Homeschool Chemistry

Blaze attended a chemistry class for homeschoolers this morning at Wakulla Springs State Park.



The mom who hosted the activity did a fantastic job of taking a subject that could have been confusing and presenting it in a simple way that children of all ages could understand. She also provided a fun hands-on activity for the children to do in small groups.







They learned about acids and bases, using red cabbage juice to test the PH of a variety of substances.













After the lesson, everyone, even the wildlife, took refuge from the heat (the heat index was over 100 degrees F. yet again today) in the spring water.

Geology of Springs and Sinkholes at Wakulla Springs

A week ago Thursday was the last homeschool day at Optimist Park, until school resumes in the Autumn. Yesterday was the first homeschool educational program, plus swimming, at Wakulla Springs State Park.

The topic was Geology of Springs and Sinkholes.





A demonstration of acid making calcite bubble:



Taking a walk to see two small sinkholes:

Sinkhole:

Time to cool off with a swim in the spring.

We are not exactly taking the summer off from school work. Too much would be lost during a three month vacation. So, the plan is to do school work Monday through Wednesday during the summer months, attend the educational programs at the Springs on Thursday morning, and have Thursday afternoon through Sunday off. Since we babysit Thursday afternoons and all day Friday and Saturday, this will make things much easier.

A Pilgrimage to the John Gorrie Museum

Part two of our Memorial Day road trip, was traveling to  Apalachicola to visit the John Gorrie Museum.



I just learned about Doctor Gorrie's work while we were touring Flagler College a couple weeks ago and when I saw that there was a museum and monument dedicated to him, I knew we had to go.





It's a very small museum, just a single room, with displays along the walls and a 3/4-size model of the first ice machine in the middle. It is well put together, though. When the ranger asked us if we had any questions, I couldn't think of any, since everything was so self explanatory. I later regretted that I hadn't thought of anything to ask him, because we were the only visitors at that time and he must have been bored. 












All hail the inventor of the ice machine and air conditioning!

Open House at the Mag Lab

I have been doing a poor job of keeping this blog up-to-date, but a very good job of keeping busy.

This past Saturday we took Blaze and the 3 year old I babysit for to the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory for an open house. It was a great science field trip because there were so many fun, hands-on demonstrations for the children.





The whirly gigs were a lot of fun, even though sometimes they headed towards the heads of parents, instead of through the hoops they were supposed to go through.















She didn't understand the magnetic part, but she sure liked the shaking out the metal filings part.

Florida Caverns

Yesterday, we visited Florida Caverns State Park for the first time.

The cave is beautiful and a great place to visit on a hot day, since it is aways cool inside.

Our guide, leading us down into the cave:



I did decide that there were not nearly enough bats, because the mosquitoes outside the cave were really bad. We had a large banana spider sitting in a web near us during our picnic lunch, but it did little to keep down the bug population there, either.

There is a spring where visitors can go swimming on hot days and a nice campground, that we are thinking about going back to visit someday.

Here are the things we saw, both inside and outside the cave:

The Tea Bag Rocket

I saw this project for the first time about a week ago, but it was only today that we had time to try it ourselves.

It's very simple. Starting with a fresh, dry tea bag, not a used one, cut the top (the stapled part) off the bag and empty out the tea. Open the bag up, so that it forms a tube. set it on a fire-safe surface and light the top edge on fire. Just before the tube has burned down completely, it will shoot up into the air.

Springs

Today at Wakulla Springs State Park, children from the Tallahassee Homeschool Group had a lesson about Springs, presented by Harley Means, an expert on Florida springs.

A map of Florida springs:




He took us on a walk to look at limestone and sinkholes.



Sinkhole #1


Sinkhole #2








After the 45 minute lesson, it was off to the spring to cool down.

Mag Lab

Today, we went on a field trip with the Tallahassee Homeschool Group to visit the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory.







They said we were the largest group that had ever shown up for a public tour, so they split us up into two smaller groups. Blaze and I ended up in the smaller group, with a very friendly and knowledgable Florida State University grad student as our tour guide.





We learned that magnetic energy is measured in Teslas and that those big magnets that lift cars in junk yards are between one and two Teslas.



This magnet is located inside a hole in the floor:







There are only 3 big magnetic labs in the country, two of which are in Florida, but what makes this one exciting is that is houses the most powerful magnet in the world.











Along with the magnetic research done at the lab, they also do high power microscope images, like these: