Fossilized Whale Brain!

We went to the Natural History Museum today for a behind the scenes tour. A friend of mine works there and he offered to show us some things that the general public never gets to see. We brought along Jerry's friend Finneas from the homeschool group, breezed in through the staff entrance (where we saw that when workers arrive and depart they use a hand scanner to clock in and out--how cool is that?), and then Michael asked the boys what they were interested in before taking the three of us on our own personal tour.

We started with the reptiles and bugs (went backstage where they keep the sick ones and got to pet an iguana who'd had her tail removed), then moved on to the dionsaurs for the Tomas the T. Rex exhibit which was incredibly cool. But even better we went into the room where they store all the fossils. It smelled old and musty, almost like an old library, and there were floor to ceiling metal cabinets in long rows, all of them full of bits of life from millions and millions of years ago.

At the end of this room we passed through a door that led to the area where the archeologists and volunteers work on getting the fossils free. They use a little pencil-sized object that works like a mini jackhammer, chipping away at the unwanted stuff surrounding the fossil. The woman we were watching had been working on the same fossil for over a month and very little of it was uncovered yet. It sounds so tedious but apparently you never know what you might find. Sometimes they find shark teeth and other unexpected items so that adds some excitement.

The best part about this particular room, though, was the fossilized whale brain. I should have taken a picture.* It looked like a hardened brain, kind of gray in color, but on the inside there were quarts crystals growing. It was a geode! Apparently a family in Los Olivios found this fossil inside the fossilized skull of a sperm whale. They called the museum and were told it couldn't be a whale brain fossil. It was impossible. It must be brain coral. So the family held onto it and a generation later the son of the man who found it called the museum again and was, again, told it couldn't be a whale brain. Fast forward 90 years to last June. The great grandson of the man who found the fossil called the museum again and finally someone agreed to take a look at it. The family had been right all along. It was a fossilized whale brain!

We talked to the guy that was working on the fossil for a long time but Jerry started to get bored so we headed to what my friend Michael called his laboratory. It was a big room in the basement of the museum that was full of storage stuff--including a taxidermy tiger and polar bear. This was where Michael kept his video cameras and computer equipment. He showed us how they scanned a 3-D image onto a computer, where they play video games (on breaks, of course) and then unveiled two hovercraft he and his friend had built in their spare time. They looked a little like futuristic lecterns. Unfortunately they weren't working but the boys and I thought they were extremely cool nonetheless.

The laboratory was Jerry and Finneas's favorite part of our tour. Mine was the whale brain and walking through the musty room where they kept all the fossils. All in all it was a terrific day. It makes me think we should try to meet more people that work at museums so we can get backstage tours at all of them! Oh, and not once did I hear the phrase "I'm not a museum kind of kid."

*I have photos now! Click here to see them.

Super Cool Science

Holly, at Unschool Days, had a great post on science the other day, so I thought I'd give you some links to a few of the super cool science links I've discovered recently.

Robert Krampf's Science Education. 

This is one of my favorite science sites. If you join his mailing list you get a different science experiment in your inbox each week. I recently discovered an experiment that related to a current topic of interest in our house--balloons. Remember when Jerry tried to fuse together two balloons with a flame and we ended up with two holey balloons and a very bad stench? Well, it turns out there is a way to put a flame to a balloon without melting it! A water balloon can sit over a flame until the water boils and it will not pop or melt because the water inside the balloon absorbs the heat. Pretty cool, eh? Check out the video here.

From Big Bang to Us--Made Easy

JJ linked to this series of videos  posted on the Homeschooling Freethinkers site, which by the way has some terrific resources including this list of recommended books on popular science. The video is a series in eleven parts about the big bang and how we got from there to human migration out of Africa. 

Secrets of the Dead: Witches Curse

This is something I discovered when we first started homeschooling last September. It explains the cause of the mysterious behavior that caused Salem's inhabitants to cry, "Witch." The culprit? A fungus found in rye flour--and it's linked to LSD. Far out, man!

The Algorithm March

This may have been famous before, but it was made fabulous by the Waynforth family at the Life is Good conference this year, when they recreated it for the talent show. Technically it's math but math and science are so closely linked I figure it's okay to include this in my super cool science page. And as long as we're talking about algorithms...

How to Solve a Rubik's Cube, Part One

How to Solve a Rubik's Cube, Part Two

The title says it all. Jerry loves these videos.

Why You Won't Build a Scale Model of the Universe, Part 2

Rolfe Schmidt and his family found a true scale model of the universe in Warnemunde, Germany! It's really, really big--like you'd-have-to-walk-for-miles-to-see-the-whole-thing big.

Make Magazine

I know I have a link to this in my sidebar but I just had to give it another plug because it's so darn cool. Be sure to check out the videos/podcasts. 

Fun With Science (Ice Bulb)

This is a link back to one of my posts from November of last year, describing one of the best science experiments ever. In the world. Really.

There you have it. If anyone has further suggestions for this list put a link in the comments and I'll add to it.

Home At Last/New Projects

We're all back in L.A. now. Me, Jerry, Warren, the dog, the cats, the hermit crab (the cats and the crab never left) and all of a sudden I don't know what to do with myself! It's only been a day and a half, though. We just got back from my parent's place on Monday. It was so nice to hang out with family again. And Patsy was crazy happy to see us. 

The Maker Faire was great! Here's a video someone posted on You Tube that gives a good overview of the event:

We saw the diet coke and mentos guys do their thing. There was a life-sized Mousetrap game. We saw a self-propelled Victorian house on wheels. And my friend Zefra met us there with her family so we got to see friends too! On Sunday Jerry hung out with some cousins he doesn't see much of so that was an unexpected bonus in an already terrific weekend. 

I'm continuing my cleaning spree now that we're home. When in doubt I clean. Did I mention before that this type of behavior is highly unusual for me? Yesterday I cleaned out and organized under the kitchen sink. It was dark and scary under there but I persisted and now it's beautiful. Well, maybe not beautiful--it's still under the kitchen sink--but it's better. And I've finally got all my cleaning ingredients (I make my own cleaning supplies) together in one place so I don't have to hunt for them (which is never good because usually by the time I've found them the desire to clean is gone).

Yesterday Jerry and I tried our hand at robotics. We soldered together a Mousebot we had purchased at Maker Faire. We got one motor working but the second motor wouldn't run so we took it off and resoldered it but in the process I melted the on/off switch into a permanent off position. So. Now we have to go to Radio Shack and see if we can find another on/off switch. Up until that point we were doing pretty well though. 

Oh, and we have a new project on the horizon. At the Maker Faire we bought a book on how to build your own PC so we're going to build a PC!! We only have Macs in our house and there are a lot of games Jerry wants to play that aren't available on Mac so I told him I'd supply the parts if he wants to build one with me. I'm going to read the entire book first and then we'll whip out our lab coats and pencil protectors and get started. I don't have the slightest idea how computers work and whenever I try to understand it my brain feels like it's going to explode so this should be. . .interesting. Hopefully there's no soldering required.

All Volcanoes All The Time

This is a photo of our Mt Veusvius model - phase one. This project (we're building a model of Mt. Vesuvius and Pompeii, then making Vesuvius erupt) is keeping me sane these days. When I start to worry about the whole deschooling process I comfort myself with the knowledge that J is learning so much about geology and Ancient Rome (with a bit of geography thrown in). We're both having a lot of fun with it.

These are some of the homeschool volcano resources we've discovered:

DVDs:
The DVD that sparked J's interest in volcanoes (Mount Vesuvius, in particular) was the first disc of Secrets of Archaeology.

Roman City is a DVD companion to the book City (listed below) by David Macaulay. J refused to watch the DVD (he didn't even give it a chance!), but I really liked it.

Books About Volcanoes:
Usborne Understanding Geography: Earthquakes and Volcanoes by Fiona Watt

Volcano by DK Publishing

Mount Vesuvius: Europe's Mighty Volcano of Smoke and Ash by Kathy Furgang

Fun Books about Ancient Rome:
Roman Soldier's Handbook: Everything a Beginning Soldier Needs to Know by Lesley Sims

The Roman Record by Paul Dowswell

City: A Story of Roman Planning and Construction by David Macaulay


Web Sites:
Legends of the Volcano

A List of Resources from A to Z Home's Cool

Ancient Pompeii

This is a really cool experiment.

Volcano-Related Field Trips In California:
Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northern California has examples of every type of volcano.
The Getty Villa in Malibu, Callifornia has an exhibit called "The Herculeneum Women and the Origins of Archaeology." Herculeneum was buried in the same 79 A.D. blast that covered Pompeii.



Here's a photo of J at the Getty Villa today. The villa is a recreation of the Villa dei Papiri, a Roman country house built on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius. Many of the statues throughout the gardens are replicas of those found in Pompeii and Herculeneum.

Let's Make A Deal (Or, Creating A Schedule)

I think yesterday's post pretty much covered What I Learned from week one, so I won't add to it. Instead I'll tell you about my agreement with J. This morning, on day nine of deschooling, J and I talked about how we've been spending our time. We both agreed (mainly becasue I suggested it) that we seem to lose time when we spend the day in front of our laptops. In J's words, "time just doesn't exist" when we're at the computer. So, we made a list of things J might want to get done during the week (I did make a few suggestions) and J created a schedule for fitting them in.

Here's what he came up with:

Free time at the computer will occur in the morning, before lunch.

When I start to make lunch, J will turn off the computer and spend five minutes practicing Trombone, then five minutes reviewing Japanese. After lunch he'll do the same.

Afternoons are for fun activities. At the moment they include:

- Building a model of Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius, then making Mt. Vesuvius erupt.
- Playing with a marble roller coaster made from foam tubing. We saw this at NextFest--J loves it. Click here for instructions on how to make a marble coaster of your own.
- Creating a fountain with soda and pixie sticks or mentos.
- Building a fort in our backyard.
- Making a worm bin for vermicomposting. (This is actually my project, but J said he'd help.)

When I start dinner J will stop what he's doing and practice drawing. He's taking a weekly drawing lesson because he wants to learn how to draw manga.

After dinner we'll have free time for playing games (he's teaching me to play chess), reading, or watching DVDs together. (No computer!)

So, that's the agreement. We both signed the bottom to make it more official and I posted it in the kitchen.

We'll see how it goes. Technically, I don't think we're supposed to create schedules when we're deschooling, but my husband is clearly unhappy with the amount of time J has been spending on the computer, and I'm not exactly comfortable with it either. Going to the computer or watching television becomes a habit in the blink of an eye and I don't want J spending his time playing computer games just because it's the first thing that comes to mind. He has so many other interest, it seems like it should be okay for me to help him find ways to fit them into his daily life.

Will this schedule put a knot in our deschooling process? Will J even follow it? I guess I'll find out.