Life On The Planet

Fireflies

We were driving home this evening and saw the first fireflies of the season. Fireflies are a science question begging to be answered, aren't they? So, if like Tiger, you're wondering why and how a firefly lights up, howstuffworks.com has the answer. Or you can visit this interesting site to learn all you ever wanted to know and more about the little bugs.

Why every simple question has to become a unit study, I'm not sure. However, if you are interested in Firefly poems go here. If you want to learn how fireflies are helping cancer researchers, go here.

If you are looking for some neat and informative firefly sites for kids, go here, here, and here.

Hope you found this illuminating. Gotta glow!

This Slug's for You

The other day my sister, Aunt the Major, called from Korea. (Yes, South Korea.) She told me that my pistol-of-a-nephew, Minor B, thought my story of how my children created a slug themed Mother's day a couple of years ago because I, his beloved aunt and their beloved mother, had skated across the kitchen floor on a slug was hi-larious. He would.

Anyway, night before last, I decided that I would see if I could drum up any slug photos for my pistol-of-a-nephew, Minor B, so I went on a slug hunt. I took this extremely blurry shot of an icky slug - hey, that sucker was moving- on the front porch! Uck.

This was the best of a really bad lot of photos, so I decided to see if I could improve upon it with photo shop. I fiddled a little with the contrast.

Not much better, is it? How disappointing. At this point, I should left well enough alone, but I was tired, and when I get tired, I tend to get a little loopy. So I decided to see how the icky slug would look desaturated.

Bor-ing! I think he needs a little color.

Freaky. "Hey, Sluggo, are you feeling blue?"

This reminds me of those early animated movies - the ones where they would play with all of those psychedelic colors. Am I right?

I don't know about you, but to me, nothing says "I love my nephew" like a green and orange slug shot.

One more? You want one more? Well, what the heck, why not?

Is it just me, or is it getting bigger?

Sorry, but the slug-fest is over. That's all I can handle for now.

I hope Minor B enjoyed the show 'cause I'll be dreaming about that pink and orange slug for weeks. Ick.

Tornadoes for Kids

Twenty minutes until the storm hits. Time enough to study tornadoes. (Call me coastal, but give me a good, old hurricane, any day!)

FEMA for Kids

Weather Wiz Kids

Tornado Brain Teasers

Weather.Gov

Lightening is starting! Gotta go! Hey! Toto! Where'd you go, buddy? Toto?? Aunty Em??

They've all got colds.

According to Science News for Kids, if they were happy children, this wouldn't happen.

What does that say about their mother?

Strawberry School

The C.F.O. was off of work yesterday, so we ditched the textbooks and lit out for the strawberry patch.

The strawberry patch is a great place to learn science related terms, like irrigation, drought, freeze, photosynthesis and fertilizer. We also had to figure out how much twenty pounds of strawberries at $1.75 a pound would cost.

Strawberry Patch Elementary: No desks allowed.

It was a tough job, picking those berries. Some of us worked really hard.

And some of us...

just ate strawberries under the cover of our extremely large hats!

When we got home, it was back to chemistry.

When a science lesson results in eleven pints of strawberry jam, everybody's happy!

Please identify this flower for me...

I can't for the life of me think of what it's called.

Earthquakes and Dreams

I dreamed last night that we were having an earthquake. Living where we live, this is a definite possibility. The dream was so real, when I got up I just had to check to be certain we really weren't having an earthquake. We weren't, as it turns out, however I thought you might be interested in my local source of information.

The Center for Earthquake and Information Research at the University of Memphis. U of M students do more than play basketball, apparently. Anyway, it is a neat site. It has information on quakes for students and educators, technical information on quakes and, most importantly for the locals, a map of recent earthquakes that have occurred in the central U.S. We get a few.

Just not last night.

Physics for Kids

Physics sites for kids that we've used.

Physics4Kids.com

The Science Spot

Physics 2000

Physics.org

Surfnetkids.com/physics provides a good list of physics sites.

The Mighty Mississip'

Y'all may have heard that the Mississippi River is flooding. Rain and snow melt have swollen the river until it spreads from levee to levee. Being the science and weather hounds that we are, and always being ready for a field trip, we hopped into the mini-van and hooked up with Aussie Kim and her crew to check it out.

First we drove over the river to the Arkansas side.

The weather didn't look good. (It's been raining since we got back from vacation, but that's another post.)

Now, when I say we drove over to the Arkansas side, what I really mean is Aussie Kim's Man-of-the-House drove over to the other side. Kim and I were freezing everyone out, hanging our heads out of the windows and snapping photos like a couple of loons. The man has patience. Here is a photo taken well before the bridge. There should not be water there.

We drove to the levee on the Arkansas side. Aussie Kim said there was a board walk and park you could go to within the levee. We saw the signs for the park...

but we couldn't get to it. The sign says, "No Off Road Vehicles In The Park!" The bad news - this was the road...

The good news - apparently the catfish were biting. I wonder if the Off Road Vehicle ban included boats.

We drove back to the Mississippi side of the river and rode the levee toward the spot we visited last August. We couldn't quite make it there.

If you follow the road down and take the curve through the trees, you should come to a beach.

Now, some of you may not have ever seen a levee before. They are large (usually) earthen barriers that run the length of both sides of the river. Most of them are wide enough to drive on. In Mississippi, they come with livestock.

I wish I'd gotten a picture of the mules.

Phun with Physics!

Or is that fun with fysics? Whichever it is, we've been having some. While searching online for more ways to enjoy physics, I ran across this video. **Note to self...the bowl under the glass isn't for show.** Oops.