Field Trip to the U of A Flandrau Science Center and Gem & Mineral Museum

On Thursday we went to the University of Arizona Flandra Science Center

and the Gem & Mineral Museum

It was a busy morning at the Uof A with students walking and biking to get to class

The bells were tolling as it was just turning 10:00am, opening time for the museum.

I-Man thought it was facinating and mentioned that he wants to go here for school.

J-Man standing between to real meteorites.

They were very hard and you could see shiny specks

where the metal was peeking out from being touched so much.

Here was a whole cabinet full of Iron Meteorites

you could clearly see the "Widmanstatten" pattern

on the cross section of the meteorite samples

Here is a close up look

Malachite - they had many samples of malachite

it always had a circular pattern to it.

Here is a case of Stony Meteorites

They had many chondrite samples and you could really see

 the chondruls (small ball of silicate)  in them

this meteorite was fully iron

J-Man thought the calcite looked like Dinosaur Teeth

I don't remember what this one is called but I thought

it looked like cream with jagged pieces placed in it

This is not gold but I thought it looked awesome

another malachite sample

The boys standing by a mined piece of copper

Mr. Mr. standing in  front of the Diamondback Rattlesnake Tank

J-Man in front of the Gila Monster Tank

Mr.Mr., J-Man and I-Man standing next to a Fin Whale Vertebra

I-Man, Mr. Mr. and J-Man in front of a 900 lb slab of copper

The mining cart at the end of our museum tour

Time to go home.

The boys standing with their souveniers in front of the meteorite statue.

The museum never dissapoints, it was a great learning experience.

Meteorites - Edible Rocks

Our Summer Learning Unit yesterday was about Meteorites. 

I prepared edible Metorite Rock samples for the kids to

view, sketch, take notes and then of course eat.

There are three main types of Meteorites

Stony, Iron and Stony Iron

Here are the Samples that I made

Samples 1-6

Sample #2 Stony - Chondrite

Chondrites contain small round balls of silicate minerals called chondrules

 Hershey's Extra Creamy Milk Chocolate with Toffee & Almonds

Cross Section to see the stony particles

Sample #5 - Iron

Are made of iron metal and are magnetic.

Hershey's Solid Milk Chocolate Bar

Sample #1 - Stony - Chondrite

Chondrites contain small round balls of silicate minerals called chondrules

Rocky Road - Melted Chocolate chips and Marshmallows

Sample #6 - Stony Iron

Rice Krispy Treat with Gummy Treats inside

Sample #4 - Stony - Achondrites

Contain small round balls of silicate minerals call condrules

 Milky Way Candy Bar

Sample #3 - Stony - Chondrite

Dark Chocolate Brownie

Little kids drew pictures of their samples and gobbled them up

The big kids took more time and discussed the differences between the samples

and compared them to the meteorite pictures.

Constellations In The Night Sky

On Tuesday we learned about the constellations in our night sky.

I have been looking forward to this lesson because I don't know very much about it.

I did some research and made my own renderings of each constellation.

Then I placed them around the Great Room

and in the windows

I made corkboard  workstations by gluing two pieces of thin corkboard together

Then the kids chose a constellation, placed it on the workstation

and put pushpins in the dots marking the stars.

A piece of string wrapped around the pushpins marked the constellation

J-Man finished Cassiopia, which when we looked

at it at night we thought it was a "W"

but after learning about it, it is actually a crown.

M. working on Bootes

I-Man completed a lot of constellations but this was his first one.

He then took out the pushpins and held it up to the window

to see the light shining throught the pin holes.

M.R.  working on Virgo

J-Man checking out his constellation at the window

We sure learned a lot that day and some of the older kids taught us about

the greek mythology behind the constellations. 

Now when we go out to look at the stars we will know what we are looking at.