon is on the 2-liter bottle for a reason.  The experiment said to mix baking soda and vinegar in the bottle, and quickly put the balloon on, making a good seal.  (not this kind)
Remember what vinegar and baking soda make?  Carbon dioxide.
As the vinegar and baking soda bubbled and foamed, the balloon filled with the CO2.



I had previously boiled some red cabbage (that is purple) and made cabbage juice.  The liquid is an indicator for many things, and one of those is carbon dioxide.
The kids held a straw in a glass of cabbage juice and pinched the balloon on the straw, letting the CO2 bubble into the liquid.  After enough  CO2 had gotten into the cabbage juice, it was supposed to turn slightly pink.
← Like this.

I tend to divide the kids up into teams of 2 since it's more fun to do things with a partner, and since 3 or more on a team results in one person doing the work while the others socialize.  ;)
Having teams turned out to be a good thing because one of the experiments turned out like this.  →
This was the one Bethany and Courtney did.  And this was not the one they blew into with the straw (they did do that later), so I know it wasn't because of contaminated breath or anything (haha).
I emailed Apologia about this and sent pictures, and their reply was, "It's very hard to tell...  It could be any number of things."
Well... it was pretty, though!  =)

Then the kids had to blow out some CO2 to get the cabbage juice to turn pink.
Well, soon they began to have too much fun, so I had to video!
They wanted to see who could blow the longest.  =)


Winner by a mile:  JohnDavid!  
Teenagers are so fun!  =)


We learned a lot more in this chapter, so I will just mention a few things.
We learned about the macronutrients (not micro, but macro, because you need to eat a lot of these in order to live).
The macronutrients are carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.
Carbohydrates are monosaccharides, disaccharides, or polysaccharides.  "Saccharides" are sugars, and mono-, di-, and poly- tell how many.
Macronutrients are burned by the body in the order I listed above:  first carbs, then fats, then proteins.
Only when all the carbs are used up will fats be burned.  That is why some people use a low-carb diet to lose weight.  You do need some carbs, however.
We learned about the 20 amino acids that are in protein, and that your body only has a certain number of these naturally, and you must eat protein in order to get the rest of them!  These are called the 8 essential amino acids.
All 8 of these amino acids are found in meat, so if you are a vegetarian, you will need to eat a wide variety of plants and seeds that contain different kinds of protein.  Since our bodies cannot produce these amino acids themselves, we must ingest them in order for the cells to be able to copy them.  If you do not get enough amino acids, it could result in brain damage, and you might not be able to read my next post!
Please eat enough amino acids.  Thank you.  ;)


We learned that we are endothermic (our body warmth comes from inside), and that certain animals like lizards, are ectothermic (they are warmed from the outside by the sun).
We get our warmth from the food we eat.  If we are in a cold environment, we will feel cold because we are warm-blooded.  Just like if you put one hand in hot water for a few minutes, then put both hands in cold water, the hand that was in hot water will feel colder than your other hand.
Cold-blooded animals do not feel this; they just get sluggish and do not move around much.  Their body temperatures will lower, and they are fine as long as it doesn't get too cold.

We learned the difference between basal metabolic rate (the minimum energy a person's body needs every day just to survive) and metabolic rate (the sum of your BMR and your activity level on a particular day).
Endothermic organisms have a higher BMR than ectothermic organisms, because endothermic  organisms need to stay warm!  So they need more food.

Do you think smaller animals or larger animals have a higher metabolic rate (not basal metabolic rate)?
Which needs to expend more energy to keep their internal body temperature the same?
Since smaller animals have a larger percentage of their body exposed to air, they lose heat more quickly than do larger animals.  So smaller animals have a higher metabolic rate than large animals.


Every time I study science, I get amazed over and over at all the complexity!  And this is just a scratch on the surface!  I am so awed by how intricately the Creator made it all, and wonder how can anyone believe in evolution.  It is so sad!  I usually do not read comments on youtube, but occasionally if Safety Mode is off, I do see them while scrolling to search for more videos on a topic.  If there is any mention of Creation in a video, there are sure to be dozens of comments with name-calling and insults.  There is nothing one can write to these people that will get them to change their minds.  They are set in their ways, and the fact that they are commenting shows they are argumentative, and I think some of them just like to argue!
The best thing is to pray for them, and that they'll meet someone they will respect, and begin to listen with their heart.
If you're reading this post, and have doubts, I'll be glad to email with you.


sMiLeS,

Apologia General Science, Module 11, The Human Body: Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

►Videos and resources for M11

The structure of the human body is made up of three basic units:
the skeleton, the muscles, and the skin.

My favorite thing about this module, is that we got to make THIS!

Veggie Skeleton!  =)

I knew the skeletal system was coming up, and I had found a veggie skeleton on Pinterest, and he was just soooo cute, that I just had to have one for our science class, too.
He was delicious!
We had him at the end of class, but I just had to put him first on here.  =)

In bleach for a week

Do you know what makes your bones strong?  and flexible so they're not brittle?
Minerals in bones make your bones strong and hard.
Collegen in bones makes them flexible.  What?  You think your bones aren't flexible?
They are to some extent.  Without the calcium in them, they would be veerrry flexible.

Experiment 11.1, Minerals in Bone called for a clean, dried-overnight chicken bone to be placed in vinegar for a week.  I also found an experiment online that said to put a bone in bleach.
So we did one of each.

In vinegar for a week

The kids had to include in their lab reports their Procedure (what they did), their Observations (what the bones looked and felt like), and their Conclusion (what it all meant), explaining the importance of both collegen and minerals in bones.

It's pretty obvious which bone was left with minerals but no collegen, and therefore was brittle; and which had collegen, but little or no minerals, and is too flexible to be of any use for humans or animals.










We also learned more about the composition of bones, such as compact bone and spongy bone.
Spongy bone is just as hard as compact bone!  Spongy bone just has spaces in it (like a sponge).  These spaces are filled with bone marrow.  I bet you probably knew your bones are alive, but did you know that the bone marrow makes red blood cells?


Do you know the difference between tendons and ligaments?
Tendons are what connects your muscles to the bones.  When you exercise, the 

tendon pulls on the bone, making it grow stronger.
Ligaments are strips of tissue that hold bones together in a joint.  Your upper arm bone, the humerous, is held in the elbow joint by ligaments.
Your elbows and knees have hinge joints, which is pretty easy to understand.  A hinge joint has limited mobility compared to some other joints, but it is more stable that way.
A ball-and-socket joint, such as the shoulder or hip, has a lot of mobility, but is not as stable as a hinge joint.
The more mobility, the less stability.  The more stable, the less mobile.
Cartilage is between the bones so that they don't rub together.
Most joints are surrounded by a "bag" that holds synovial fluid.  It is slippery, like egg white, and keeps joints lubricated for ease of movement.


Skeletal muscles are voluntary and make the skeleton move; smooth muscles are involuntary and make up the muscles of your organs; and the cardiac muscle is also involuntary and is the muscle of your heart.

Other organisms don't all have muscles.  For example, plants don't have muscles.  (Betcha didn't know that! haha.)
But plants can move by tropisms.  I'm sure you've had a plant in a sunny window, and after a day or two, you may have had to turn it to keep the plant looking "balanced."
This is because plants want to grow toward light.  Growing toward light is called phototropism.
If a plant isn't growing toward the light, but turning like sunflowers that track the sun across the sky, this is called heliotropism.
Roots growing toward water is hydrotropism.
Here is a picture of a bean plant that the older kids were experimenting with last year in Biology.
If I remember correctly, it only took a few hours for this plant to go from straight out to curved over the rim and back towards the window!

Heliotropism - movement toward the sun

We learned about the layers of our skin: epidermis, dermis, and hypodermis, and a few things about each layer.
Our hair and nails are also a part of this organ.
Our hair, nails, and the outer layer of skin are formed by keratinization, which is a process that kills the cell, but leaves it quite sturdy and hard to destroy.
Your outer layer of skin, the epidermis, is made up of dead skin cells and living cells. These living cells move upwards toward the outer layer and eventually fall off and are replaced with new keratinized cells.
The hair follicles  on your head are active for months at a time and have short periods of "rest" and can grow very long, unlike eyelashes or eyebrows.
Each hair is connected to a small, smooth (involuntary) muscle in the dermis.  When you get cold or nervous, this muscle contracts, pulling the hair straight up.  This is how you get goose bumps and your hair "stands on end."  This increases the amount of warm air trapped next to the body.

There are good bacteria living on our skin, and perspiration feeds this bacteria!  This beneficial bacteria produce lactic acid which is a good defense against many types of pathogenic (disease-causing) bacteria and fungi.
►When two or more different organisms benefit from each other, this is called symbiosis.
The older kids learned a lot about it last year in Biology, and this happens in many instances in Creation!  I just don't see how, with all the marvelous things that work together (every time), that anyone can believe it happened by chance!


sMiLeS,

Apologia General Science, Module 10, Classifying Life

►Videos and resources for M10
To see more in depth about any of the 5 kingdoms, click the Biology tab on either blog.

5 kingdoms!
Some are easy, and the kids knew those right away - animal kingdom and plant kingdom.  And after they thought a bit, one boy remembered bacteria.  Yep, I told him, there is a kingdom for bacteria.  But I didn't tell them the scientific name yet.
There is also a kingdom for fungi.  It's scientific name is.... kingdom Fungi.  =D

But when the kids heard of kingdom Protista... they kinda got a glazed look in their eyes.  That blank look that homeschooling mamas know all too well.  =D
I had a couple of Apologia Biology books on hand so we could look through those for more pictures.
Kingdom Protista is made of two subkingdoms: algae (which is a familiar word) and protozoa.
I got the blank looks again.

But pictures help a lot, and they were familiar with the name amoeba (see images).  So that was a start to understanding that subkingdom protozoa is primarily unicellular (only one cell) organisms that live in water or at least in moist areas.
An amoeba moves by using its jelly-like cytoplasm to squish into one end of the cell, and draws up and re-extends itself forward.  Like a caterpillar, but not.  =)
Another protozoan is a paramecium (see images).  Its shape is somewhat like a moccasin, or this traffic island!

We see this "paramecium" on our way to piano lessons every week.  haha!

If you look closely, you can see the grass growing around it... just like the "hairs" on a paramecium that are called cilia.  The paramecium uses cilia to help it move.
(Hmmmm... wonder if the city would let me paint it like a paramecium???)  lol.
If you look at some of the images at the paramecium link above, you will see that a tiny paramecium, made of a single cell, has a lot going on inside it!  It has many tiny organs called organelles.  They each have a job to do.

We also talked about subkingdom algae, and that it is not a plant!  There are quite a few differences between algae and plants, and you can read a little about that on this printable reference chart I typed up.


Note: 4 of the 5 kingdoms have cells with organelles, and as such, their cells are called eukaryotic cells.
Their DNA is in an organelle called the nucleus.
All cells are either eukaryotic or prokaryotic.  All cells.
Some organisms are made of only one cell - the tiny ones that can only be seen with a microscope; and some are multi-cellular - all the living things you can see.
But all are either eukaryotic or prokaryotic.  Having organelles or not having them.
Bacteria do not have organelles.


The kingdom that is made up of bacteria is kingdom Monera.
This kingdom is the only one with prokaryotic cells.  There are no organelles.  The DNA is not in a nucleus (an organelle), but is visible throughout the cell.  (see images)
Most people think of bacteria as only pathogenic - causing disease.  And a lot of bacteria do cause disease, but some are helpful.
The good bacteria that is most commonly talked about in textbooks are the bacteria that is used to make penicillin, the bacteria that is used to make some cheeses, and the bacteria that lives in your large intestine and makes vitamin K.  Some good bacteria  in your large intestine actually keep pathogenic bacteria from growing and reproducing there!

Experiment 10.1, Factors that Affect Bacterial Growth said to dissolve a chicken bouillon cube in 1 and 1/3 cups of hot water.  Then divide this into 4 small glasses.  I told the students to bring glasses on which there were no designs, and something they could easily see through because they would need to look through them later.
They were to add 1 tsp. of salt to one glass, 1 tsp. vinegar to another, one was to go in the refrigerator, and one was to have nothing done to it.  It would be the Control.  Each glass was labeled.
Anything that is done differently than what is done to the control is called a variable.  Salt, vinegar, and cold were the variables.

Hypothesis

I had started my experiment 2½ days earlier so that they could see my results and make predictions for their lab report.
I showed them my 4 glasses (that were labeled on the underside so they couldn't see), and they made their hypotheses as to which one of theirs would have the most bacteria, the next most, all the way to the least, based on the amount of bacteria that they thought would contamine each glass.
I had removed the cold one from the fridge about an hour before they got to class so that they could not tell from condensation on the glass which one had been in the refrigerator.

I placed a biology book behind the glasses to help with the visibility comparison.

Chicken bouillon cube in water left out for 2½ days, uncovered.
Each glass has a different variable so it could be compared to the Control.

We also talked about kingdom Fungi.
"Wait!" you say.  "What about the results of the bacteria experiment?"
Oh, I shan't give that away -- you'll have to do it and see for yourself.  =D
Kingdom Fungi has both single-celled (unicellular) organisms, and multi-cellular organisms.  But all are eukaryotic, meaning they have organelles.
One example of a unicellular fungal organism is yeast.
Mushrooms and mold are examples of multi-cellular fungi.
Fungi are not plants.  They are in a separate kingdom from plants because their cellular structure is so different, and because they do not make their own food as plants do.  (see reference chart)
Fungi feed on other dead organisms, such as decaying animals or dead leaves.  Fungi are helpful in this way because they are decomposers.  They decompose dead organisms.



Being a part of kingdom Fungi, yeast is also a decomposer.
Experiment 10.2 called for yeast to be put on a slice of banana.
← This is after 2 days, and nothing has really happened.  I'm assuming the yeast is supposed to do something significant, but so far, only the other slice has changed any that we can see.
It takes about a week to see results.  You should try it yourself and see what happens.  =)






Kingdom Plantae is self-explanatory.  In kingdom Plantae, there are.... PLANTS!
"Wow," I can hear you saying.  "I never knew!"  =D
Nearly all plants are multi-cellular, and actually, I don't know which ones aren't.  Just that nearly all are.  =)  I've never come across a plant that was so small I couldn't see it, hee hee.  =D
Plant cells have three things that pertain specifically to plant cells.  They are a cell wall, a large central vacuole, and chloroplasts. 
►See image (source)
The plant-like cells of algae have only one of these - chloroplasts.

When your plants wilt, they need water.  When plants don't have enough water, the large central vacuole in each of the plant's cells is depleted, making the plant limp.
After you water the plant, the water is taken up through tubes called xylem.  (This is caused by water evaporating from the leaves, causing suction.  Sort of.  Here's the technical explanation.)
As the water vacuoles fill, they press against the cell walls, making the plant become more rigid.
This rigidness is known as turgor pressure.

Turgor Pressure is sooo gone!

 Experiment 10.4, Turgor Pressure calls for limp celery.  So I let some sit in the sun for an hour.
←Is this limp enough?  =D
Ha, the celery isn't even touching the bottom of the glass, because it kept falling in.  So I just put it hanging over the side.

We placed our celery in water with blue food coloring, and we were to wait overnight.

Yep, this is the same celery!  Turgor Pressure!

After 24 hours, my celery still wasn't crip-looking, so I left it another day.  It looked much better by then, and I could clearly see the blue food coloring that had traveled up the xylem to the leaves.  ↓

After water and minerals make their way to the leaves, photosynthesis is carried out in the leaf.  After the food for the plant is made (called glucose), it will travel out of the leaf through tubes called phloem (flow'-em) to all parts of the plant for nourishment.
Just remember, up the xylem, down the phloem.



And last, we have kingdom Animalia.
Most likely the most familiar of all kingdoms, this one includes us!
No, we are not animals, but we have animal cells.
We most certainly do not have plant cells; we are not algae or protozoa; we're not bacteria, nor are we fungi.
We have animal cells, so we are placed in that kingdom.
But we look nothing like animals.  However, many of them do not resemble each other either!
Fish, butterflies, chipmunks, alligators, elephants, octopuses, birds, turtles, lions, tigers, bears, oh my! 

Butterfly on my son's finger

Just look at this awesome animal cell.
See the many organelles?
In the center is the nucleus. And in that nucleus is DNA.  Each strand of DNA is twisted up into an X or Y shaped chromosome.
►See image of tightly coiled DNA (source)
Humans have 46 chromosomes in each cell.  (So 23 pairs - XX or XY)
Each of these DNA strands, if unwound, can be about 6 feet long!
That's a lot going on in the nucleus of a cell.
But wait.  There are about a hundred trillion cells in your body!
Not all cells are the same shape and size, but about 2,000 average-sized cells can fit in a line across your fingernail.
Oh. my. word.
That is just so incredible!

But wait.  Think of this.
If we, and all animals, have animal cells... what makes us different?
Well, for starters, humans have 46 chromosomes in each cell.
An onion has 16 chromosomes in each cell, a horse has 64, and a carp has 104.
So how do humans, who all have 46 chromosomes, all look different from one another?
Think of it like the alphabet.  How many words can be made from the alphabet?  And how many sentences, and how many books...
Instead of letters, there are nucleotides (also referred to as nitrogen bases, or simply bases) in our 6-foot-long strands of DNA, and the nucleotides are in pairs.  Adenine with thymine, and cytosine with guanine.
And in the sequences (order, pattern) of nucleotides on our strands of  DNA, is the information that makes up who we are.
Except for identical twins, everyone's sequences are different from anyone else.
Fantastic!

How can anyone think that evolution did this?  Ever since I started really getting into science a couple of years ago, I have just been continually amazed at the complexity of God's creation!  As I study through a module, I discover how intricate His creation is, and yet each new module brings more discoveries to amaze me yet again. 

sMiLeS,

Apologia General Science, Module 9, What is Life?

►Videos and resources for M9

Well, we made DNA.  Yep, we did.
This was a fun experiment, but we did some learning, too.

Courtney's DNA

We learned that the red licorice sides of the DNA are the backbone, and are made of several different kinds of atoms.
The marshmallows nucleotides can only link together with certain other nucleotides.  Adenine can only link with thymine, and cytosine can only link with guanine.

So we chose a different color to represent each nucleotide while we were building our DNA.

Having DNA is one of the 4 criteria (requirements) for life.  If something does not have DNA, it isn't alive.
If an organism doesn't meet any one of the 4 criteria for life, it is not alive.  It has to meet all four.

The 4 criteria are:

1. All life forms contain DNA.
2. All life forms have a way to take energy from their surroundings and convert into usable energy that helps them live.  
3. All life forms can sense changes in their surroundings and respond to those changes.
4. All life forms reproduce.

So #1 is easy to understand.  Every living thing has cells, and in those cells is the DNA that makes that organism look and act the way it does.
So what about the rest?

#2 is easy to understand when thinking of humans and animals eating food.
But what about plants?  They make their own food by photosynthesis.  But they do take energy from the sun to be able to do this.

For #3, we did an experiment that the girls didn't much care for.  Well, my girls.  Well, one of my girls.  lol.  (Can you guess who???  Here's a hint.)
The experiment called for putting earthworms in a bright light, then to check them again in 30 minutes.
I just happened to have recently acquired this neat lamp that attaches to things.  Great for reading in bed!

30 minutes later, sure enough, the worms had gone underground.
The worms will dry out if in high heat, so they responded to this change and went where it was cooler.
Well, that seems natural enough, so we also had to make them come back out.
Earthworms breathe through their skin.  So if you pour a cup or so of water in the dirt, they'll respond to this change and come up to be able to breathe.  You'll frequently see lots of earthworms after a rain.  Apparently, earthworms don't like to drown!
And... when they come up, they start climbing out of the bucket, so keep a good eye.  ;)

We all respond to change.  If hungry, cold, or tired, even if we can't do anything about it, we sense this change, and our body responds to it.  Some people show it more than others (like 2-year-olds), but we all feel it and respond to it.
Now if a rock is pushed near the edge of a cliff, and it falls off, did it respond to a change?
Yes.
Maybe.
I mean it didn't actually do the responding...  But did it sense the change?  No.
So a rock is not alive.
(Whew!  Glad I cleared that up!)

Now for #4, most will think, of course!  But then if they start thinking... (sometimes we think too much, yeah?)
What if a person cannot have children?  How can they meet criterion #4?
There is one thing in every living organism that is always producing, even if that organism cannot produce offspring.
And that is cells.
Cells are always reproducing, always replacing old cells.

I also did a fruit-fly experiment for this criterion.  But it looked nasty, so I didn't take a picture. (Someone say thank you.)
Just think of a mushy brown piece of banana in a clear plastic cup, with gnats flying around in it, and tan maggots (that will mature into adult gnats) on the banana and sides of the cup.
Nasty.
This is metamorphosis.
For those of you that do this at home, it is nearly impossible to get gnats to stay in a cup while you quickly place a nylon knee-high stocking over it.  I just put a piece of saran wrap and punched holes.  Like I do when I'm trying to get rid of gnats w/ apple cider.
I wanted to be sure they got enough air, so I placed the nylon over the top of the cup, covering the saran wrap, and reached under to tear/pull out at least part of the saran wrap.
►And you also might need to know how to get rid of any strays.  ;)

The "plant cell" we made last year in Biology.

We learned a little about cells in this module.  Just a few basic things.  A little more will be taught in module 10, and a whole lot more in Biology.
There are three basic kinds of cells:  animal cell, plant cell, and bacterial cell.
They are basic, because everything in nature doesn't fit neatly into categories.  Some cells are animal-like, and some are plant-like, and some don't really even fit in any one place because they have differences that kind of overlap the categories, but certain things are left out, so they don't actually fit very well where they are put.

The "animal cell" we made last year.

All cells have a membrane, and in the cell is a jelly-like substance called cytoplasm.  This is like a balloon filled with jelly.  (So not like our flat pizza or cake "cells" at all.)
In the cytoplasm of animal and plant cells are tiny "organs" called organelles.  One of these organelles is the nucleus, and it holds the DNA.
►See images
We learn more about the differences of the basic types of cells in Module 10.

sMiLeS,

Apologia General Science, Module 8, Uniformitarianism and Catastrophism

trilobite fossil

►Videos and Resources for M8

Try a Bite of Trilobite!
This was a very cute and fun activity.  =)
We were learning about what evolutionists and uniformitarianists (believe the earth is billions of years old) think of  as the geological column, and in the layers, there is this real critter called a trilobite.  [try-luh-bite].
Whew!  He looks like some ugly lobster-bug thing, doesn't he!



Well, usually foreign-sounding names like this tend to be forgotten later, so to help the kids remember what a trilobite was, we had to try a bite.  =)
We did this at the beginning of class and put them in the fridge for a bit so they'd harden back up in time to eat them.
We used Pepperidge Farm lemon cookies (closest thing I could find that resembled any type of bug), melted chocolate, and mini m&m's.
I laid down wax paper and wrote their initials w/ a sharpie so we'd know which cookies belonged to whom.

             They turned out so cute!  =)

The trilobite was thought to be extinct, which is the only way it could be part of the "fossil record."
The fossils in the geological column are called index fossils because they are used to figure out the ages of the layers of rocks.  Oh, and they use the rocks to tell the ages of the fossils... Circular reasoning!  (Not too smart, eh?)
Actually, after this science book was written, there were some living trilobites discovered, so they need to be thrown out of this contrived, so-called fossil record.  There actually is no "record" --  the index fossils in the geological column are organisms that all died in the Flood, and are not a record of time periods.  They do not "index" anything.

Then we learned about the so-called geological column.  I say so-called, because it doesn't actually exist in any one location on earth.  There are layers of the same type of strata that have different fossils in them, and they have been placed within the geological column as different layers representing different times.
Some of the same type of fossils are in more than one type of strata; and some of the same types of strata have more than one type of fossil.
And there are not many fossils that can even be conceivably accepted as a missing link.  Most of the so-called ones only have a few parts that are found.  The rest of the animal is fabricated.

Did you know that carbon dating was not done until AFTER the arrangement of the geological column?
If there were no geological column, scientists would not know what to expect in their results of carbon dating.  Carbon dating of anything over about 3,000 years old is highly inaccurate.  Tissue and bone from the same animal have been dated millions of years apart.  (Guess he was evolving? haha)  Usually several tests have to be done just to get the desired results that line up with this geological column!
Pity they won't believe the Bible.
God caused the Flood that fossilized many animals in layers of strata.
When there is moving water, sediment will be laid down in many layers, simultaneously! 
The fossils in the layers do not represent the "evolution" of higher and higher life-forms.

So, I wanted the kids to understand how uniformitarians construct the geological column, so that we could discuss a few of the problems here.
The layers of the Grand Canyon for instance, were supposedly laid down when the ocean had covered the land we now know as Arizona for a few million years, and sediment sank to the bottom.  Then the ocean receded from Arizona for some reason, and that layer of sediment hardened.  Then the ocean came back and laid down some more sediment, then receded, and the next layer hardened, and so on for billions of years.
Hmmmm...

Left: "master" column; Right: columns from 3 diff regions

I showed them three stacks of legos with a few colors missing in each.  This represented different areas of the earth where there are layers.
By the way, the missing layers are thought to have totally weathered away.  Um... that is so odd!  That layers only weather away entirely.  No remnant left at all.  Seems to me that could happen occasionally, but entire layers in places all over the world?
hmmm....
We discussed how one could figure out an order to these layers, then put together a master column.


The problem with this, is that in many places on the earth where the layers exist, there are many of the same types of layers in different positions.  The uniformitarians simply put those layers into the geological column several times.  They also ignore the fact that some of the same fossils appear in more than one layer.
On the other hand, a catastrophist believes there was a large-scale catastrophe, the Flood, that caused all this.


Then we used pictures.  I taped them up in 3 columns, and the kids drew a geological column on paper.  They drew the pictures or simply wrote the names of the pictures in the order of what one would think a geological column would look like.




I'm glad I also did this instead of just the legos.  Everyone did great with the legos, but with pictures, some got stuck.  I purposely used different images of starfish, leaves, trilobites, and mammals.  I didn't want it to be too easy.  After all, if one were actually looking at fossils, they would not all be exactly the same.












There are also paraconformities.  We learned in Module 6 that an unconformity is a surface of erosion between two layers of strata, distinctly showing that there are two layers.  We learned about angular conformities, nonconformities, and disconformities.
So what is a paraconformity?  It is actually imaginary.  Non-existent.  It is ONE layer that has fossils that, according to uniformitarianists, should be two different layers.
Oh my!  This poses a big problem!  So.... what do these uniformitarians do?  Why, they invent something called a paraconformity.  In other words, there must be a layer to divide these fossils; it's just that no one can see it.  They say it is invisible.
Hmmmmm....
(ha, I seem to be doing a lot of hmm-ing, eh?)

More stuff to think about:
• A fossilized fish giving birth has been found.  It doesn't take millions of years to give birth.  Fossilized animals have been found in the middle of taking in food.  Fossilization can happen quickly!  
• Fossil "graveyards" have animals from various climates in the same location, such as the Cumberland Bone Cave in Maryland.
• Mt. St. Helens showed that stratified rock can form in less than a day.  It did take longer to fully harden (which is why layers can be bent), but layers do not need millions of years to form.
• There are hardly any fossils that can even be thought to be an intermediate link (or missing link), and those that are, are made up from just a few bones that couldn't even tell you for sure what the animal really was.  You'd think over billions of years, there would be some of these "missing" links.  Just like the average life span is 70 or so, and anywhere you go, you can see people of all ages from 0 up to 90 or more!  They do say evolution happens slowly, but surely something would die now and then before totally evolving for millions of years... There are SO many fossils of un-evolved organisms.
Even Charles Darwin admitted that there was nothing connecting the distinct species by "intermediate varieties" and said this was probably the "gravest... of all the many objections" against his views.

"Geological research, though it has added numerous species to existing and extinct genera, and has made the intervals between some few groups less wide than they otherwise would have been, yet has done scarecly anything in breaking the distinction between species, by connecting them together my numerous, fine, intermediate varieties; and this not having been affected, is probably the gravest and most obvious of all the many objections with can be raised against my views."  (The Origin of Species, 6th ed, 1962, Collier Books, NY, p. 462)

He thought that in time, these "missing" links would be discovered.  But they have not.

At the last of class, we watched part of a video while the class ate their trilobites and the rest of the m&m's.  Oh, and I had some lemonade on hand.  Great with chocolate, right?  =D

sMiLeS,