Showing posts with label science schoolwork. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science schoolwork. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Best science fair project ever

How many of you remember the dreaded 8th-grade science fair project?

Mine came in 1976. I knew in advance it was coming thanks to having an older brother who already went through it, so I actually embarked on it a year ahead of time. Being a budding biologist, my project was called "A Year's Cycle of a Stream."


Yes, the photo above is the notebook I assembled to illustrate my findings. (I still have it! -- though it's missing a few letters.) It was a hefty notebook, too, full of write-ups on the flora, fauna, and entire ecology of a particular pool found in this stream.




I got an "A" and a blue ribbon, and the opportunity to display my work at the regional science fair.

But most science fair projects strike terror into the hearts of students, and I don't think I've ever seen a more clever illustration of this than what was featured on the SunnySkyz website, done by a student named Susan M.:


Okay, clearly this was assembled at the last minute. But what it lacks in research and hard work, it more than makes up in creativity and the guffaw factor.

Kudos to Susan M., whoever she is. I hope she got an "A."

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Brain dead at tax time

I feel like I haven't been posting much lately, but I have a good excuse: I'm working on our taxes. In fact I've been working on them both day...


...and night. (Well, verrrrry early morning. I don't DO nights.)


Our tax appointment is on Friday and I'm pretty brain-dead at the moment. So, in the absence of any cognizant neural activity not related to crunching numbers, I'll post some random pix until I recover my mental faculties.

For some time now, Younger Daughter has been hankering to try a cello. Her fiddle teacher very kindly and trustingly loaned her his own personal instrument for the week. Here he's giving her a few pointers on how to hold her bow and position her fingers, which are slightly different than fiddle technique.


Oh my goodness, she played that instrument the blessed week long, just fiddling (so to speak) around, playing fiddle tunes on the cello. Really neat to listen to.


When she went back this week, her teacher was so impressed by her progress that he assigned her a couple of specific cello tunes and let her have the cello another week. Hmmm -- we may be renting a cello in the near future.


Not to be outdone musically, Older Daughter just went through an ordeal. One of our church pianists recently retired, leaving the congregation a bit short-handed in the music department. Older Daughter was asked to step into a void when both our other pianists would be out of town, and play the church service. Last Sunday was her nerve-wracking debut, and she did outstanding.


She has a hard time operating the pedals in shoes, so she always kicks them off.


Both my girls hate to perform in public, so this was indeed an ordeal for her which she passed with flying colors. She has one more Sunday to play -- toward the end of May -- so she has lots of time to practice the hymns.

While taking a walk this week, our neighbors had released their hunting dogs to get some exercise. They plastered themselves against the fence as we walked by...


...then raced Older Daughter as she ran along the road.


Climbing over a fallen tree.


The distant mountains are firmly capped with snow.


A neighbor drove by on his four-wheeler...


...with his dog along for the ride.


Speaking of dogs, here's a twelve-foot-high model outside the Aslin-Finch feed store in Spokane. Arf.


Science lesson for the day: the Coriolis Effect.


Older Daughter was practicing with her archery set the other day. She didn't notice that the fletching on one of the arrows was broken. The arrow went astray from the haybales where she was aiming and punched through the wall of the barn.


Good thing there were no livestock around!


Gas prices March 24.


Gas prices April 3.


It must be spring. Our local feed store has chicks.


Chickens eating apple peels.


Lydia lounging. What a life.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Golgi bodies and vacuoles

Because I was so busy canning pears this morning, schoolwork got tossed to the wayside. The only thing we covered was science. We just started studying cell biology (Older Daughter has plant cells, Young Daughter has animal cells).



They've been drawing diagrams and labeling organelles, and wrote out the function of each of the major organelles so they can start memorizing them. After this we'll delve into mitosis and meiosis!