Animal Physics Live Class with NatureGlo

Animal Physics are two short middle/high school summer live eWorkshops studying animal movement, sound and bioluminescence with basic physics concepts. Younger students interested in the content are welcome to join as well. Alternatively, if students can't join us live or teachers/parents just want the content, you can purchase the Animal Physics June & July 6-week HYBRID course found here or here when in season. Our first session begins on Wednesday, June 15 at 11 - 12 pm Central. The next two live sessions occur consecutively, same day and time. The Animal Physics July 3-week session picks right up after the first June live 3-week session ends. Students can attend either or both sessions. There is no obligation to attend both. 

The Animal Physics June & July 6-week HYBRID course is kicked off on Wednesday, June 15 also at 11 - 12 pm central WITH the regularly scheduled June live class students and the HYBRID students can rejoin us with the July session live students for the last lesson on Wednesday, July 20 at 11 - 12 pm Central. HYBRID students can OPTIONALLY attend the first and last lessons live with me and complete the rest of the 4 lessons independently or with parental assistance. If students want to complete the course at their own pace, or if teachers/parents just want the content only to teach later in the school year, simply download all the files upon purchase and save for a later time! 

If students from both the live eWorkshop or HYBRID course can't join us live, no problem, as all live classes are recorded and posted up on the CurrClick Live course content page on the same day each class is taught. Students can view the recording at their convenience, but preferably before the next live class if they plan to attend the rest of the live classes. 



Also, here's the first lesson, a digital download of the Animal Physics - Extreme Flying & Gliding Animals PowerPoint with Activity Guide from the June session, if you can't/don't want to join any of the classes, but are still curious about the topic. 

What are the topics covered in the Animal Physics eWorkshops?

June Session:
eWorkshop #1 - Flying & Gliding Animals II 
eWorkshop #2 - Bird Flight
eWorkshop #3 - Gliding Mammals

July Session:
eWorkshop #1 - Zoomusicology - The study of the music of animals 
eWorkshop #2 - Song of Whales & Dolphins
eWorkshop #3 - Animal Bioluminescence

AND, did I mention that each live session is ONLY $5 and $15 for a 3-week session?! Please come join us live or if you want the content or your student wants to go through the course at their own pace, the Animal Physics HYBRID course is a great option! We'd love to have you join us for any of the summer eWorkshops or HYBRID courses, and you can have a look at the rest of the summer 2016 course line up straight from my CurrClick Live home page complete with freebies, course syllabi, my classes schedule and more! Just click on the largest sunflower labeled summer classes and have a look! As always, if any of my literature doesn't answer your question(s), please feel free to email me anytime at gab21921@gmail.com. Thank you for reading this far!! He he!

NatureGlo's eScience Summer Live Online Classes

NatureGlo's eScience (NeS) has been holding live online summer classes, adorably called "eWorkshops" going on now for six years. NatureGlo. Yes, that's me. I'm NatureGlo and thank you for reading my blog today!

The summer of 2016 marks our 6th year of summer eWorkshops. The summer eWorkshops are a short and great way to introduce my classes both for homeschoolers and schoolers. Classes begin the second week of June. We hold 3-week live sessions in both June and July and the more self-paced courses called HYBRID spanning 6 weeks in June and July and begin and end with the live classes. These classes are written for middle/high school level students, but are flexible for younger students interested in the subjects. Subjects include MathArt, Marine Biology, Animal Physics (available only during the summer), Herps (study of reptiles  & amphibians), Rocks & Minerals and Mammals (now only available during the summer). I've only given you the links to the live class subject category from my CurrClick home page, since the summer live classes will soon be starting and the enrollment links will close. I offer both live & HYBRID classes. HYBRID courses only have two live classes with me, one to begin and one to end the course with no obligation to attend live. Students can always watch the recordings. This is the same for my live classes as well. The rest of the HYBRID course content is to be completed by the student either independently and or with parental guidance. All of my latest live classes and curriculum can be found under the live class link on my CurrClick home page here.

What in the World is MathArt?

MathArt is a unique course I have been developing since 2003. In MathArt, we look at nature's most common patterns with connections to geometry and basic math. We also look at mathematics history and other connections between math, science, art and architecture. I believe it's a course that should/could be foundational for all mathematics education.

Here's the story as to how I've come to offer this course. Scroll down to the heading, My MathArt Journey.

This is me holding a red cabbage cross-section I made,
which reveals both fractals and spirals,
topics I teach in my MathArt online classes.

What are NatureGlo's live classes like?

Natureglo's eScience live online classes begin with a reading from the latest student blog entries. 1 - 2 scheduled 10 minute student presentation(s)  can follow. Next, I read a PowerPoint presentation of the class topic, followed by student/teacher discussion, and educational videos supporting the class topic.

Students are given resources from the subject's website or "virtual library" with self-guided studies. Without tests, grades, or compulsory homework, students have time to study topics of their interest within the subject. Having said that, I do offer study guides per lesson with PowerPoint review questions and activities referring to the day's topic. With student curiosity sparked, along with a banquet of resources, students come up with dynamic research projects, activities and experiences to share with their virtual classmates from around the world. Be sure to look out for NeS student projects throughout the virtual libraries using this page to guide you to the subject of interest.

2011 NatureGlo eScience student Ursa's bean MathArtwork.
This is an example of the types of projects students can do
during NatureGlo's eScience live & HYBRID courses.

You can view Natureglo's publications, live classes, summer eWorkshops and videos and freebies by visiting Naturglo's eScience home page on CurrClick.com. I also have curriculum only stores with Teachers Pay Teachers, Educents, and my two newest stores are with TeS and Teacher's Notebook, both yet to be stocked at the posting of this blog. Have any questions my literature doesn't answer about my classes and curriculum? Don't hesitate to email me directly at gab21921@gmail.com.

Dramatic Deep Sea Creatures - Latest science, Marine Biology Live Class Guest Student Blogger & Curriculum Sale!

Periphylla periphylla found in oceans worldwide at depths of 1000 - 7000 feet. Image credit: Erling Svensen.

Deep sea creatures are some of the most bazaar, ferocious looking and fascinating animals on the planet! Yet, we've only explored a very small percentage of the abyss, so think of how many more crazy, beautiful, frightening and, yes, even some adorable looking creatures yet to be discovered! However, the last few decades, with our technological advancements and a huge thanks to leading organizations such as NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute), the depths are being plumbed and new creatures are being discovered like never before! In centuries past, deep sea exploration was accomplished by primitive ways such as dredging and well....by whatever new creature happened to wash ashore dead and at least relatively intact, would be the next specimen studied.

Today, the key tool for exploring the depths, is the ROV (Remote Operating Vehicle), which is unocccupied and tethered to a host ship and operated by a crew. 

A science ROV being retrieved by an oceanographic research vessel.

An ROV suction device about to capture a deep sea octopus.

This past March and May, my live CurrClick.com homeschool students completed my Dramatic Deep Sea Creatures 8-lesson course. The course was a huge hit with 19 homeschool families joining the live class experience. We had some 5-star blogging students share some amazing posts about topics taught. Please take the time to read 5-star blogger, my spring Marine Biology Dramatic Deep Sea Creatures live class student Sophie C.'s post below!

South Pole Sauna by Sophie C. age 14

In the deep, dark and frigid waters off Antarctica, at depths of 8,000 feet, lies the most startling spa on Earth. Bubbling up from magma under the earth, the water is super heated to 721 degrees Fahrenheit. This balmy steam bath provides an irresistible draw to a host of unusual sea creatures intent on escaping the freezing waters. The vents, called black smokers, are homes to creatures never seen before: an aggressive seven arm sea star, a ghost octopus and the Antarctic Yeti crab (Kiwa tyleri). This last creature is both fascinating and plentiful in this home. It grows bacteria on its hairy chest, bacteria which uses chemosynthesis to change the toxic iron sulfide in the water into usable food. Unable to survive in the freezing water, the crabs crowd on to the vents--- 600 per square meter! This is one popular spa!

Yeti crabs crowding around a deep sea hydrothermal vent

My first paragraph provides the essential facts but let me add a few more background details here. Hydrothermal vents are created when sea water seeps into cracks called fissures in the sea floor. It encounters magma, that extremely hot molten lava that we are familiar with in volcanoes. The water becomes heated at the same time it is dissolving chemicals in the undersea floor. Ultimately, it spews upward where it encounters the icy sea water. The chemicals solidify creating vents which are warm and full of toxic chemicals. Black Smokers create the hottest water, the most sulfide and are dark because of the iron in the mix. White smokers are cooler and made up of barium, calcium and silicon. Both kinds provide an abnormal and, to some creatures, welcoming environment which results in a unique ecosystem. Chemosynthetic bacteria use the toxic chemicals as a food source, converting them to sugars that other animals can use. They are the first food source in a pyramid which includes other larger animals preying on the bacteria and then upon each other.

Deep sea black smokers

The vents in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica are unique. There are no tubeworms, mussels or shrimp which are typical in tropical vents. Instead, they are home to unusual barnacles, anemones, a very interesting snail with a one-of-a-kind shell, and ghost octopi. These vents were only discovered in 1999, first explored in 2009 and then more fully studied in 2010. There is still much research to do at this setting which one scientist described as more unusual than anything you would find on the moon.

A Ghost Octopus

Thank you, Sophie, for sharing your superb blog with us! 

Even if you can't join us for the class live in the future, now students can grab the self-paced version of the course on sale at either my CurrClick.com store (50% off) or Educents (58% off). You can check out NatureGlo's latest Marine Biology live classes from her CurrClick home page here. The course is composed of 8 PowerPoints or Slideshow lessons with accompanying study guides per lesson. A course manual is included along with a grading rubric for student projects. Some families may not have PowerPoint, so simply playing the pdf files as a Slideshow is an easy hack. Students are encouraged to follow their learning curiosity and complete an original project about their favorite deep sea creature. Have a look at the full course curriculum with previews at my Educents store below!

Sincerely, NatureGlo

Rocks & Minerals Cross-curricular Connections, Live Classes & Curriculum with a FREE Lesson!

How many of you out there both young and old love rocks and minerals? There is just so much about rocks and minerals to enjoy! There are many amazing cross-curricular connections that can be made while studying rocks and minerals.  My Fascinating Minerals A - Z live class is held in the fall, or you can purchase the Fascinating Minerals 8-lesson/unit study from any of NatureGlo's eScience clickable store links below. 

Here is a list of some of the great cross-curricular connections made with NatureGlo's eScience rocks and minerals live classes and curriculum.

1. Arts & crafts - resource links for making beaded jewelry
2. Art - drawing, painting minerals video tutorials from You Tube
3. History - creating a timeline showing how humans have used a particular mineral
4. Technology - researching how a mineral is used in the latest technology such as cell phones, computers, automobiles
5. Geography - Find the best localities in the world where a mineral is mined; finding the closest mines of an interested mineral near a student's local area. Mindat.org is a GREAT online resource to research this. Just type in any mineral in the Mindat.org search bar at the top of the web page. When the mineral's page comes up, scroll to the bottom for a world map and click on any of the pink crystals for mines with that mineral around the world!
6. Chemistry - experiments for growing your own crystals
7. Mathematics - finding out how much a rock or mineral weighs, it's specific gravity, it's Moh's scale hardness; looking up a minerals crystal system, which is a geometric study
8. Spelling - learning to spell rock and mineral names
9. Rockhounding - looking for rocks in the student's own backyard and local neighborhood parks, and or local quarries or mines is a simple and great way to get started looking for and collecting rocks

Can't join the live classes? You can look for the Fascinating Minerals A-Z mini course curriculum unit studies at my Teachers Pay Teachers store under the Earth Science tab, my CurrClick.com Rocks & Minerals Curriculum page and here at my Educents store!

You can check out any of my rocks and minerals live classes and HYBRID courses I have open for enrollment now here.

Click here to download your
FREE Minerals A - D unit study.

NatureGlo's eScience In-depth Rocks & Minerals Studies with Historic & Geographic Connections

Almandine in its host rock photographed by Eurico Zimbres from Brazil. A reminder of a beautiful, yet tiny garnet I once found also in its host rock in Dover Plains, NY in 1988.

I have such fond childhood memories of personal rock and mineral studies, especially after my 4^th grade teacher, Mr. Skeel did a short rock and mineral unit. After school, I can still remember going to my local neighborhood library in Tivoli, New York, and unprompted, checking out rock and mineral ID books just to get to know the minerals even better. The classroom short unit studies just weren’t enough information to satisfy my insatiable curiosity and desire to know all about them.

Broadway, Tivoli, New York where I found my first sandstone bivalve fossil.
The library I went to check out rock and mineral books as a girl was just up the street another block or two and on the right. I can see the beloved, old candy store, second building on the right. Hee, hee!

My personal studies led me into informal rockhounding that same year Mr. Skeel introduced me to the realm of rocks and minerals. On occasion, throughout my life, I have found some really great specimens while rockhounding. At 11 years old, while living in the village of Tivoli, New York, I made a spectacular find. After prowling around looking for rocks in our neighborhood kids favorite kickball rock-filled parking lot, I found a very nice palm-sized sandstone with several small seashell fossils embedded along the edge of the stone. I shall never forget my awe and amazement at having found such a treasure and kept it for many decades. While exploring a small rocky cliff along a highway, in Dover Plains NY, at age 13, I found a deep purple colored garnet in its host stone. Sadly, I have since lost both specimens, but they are locked away in the treasury called memory. Below are images that are not of my specimens when I found as a kid, but, likenesses of my original specimens.

This lovely sandstone with extinct bivalves gives scope for the imagination since it looks somewhat similar to my original piece found in Tivoli, NY in the 80's.

My greatest treasure hunt of all, thus far, was when I returned to my hometown, Ellenville, New York, at age 23 for the first time in my adulthood, to a place I call "Quartz Mountain". When I was 8 years old, my uncle Paul had brought me to this same place to look for little shimmering pieces of quartz crystals that were EVERYWHERE your eyes could fall. I can remember how amazed I felt at the ease of finding the little crystals all over that mountain as a girl. 

This is a large quartz crystal cluster from Ellenville, New York,
my hometown, photographed by Rob Lavinsky iRocks.com. My uncle Paul found a large piece like this, which he gave me.

Upon returning to Quartz Mountain at 23, I filled a decent sized leather satchel with hundreds of quartz crystals and a few nice pieces of mica and pyrite. With this loot, along with several magnifying glasses, and other rock collections, I was able to dazzle and keep many of my students entertained with hands-on rocks and mineral learning stations for many hours and years! Before I hit the road as a full time RVer in May of 2013, I had to squeeze my entire life’s possessions into a campervan. I relinquished those rock and minerals collections, including my hundreds of quartz crystals to a teenage boy in West Virginia who also had an affinity for them.

Today, I write and “collect” digital curriculum along with creating websites per subject with a web page per topic I teach. Here's the Rocks and Minerals website. The web pages include all I can find of the "best of the web" on the topic along with interesting projects and activities and videos. I've been working with adding interesting projects and activities to my Rocks & Minerals Pinterest board as well. This year we spent 1-hour per mineral learning about, diamonds, rubies, amber, pearls, a mineraloid, not technically a mineral, but one which I include in our gems study.  

When time allowed me this summer to go even deeper with each mineral, I found out some amazing historical connections, which of course, led to their geographic connections. And there is always the practical everyday uses of minerals and their importance in technology to learn about. Rock and mineral connections with other subjects can just go on and on including wonderful relationships with arts and crafts. This summer, I also began the first of a series of curriculum that now includes lapbook/notebook templates. Lately, the minerals I included lapbook/notebook templates with are silver, labradorite, and malachite. Here is a link to my rocks and mineral curriculum series (more coming soon) as well as my rocks and mineral live classes for middle/high schoolers. Younger siblings are welcome to join in the live classes as well and content is multi-age flexible.

Don't Miss CAMP GOOGLE!

Image by I. DeSouza.

Now Google has come up with yet another innovative idea! Google has partnered with Khan Academy, National Geographic (my heart throbs for NG) and the National Park Service to put on some fun summer camps for kids beginning......TODAY! Themes include oceans, space, nature and the physics of sound with music. It's called Camp Google. 

Today, July 13th at 12 p.m. PT,  Camp Google launched the camp with National Geographic diver Erika Bergman "taking kids" on a live dive in the Atlantic Ocean. I hope they recorded it as I don't see any recordings for it......at least not yet.  Maybe it will be posted on the above National Geographic link soon! 

This stuff is geared for kids but the content is appropriate for any age. I brushed up and even learned some cool new things about dolphins and echolocation as a science teacher. I love the simple use of recyclables too!

I'm especially impressed with Google Maps new ocean street map additions with the ability to walk the ocean floor thanks to the work of Jenifer Austin Foulkes, a manager with Google's Ocean Program, whom we see in the first Camp Google oceans experiment video, "Why Do Some Things Float?" 

Until next time, I hope you enjoy Camp Google as much as I am! 

Coral Reef Fish Math!

A Giant triggerfish and school of goldies photographed by Hein Waschefort

Last time I blogged, I had just published my very first EVER Marine Biology curriculum unit, Marine Fish of the World with Coral Reef Fish. I'm super duper excited about this unit not only because of it's colorlicious photography (thanks to SO many amazing photographers offering their work to Creative Commons so long as we attribute their name to the photos) and cool vintage black and white graphics in the public domain, but, because my research on the colors and patterns of coral reef fish, more specifically triggerfish, was very satisfying. Teachers love learning too. I have so much fun digging deeper into topics that textbooks never have time for. Why wouldn't it be a priority for students to derive mathematical connections from some of the most colorful creatures on the planet, coral reef fish? 

Let's have a look at some of the fun colors and patterns of coral reef fish along with a few snapshots from my marine fish unit.

Hands down, my most favorite coral reef fish, and fish in the world.....and likely unarguably the most colorful fish in the sea........................

A mandarinfish from the Munich Zoo, Hellabrunn photographed by Jenni Douglas

Tadaa! The mandarinfish! This week I taught my first Marine Biology summer eWorkshop lesson on JUST the mandarinfish. I'm sorry that the class is not up anymore, but once we CurrClick teachers start a course, the enrollment comes down. BUT, check out my cool mandarinfish resource page here. 

How about that, now! An entire 1-hour eClass JUST on the mandarinfish! The students loved it! Just take a moment to look at and admire all the wonderful colors and patterns you see on this graceful fish. Check out a video of it from the mandarinfish resource page (scroll down to the videos) to see just how graceful and lovely they really are! 

I see a remarkable cobalt blue, which is unique to this fish since it's produced by it's nude skin's cellular pigment. Yes, it's a nude, scale-less fish in the Dragonet family composed of over 180 other species! I CAN'T WAIT to dig deeper and research the other colorful family members. The video from my page entitled, "Mucky Secrets - Part 9 - Mandarinfish & other Dragonets Lembeh Strait" (scroll down to the first video beneath the Informative Videos heading), shows a few of the other Dragonet members including the mandarinfish. Notice the waved lines that look like a child's marker drawing. How about the converging lines on the fins, lovely yellow spots and concentric purple and red rings around its eye! All of these patterns I described, are studied in higher maths. Why not bring more beauty into the mathematics curriculum both for young and old?

And now for our finale........the triggerfish!

Clockwise top to bottom: Unicorn Leatherjacket Filefish, White-Banded Triggerfish, Queen Triggerfish, Rough Triggerfish, Black Triggerfish. Image in the public domain.

It's a vintage image, one of my favorites. The artist really captured the unique ovoid body shapes. 

The Orange-lined triggerfish photographed by janderk and released into the public domain.

Just look at and admire those outstanding orange stripes! Below you'll see parts of the marine fish unit with the exercises for observing colors, patterns, numbers and shapes in the triggerfish.

Students study the diagram above and use the fish's external anatomy in their mathematical descriptions in the exercises below.

A slide from lesson two, Introduction to the Coral Reef Fish PowerPoint

And yes it does have a red tooth!

You can check out the rest of the preview of the Marine Fish of the World and Coral Reef Fish from my Teachers Pay Teachers store! Just click on Preview beneath the unit's cover image.