Ben Franklin and some ELECTRIFYING Science!

We have been learning a lot about Benjamin Franklin's role as a founding father of our country, but this week we started looking at him more in his role as a scientist. We have spent several snack-time read-alouds in the past few weeks doubled over in laughter as we listened to his antics as described by his fictional friend Amos the mouse in Ben and Me: An Astonishing Life of Benjamin Franklin by His Good Mouse Amos discovered and shared by Robert Lawson. The Pioneers particularly enjoyed the story of Ben accidentally electrocuting the mayor and his wife at a town meeting, and gasped in fright as Amos was stranded aloft during Ben's kite-key electricity experiment.

We also read a GREAT book this week called Mesmerized - How Ben Franklin Solved A Mystery That Baffled All of France, by Maria Rockliff. In it, Franklin uses the scientific method to test Dr. Mesmer's astounding, and seemingly magic, healing powers. In the process, he essentially invents the "blind" study and discovers the idea of the placebo effect. The ensuing discussion led to some interesting observations about science vs. pseudoscience.

We followed up the reading by playing a game called "Black Magic," with one student exhibiting apparently amazing feats of mental acuity by guessing an object chosen by the rest of the class in their absence. The student playing Dr. Mesmer would leave the room, the rest of the class would pick an object, and then "Dr. Mesmer" would return. I would point at different things around the room asking "Is this the object?" until the student identified the correct one. Each time, no matter who played Dr. Mesmer's role, the student was able to identify the object after only a few guesses. It was amazing! We had not realized we had a class full of mind readers! I was accused of cheating, of somehow communication to Dr. Mesmer the object chosen. "But," I pointed out, "Dr. Mesmer left the room each time BEFORE we chose the object. There was no way I could have given away the answer -- even I did not know it yet!" After several rounds, the students had not yet noticed the pattern that each time, right before the student guessed the correct object, I touched something black. We would have gone on all day if I hadn't gotten carried away and made a mistake. Ah ha! Would Ben Franklin have noticed the pattern? I think perhaps he would have.

We then put our own skills at observation to the test. First, we did some static electricity experiments with the Navigators, combing our hair and rubbing balloons against ourselves and then picking up bits of tissue paper. We recorded our results using the I observe ..., I think..., I wonder... method.

The next morning, we observed another interesting electrical phenomenon -- a plasma ball.

Here's what we observed:

Here's what we thought:

Here's what we wondered:

We are really learning to observe and question. Next week -- we move on to how to turn our questions into hypotheses and begin the scientific process. Oh, and we'll be stopping in to visit this cool website somewhere along the way: http://wonderopolis.org/wonder/how-does-a-plasma-ball-work

Thanks, Ben! And Shock on!

Designing our own dollars

Recently, we've been learning about colonial-era portrait artist Gilbert Stuart. You may not know his name, but you are probably familiar with his work -- his portrait of George Washington has been printed on the U.S. one-dollar bill since 1963.

Last week we took a closer look at the dollar bill and tried our hand at designing our own. Students chose who (or what) to feature on the portrait side, and different landmarks to use on the reverse. We even chose some different denominations! Here's how a few turned out:

Storybook Farm & Johnny Appleseed

We had a wonderful visit last week to 21 Acres/Storybook Farm in Woodinville. The mission of 21 Acres is to teach people to farm, eat and live sustainably. They read us the story Johnny Appleseed, which we have been studying as an American tall tale, and then gave us a tour of their young apple orchard. We tasted three different types of apples, then pressed our own apple cider using a locally made cider press. We sampled the apple cider, fresh, warm and DELICIOUS, while we ate lunch.

We also learned a lot of interesting new facts about bees. We talked about their role in pollinating, looked closely at a frame from a bee box and how the bees build up their honeycombs with a thin layer of hardened plant resin called propolis. We felt and smelled the small area of honeycomb left on one of the frames (It smells like herbs! No, it smells like honey!) and then went out to see the bee hives next to the fields. We learned the fascinating fact that bumble bees hum a "C" note that causes certain tomato plants to vibrate, and thus drop their pollen. We also cut an apple open horizontally to see the 5 point star formed inside, and counted the number of seeds. In a fully pollinated apple flower, the fruit formed will have 2 seeds in each point of the star: ten seeds altogether. Ours had only six --so we talked about how, over time, that would mean fewer apple trees, fewer apples, and less food for people to eat. What kinds of CHANGES would that cause in the world, we wondered?

The fresh cider really was delicious, and everyone loved turning the press to make it. Here are a few of the letters we'll be sending as a thank you:

Dear 21 Acres, You said the apple trees were only a few years old, and, I'm just saying', the apples were GOOD. And the bee boxes were fascinating! The bees wax inside was rubbery. I have seen them before. I also thought it was fun! -J.G.

Dear 21 Acres, Thank you for the apple cider, it was really good because it was sweet and hot. Thank you for telling us about bees. I learned that bumblebees play the C note and make tomatoes vibrate. I also learned bees make their own frames. 21 acres was really fun! - K.F.

Thank you, 21 Acres. I loved the apple cider. It looked good. It was hard to make. Bees were one of my favorite parts and I learned that bees stack their pollen and if bees didn't exist lots of things would die. It was a great field trip! - C. S.

Dear 21 Acres, Thanks for teaching me that bees buzz the note C. It's so funny that it helps tomatoes grow! I liked the cider. many people didn't like it or didn't want it, but I liked it. I did not know that bees pollinate apples and each apple should have ten seeds for it to be fully pollinated. When we tried 3 different types of apples (Ruby Jon, Jonagold, and Honey Crisp) my favorite was Jonagold. It was fun! - M.K.