The Chemistry of Colours

When I think of colour, I often think of it being a physics topic, as in, the light spectrum.  I had never thought about it in terms of chemistry, until Tiger attended the Spectacular Colour Chemistry workshop at The Royal Institution.

A lot of learning was covered in the workshop so I will try to recapture some of the most salient learning points for us.  The biggest learning point, for me personally, is to start thinking about how our perception of colour depends not only on how light is reflected (everyone knows that, obviously)...

but also how changes in chemical bonding and electrons in specific atoms can result in differences in colours, as perceived by the human eye.

This requires knowing more about the elements and of the periodic table (i.e. atomic mass and charge) so I can't speak any more knowledgeably about it than in very generic terms.

It appears that we need to know the fundamentals about the periodic table after all -- mental note to myself to cover the elements at some point.

I almost broke out in cold sweat in a corner of the room when the instructor started talking about atomic structure and neutralising charges via chemical bonding.

Luckily Tiger was able to hold his own in the class by answering correctly a question thrown at him out of the blue.  The question was to show how a helium atom can be neutralised by altering its mass and charge.  I don't know how he did it, but maybe his reading very widely has something to do with it.  Besides, the question essentially is more mathematical than scientific, so perhaps the mathematical nature of the question helped.

Anyhow, he earned his right to remain in the class.  The rest of the time was pretty easygoing.  Quite a bit of time was spent discussing about the differences between natural and synthetic dyes, followed by some hands-on activities to create natural dye from pomengranates.

The value of being in a dedicated science lab (as opposed to our kitchen lab) is obvious when the children got to create synthetic dye.  It would have been very difficult for me to get hold of the chemicals required to replicate the process at home.

Funnily enough, Tiger was just asking me how food colouring, i.e. synthetic dyes, are made.  He now knows the answer, thanks to this workshop.

How to Be a Narcissist

Well, not really!

Although I have had some run-ins with a few narcissists in the past, I don't teach or encourage people to be dysfunctional.  This post is really about the next flowering plant Tiger and I studied together: the narcissus family which consists of the daffodil and the jonquil.

We used pages 549-552 of the Handbook of Nature Study to guide our observations.

The interesting part about nature study is that we learn to closely observe objects that we often take for granted.  For example, prior to studying the narcissus family so closely, we thought there are only different-coloured daffodils.  Little did we know that, at a basic level, the daffodil family consists of:

1) the 'normal' yellow daffodils that we often see -- either the smaller wild one, or the bigger garden-cultivated ones;

2) the mutant daffodil that has two or more layers of petals;

3) the Poet's Narcissus;

4) and the jonquil.  Funnily enough, Tiger and I had never thought of looking for the jonquil until we read about it in the Handbook of Nature Study.  We were very excited when we spotted them in somebody's front garden one day.

As we looked closely at the flowers, we noticed that the ovary of the flowers that had withered in our vase had swollen up to a size that was not observed in those that were left in the garden.

We are not entirely sure why the swelling occured but we think it was caused by self-pollination (since there are not insects in the house to facilitate cross-pollination) which resulted in the maturation of the ovules.  We then made a cross-section cut of the ovary to observe the triangular compartments that contain the rows of ovules.

After that, Tiger pulled the flower apart to look inside.  He discovered some liquid at the base of the style, just above the ovary and wondered whether it was nectar.  Both of us scrapped the liquid with our fingers and tasted it -- it was sweet!  Nectar!

It suddenly occured to me to ask Tiger whether he knew the Greek myth of Narcissus, who gave his name to this family of flowers that we were studying.  He said no.  Gasp!  I distinctly remember Tiger becoming somewhat of an expert on the Greek Myths in Year 1 after we spent a few months studying the topic, but I appreciate his honesty at admitting that he is not entirely sure about the subject.  As far as I'm concerned, it is better to acknowledge our ignorance than to pretend to be an expert when we really don't know something well enough to call ourselves that.  As part of his growing self-awareness, Tiger is learning to know what he doesn't know and be comfortable at acknowledging that to himself and to us.  Not knowing something is not a problem -- all we have to do is to get a quick review by listening to the story followed by watching a clip:

Along the way, I also realised that we had not formally learn the scientific names of the flower parts, so we watched the following clip:

I also printed off the Parts of the Flowers cards set and used it as a learning tool.  Being designed in the Montessori fashion, the cards set is very useful as a set of nomenclature to introduce, isolate, and reinforce learning about the different flower parts.

The set also provides opportunities for matching names to parts, as well as matching names to definitions, all of which reinforces the intended learning.  There is also a small booklet in the set that provides a summary of the reproductive function of the flower.  After reading it, Tiger identified a small error on page 3 of the booklet that needed correcting: where it is written "Pollen from the anther collects on the stamen.", it should be "Pollen from the anther collects on the stigma."

Labeling the flower parts in a diagram summarised everything we learnt in this session:

In the process of learning about the process of pollination and the flower parts that are involved, we found it fascinating to note how similar the process is to human reproduction.

This took us off our flower trail for a little while as we spent some time discussing the similarities and differences between:

1. the male parts of the flower (stamen) and the male reproductive organs of a man;
2. the female parts of the flower (pistil or carpel) and the female reproductive organs of a woman;
3. the time frame of the reproduction processes of a flower and a human; and
4. the process of fertilisation of a flower and a human.

Who would have thought that a study of flowers would lead to a study of the human reproductive system?  Such connections certainly would not have been made in the school curriculum.

We then decided to dissect the flower to see the various parts for ourselves.  In our effort to be a little less amateurish in our scientific pursuits, we watched the following clip to make sure that we dissected the flower properly:

The dissection video got Tiger so interested that he decided to take down notes on his computer while watching the clip.  It was interesting for me to see Tiger starting to develop the skill of note-taking of his own accord.

Once Tiger was happy with what he has learnt from the clip, we proceeded with taking the flower apart.  We first took apart a 'normal' daffodil flower.

We used a clear sellotape to stick the various parts of the dissected daffodil in Tiger's nature journal:

Dissected parts of a normal daffodil.

The details of the male part (stamen = anther + filament) and female part (pistil or carpel = stigma + style + ovary + ovule) are just too fascinating not to look closely in detail:

 

We then decided to check whether the 'mutant' daffodil flower is any different, so we repeated the process with the mutant flower:

We were not surprised to observe a number of differences in the mutant flower when compared to the normal flower:

• there were more petals on the mutant flower;
• the corona appears to have mutated into an extra layer of petals;
• we didn't find the male part (stamen) of the flower;
• the alignment of the ovules were different from that of the normal flower;
• there were fewer ovules in the mutant flower

Dissected parts of a mutant daffodil.

I had Tiger fill in the worksheets from here based on our exercise.

During dissection, it would have been a perfect to observe the pollen grains and the various flower parts under a microscope.  However, since we do not own one, we resorted to looking up the relevant information in a book that provided us with superb photographs of what we would have seen under a microscope, along with detailed explanation of the subject.

To round up what we've studied so far, we played the matching games using the cards printed off from  here.  It is basically a slightly simplified game as the one we played earlier using the Montessori card set.

This is part of our flower study series known as:

This post is linked up to:

1. Hip Homeschool Hop - 4/1/14
2. Entertaining and Educational - West Africa Study
3. Collage Friday: Como Se Dice?  Dad's in Honduras
4. Weekly Wrap-Up: The One In Which Spring Sprang... or Is It Sprung?
5. The Homeschool Mother's Journal (4/5/14)
6. Science Sunday: Blood Type activity for kids

Enriched Without a Plan

I am going against the grain this year: I am NOT planning any specific activities this December.  It has been liberating and eye-opening for me to see how and how much unscheduled learning happens when we just 'go with the flow'.

1.  Genomics Advent Calendar
This year, as I am not making an advent calendar like we did last year, we are enjoying the short daily clips about human chromosomes from The Royal Institutions advent calendar which are both enlightening and entertaining.

2.  Mothers Who Embody Courage and Determination
Tiger has been attending a weekly hands-on science class since September.  The class is held in a small church hall so the mums always sit at the back of the class quietly until the lesson is over, unless they are helping their children with a particular tricky part of the experiments.  As such, there is very little chance each week for the mums to get to know one another beyond recognising one another's faces.

The sessions for this year have ended so one of the mums has kindly invited everyone to her house for a social gathering.  It was at this gathering that I felt I have gotten to know these ladies much better, and I am very glad for that.

For example, I had no idea that one mother has managed to guide her son from being diagnosed as fully autistic (i.e. no speech, no eye contact, mentally delayed) at age two to being mildly socially awkward at age 14.  This boy is currently preparing for GCSEs in biology, physics and chemistry.  After listening to her amazing experience, I felt a profound sense of respect for this woman.  Behind her meek, quiet appearance is a spirit of steel and courage.

It was only in the relaxed environment of the gathering that I got to know that the majority of the mothers here are single parents bringing up children on their own with little financial help from their ex-partners.  Most of them are also having to cope with children who have special needs, e.g. diabetic, Aspergers, dyslexic.  I don't know the ins and outs of how these mothers find themselves in their situation of becoming a lone parent, but I listened with respect and admiration to every story of the battles they have had to fight to get the support their children need -- financially, educationally, and medically.


3.  A Nativity Play
Almost every child who attends school in England gets to be part of the Nativity play, which is an annual event for schools at this time of the year.

Since Tiger has never been to school, I thought he would not share this childhood experience with the 95% of children his age who go to school.  Although it is not a big deal to us whether he takes part in a Nativity play, I sometimes wonder whether he might have liked, when he becomes an adult, to be able to say something like, "Yes, I have fond memories of being the donkey lying in the manger in my Year One Nativity play."  Well, you never know, do you?

Thanks to a new set of homeschooling friends that we've made this year, we were invited to take part in a Nativity play -- well, it's Tiger who has the part of a shepherd/narrator.  My job is to take him to the premise, be part of a supportive audience, and socialise with everyone.

We had a group of 15 children, aged two to 12.  The children memorised their lines beautifully from a script written by one of the very talented mums.  The play was interspersed with Christmas carols played by a few children in their various instruments (trumpet, flute, recorder, oboe).

Waiting for their turns during the full-dress rehearsal.

Despite only meeting a few hours before the actual performance, the children were ready for the actual performance after three rehersals.  The children's level of concentration and dedication to this project, their ability to work together, and the older children's ability and willingness to look out for the younger ones during the 25-minute production really shone through.  What a fantastic group of children!  I feel very privileged to have witnessed all the goodness in these children with my own eyes.


4.  A Victorian Christmas
We are about half way through reading and listening to A Christmas Carol. 

There are usually many Victorian Christmas activities available in various parts of the country around this time, and since the era ties in with the book that we are reading, we went to one to experience the jovial atmosphere of a Victorian Christmas.

There were diplays of Victorian toys, Victorian games, street musicians, street performers, and Victorian crafts.  We found the hand-turned busker organ to be absolutely fascinating:

The event being of a Victorian theme in December, there was also a two-person street performance of A Christmas Carol:

As it was a two-person production team, they had to adapt much of the story and summarise it into a 20-minute play.  Tiger enjoyed watching the performance in spite of its obvious adaptations.  It's interesting for me to see him respond differently to adaptions made at a live performance than those made for films.  I'd be curious to see his response to a film version of the story, when we watch it at some point.


5.  A Bedtime Lecture
Tiger is a very animated child and his bedtime routine has always taken forever because he always has a lot to say when he is in bed.  After I've read him stories and kissed him goodnight, he always has something he's excited about to tell me.  It may well be his delaying tactic, but I feel obliged to stay for an extra 15 minutes because he does often have genuinely interesting things to tell me just before bed.

This week's bedtime topic of interest is computer networks.

Mum: (kissed him on the forehead and about to switch the lights off) Goodnight, darling.
Tiger: Mum, do you want to know about computer networks?
Mum: (hesitatingly) Umm... I don't know.  Do I?
Tiger: Yeah, they're very interesting.  I'll show you a few diagrammes quickly and you'll understand them in no time.
Mum: Well, ok.

That was his cue to sit up in bed in his dressing gown and start explaining to me how different networks work.

In the 30-minute session, Tiger educated me about the different switches, routers, how LANs (local area networks) and WANs (wide area networks) can be designed and how they work, as well as how they can be combined in various ways to make efficient cross-border networks.  The mini lecture was delivered with numerous hand drawn diagrammes to illustrate his examples:

I vaguely remember studying two IT-related modules at university, so Tiger's diagrammes and explanations made some sense to me.  What I enjoyed most in the session was his enthusiasm to share what he has learnt so far.


Much to my own surprise, despite my non-plan it has been a very busy week filled with rich experiences to nourish our hearts and minds.  I wonder what is in store for us next week.

This post is linked up to:

1. Collage Friday - Thanksgiving and Christmas at the Beach
2. Entertaining and Educational - Christmas Traditions for Kids
3. Weekly Wrap-up: The One that was Late
4. Homeschool Mother's Journal {December 7, 2013}
5. Hip Homeschool Hop - 12/10/2013