Hi Everyone, For those of you doing Marine Biology, I ran across this great dolphin web site: http://www.natures-spirit.com/pages/stock/dp.html It is really very inspiring to see these wonderful God created creatures in their natural environment. Echolcation - the location of objects by their echos - is a highly specialized faculty that enables dolphins to explore their environment and search out their prey in a watery world where sight is often of little use. As sound travels four and a half times faster in water than in air, the dolphin's brain must be extremely well adapted in order to make a rapid analysis of the complicated information provided by the echoes. The echolocation system of the dolphin is extremely sensitive and complex. Using only its acoustic senses, a bottlenose dolphin can discriminate between practically identical objects which differ by ten per cent or less in volume or surface area. It can do this in a noisy environment, can whistle and echolocate at the same time, and echolocate on near and distant targets simultaneously - feats which leave human sonar experts gasping. Just imagine listening to every person in your house simultaneously Christmas morning and you can see how really special dolphins are in their nature environment. Hope you enjoy the pictures. Happy New Year, Steve
Hi All, For those of you using Apologia biology, I have a lesson for you. If you are following the typical school year schedule, you are probably just getting to or finishing Module 6. Here is a wonderful web site for you: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/photos/photos.htm This site shows snowflakes captured as they fall and displays the glory of their individualized creation. I use this site when we talk about the uniqueness of the proteins our bodies produce. No two people on planet earth have EXACTLY the same proteins (antigens) on their cell membranes, except identical twins. That's because proteins are produced from DNA code and your code is individualized in you. The cell membrane proteins you produce identify your cells as belonging to you. You are as unique as a snowflake from a biochemical standpoint. The Bible declares that you are "fearfully and wonderfully made." Nobody on earth is like you, unless you are blessed to be an identical twin. Even twins are subjected to spiritual and environmental factors that make them different, however. You are special, and only you can do the things God has called you to do in your own unique way. That fact makes you valuable to society, your Church, and to God's plan. Hope that helps with your discussion of protein synthesis this year. Have a wonderful New Year everyone. God Bless, Steve
Hi Everyone, For those of you doing general science on a typical September to June school-year calendar, you should be getting to Module 8 after the holidays. Here is a great site for you: http://www.christiananswers.net/creation/menu-fossils.html This site contains links to those hard to answer questions about the fossil record you may have encountered. I use it to help folks stuck in an evolutionary argument to see that there are other explanations for life on earth than organic evolution. If I can help with the catastrophism vs uniformitarian agruments, please ask. I don't want to debate here, but I will be happy to provide you web sites which support a Creation viewpoint. Hope you like the site. Happy New Year, Steve
WOW! Thanks Steve! We are doing the Apologia Biology, though we aren't quite to Module 6 yet. No website showed up though. Can you put it up with spaces so we can try out the site? Thanks! Hey, did you ever (a few years ago) do a geography thing with a stuffed animal dog--Chinook? If you did, that was my kids and my project, and I could send you a newspaper that did an article on it! If not, please disregard this part of this message! Thanks for the info.!
Hi Deena, The forum moderators have asked me not to post links until I have proven myself. I have to submit to their rules. If you read my info under "Introductions," you will understand why. What I can do is pm you the link, which I will do shortly. Once the moderators grant me linking priviledges, I will fill in the blank spaces in the posts with the links. God Bless, Steve
Thanks for replying , Deena and Kris I sent you the links you requested. Deena, I don't remember the Chinook thing. Please post a summary of the activity and attach the article to a post so we can all look at it. Please remember that this site is for everyone to post their best science lesson plans. I want to learn from you also. We have a MULTITUDE of talent here. I plan posting a weekly lesson. If you have a great one, please consider posting it, a link to it, or an attachment containing it. Steve
I'll have to get my dh to scan it. I looked up info. on the Chinook project---that was more a geography, not science, project by the way. Anyway, I'm pretty sure you were the one that responded. It was in April and May of 2003 that we were communicating about it, and I sent it to some people in your hs group. Anyway, I always felt bad that I didn't send info. back to you about it once we got him back (which was in December of 2003). And now I can't remember why I didn't get it out to you. At any rate, it's been awhile, so not even sure if those people that participated would be hsing still or in that area. BTW, JACKIE from OHIO, you got Chinook from the people in this group!
Dear Deena, I am sorry but I just don't remember. 2003 was 800 students and 52,000 e-mails ago: I teach 195 students per year and answer about 200 e-mails per week. If it is a good lesson on geography, then you should start a thread or post it to an established geography thread. I would still like to see it, however. You can pm or e-mail me and attach it. God Bless, Steve
Hi Everyone, Mitosis and Meiosis tend to be a stumbling block for biology students. This simple side-by-side diagram of the two processes really helps students visualize what is going on in the cell during asexual reproduction and gamete formation: http://www.accessexcellence.org/RC/VL/GG/comparison.html The big thing to remember is the final products in each process. In mitosis, two diploid cells are produced. In meiosis, four haploid cells are produced. Hope that helps you when it comes time to discuss these very important cell processes. Happy New Year! :lol: Steve
Steve, Is that coming up in the Apologia Biology soon? Or has it been studied already? (I oversee my ds's learning, but he's moving along on his own...) If so, I'd like the site for that! Thanks for your help with these things, I think it's great!
Can someone that got a pm from steve about the dolphin site please post it or send to me too please thanks Sam
Hi Deena, It will come up in Module 7. Most of the module concerns this topic and it is a major topic to understand before Genetics in Module 8. You student MUST get mitosis and meiosis or genetics will be a blur. If your student does not understand how sex cells form, understanding how they recombine to form an embryo will be difficult. Thanks for asking the question. God Bless, Steve
I have been doing the Astronomy for my 3 & 5 year old. I do a Jan- Dec school year so we are getting ready to start over, except I dont have it all done and I dont have anything new to teach either! LOL I will not be getting anything probably till April either b/c that is when my homeschool convention is. Anyway I have enough other stuff to get us thru until then and I am not doing grade levels (ie K, 1st, 2nd grade, etc.) BUT I am almost done with the astronomy and I want to start something else with them. I was thinking-- He loves to fish, I was thinking of doing a little study of fish and teaching him all our local fish, and how to recognize them. ( I need to learn this too, I am never sure when I am fishing if the fish I catch I am allowed to keep or not) I am thinking of using some DNR materials. What would the marine biology be like?? Too much for my 5 year old. What kind of stuff does it go over?? Jill
Dear Jill, Marine Biology is a high school course and requires you to complete general biology first. That said, I have had LOTS of folks use the table of contents from the marine biology book as an outline for a web site based program for younger students. The table of contents is available on www.apologia.com. The dolphin site I provided in my first post comes from a parent that was doing a inquiry about marine mammals with a 12 year old student. There are wonderful web sites available for marine studies. I would start in the DNR list you spoke of in you note and the go from there. For example, I found 6, 300, 000 web sites for rainbow trout alone. You might consider constructing a picture notebook with a page for each species researched or do fish flashcards with fish name on one side and picture on the other. Hope that helps. Steve
Good Morning, For those of you doing Apologia Physical Science, Module 7 deals with weather. There are some wonderful sites for you to explore of these topics. The one I like the best is http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/cld/home.rxml This site gives your student a wonderful series of pages which explains clouds and precipitation factors. For those of you who have been asked by your children why the sky is blue, here is a great answer for you. If you were to travel 20 miles above the Earth's surface, the sky you would see would appear jet black. Sunlight passes through Earth's atmosphere at high rates of speed. Nitrogen and other gas molecules in the air are just the right size to scatter the fast moving light particles from the blue end of the visible spectrum. The other colors of the spectrum travel to the ground level with little interference. The blue light is then scattered from gas molecule to gas molecule in the sky, until the light seems to be coming from every direction on the horizon. That is what makes the sky blue, scattered sunlight What is super cool about the blue color is that neuroscience tells us that it is the perfect color to stimulate our brains into a state of peace and calm. God designed the blue sky to help us relax ... pretty neat, huh? Hope this helps with your weather studies. God Bless, Steve
Hi Everyone, For those of you getting ready to tackle the "Evolution versus Creation" module in your science studies. Here is a great vignette for you to consider: We often hear people say that the geological column "proves" evolution to be true. When I hear statements like this my ears go up. First of all, science does not "prove" anything. The best that science can do is provide evidence that supports an idea. Even something as well documented as the Law of Gravity is open to revision should new data come forth about the property; hence, science has to be open to change. We might be 99.9999999999% sure something works a certain way, but for the scientist that 0.0000000001% is enough possibility to give us pause to ponder. True, the geological column seems to be a record of how evolution occurred. To demonstrate it, a uniformitarian starts with very simple life forms in the oldest rocks and simply follows the fossils through to see how those life forms evolved into what is seen today. Of course, one must remember that the geological column itself is simply a theoretical construct. It doesn't actually exist anywhere. It is based on certain assumptions and a particular way of looking at the geological record. It assumes that each layer of rock on planet earth represents a period in earth's past, and it further assumes that the index fossils found in a given layer of rock are, in fact, accurate indicators of which time period the rock was formed. If either of these assumptions upon which geological column is based are not true, then the column is in error and The Theory of Evolution, which is based on the correctness of the geological column, is not true, either. I provide the following web sites for you to consider: Ten Misconceptions About the Geological Column - http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=242 Top Nine Evidences against The Theory of Evolution -- http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/top.htm One final point. If I were to offer to bet you $100 that you could not answer a question and I told you that there was only 5% chance that you would be able to answer the question correctly, would you take the bet? Most of us would pass up this opportunity. Why? Because the chance of winning is so small. Uniformitarians basing their geologic and evolutionary assumptions on less than 5% of the total fossil record. The other 95% is composed of clams and other similar, hard-shelled creatures. Thus, what the geological column and evolutionary thought looks at is a tiny, tiny subset of the entire fossil record. I don't know if I would want to bet my eternal salvation on 5% of a worldwide fossil record, but people do it every day. I know it sounds nuts, and it is. We need to pray for these people. Hope that helps you as you study God's wonderful Creation. God Bless, Steve
Steve, I have a question about biology. I was going to switch Bio and Phys Sci, because she had a friend whose mom LOVED science, and was going to get a bunch of girls together and do the labs in her home once a week. But then, this lady decided to put her daughter in a special school-type situation instead, so we went ahead with Phys Sci first. So next year, we'll be taking Biology. I'm thinking about having her take it in a co-op. It would only be once a week, so she'll still have LOTS to do at home on her own. I think it will be mostly the lab stuff. How hard is it for a person to do the labs totally on their own? Keep in mind, I'm a language person, NOT math/science. So I'm really not one to help her. In college, Mom had fits because flunked General Science, but pulled a B in the lab. That's because I'd do whatever my lab partners would tell me, wrote down whatever they wrote down, and when I didn't understand, I'd ask. The TA would explain, I'd nod my head, and wrote down whatever it was he said. Anyway, can the biology be done totally independent, or would she be better off taking it at co-op? The class would cost probably $150-$200. We already have the book, but it isn't the newest edition. Oh, and yes, we DID have Chinook at our house! It was a wonderful experience for my kids! Chinook sent us pictures of where Galloping Gertie had collapsed, and when we took Chinook to COSI (science center), they had an exhibit on Gertie!!! The kids thought that was cool!
