Tag: science activity books

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Fall Pumpkins

My first science activity book was “The Pumpkin Project” which I’m presently going back over trying to see how I can turn it into teaching units, all 215 pages. Seeing the fall pumpkins encourages me.

Porch Displays

Several houses on my town routes have porch displays out. Many include pumpkins and other winter squash varieties. These come in so many shapes and colors.

These will sit out for people driving and walking by to admire at least until the end of October. The sad part is that these pumpkins and squash will get dumped into the trash.

cover of "The Pumpkin Project" by Karen GoatKeeper
Writing this science activity book was a great experience. It did give me a chance to use my science teaching. The best part was meeting via email so many interesting people and going to the Weigh Ins. The next best part was trying out all of the delicious recipes.

“The Pumpkin Project”

As in my other science activity projects, this one includes pencil puzzles, trivia, stories, activities, projects and investigations. In addition, this book includes pumpkin recipes.

In the U.S. pumpkins are thought of as dessert, usually pie. Searching through my cookbooks, I found pumpkins can be cooked in many ways.

The flowers are used in a Mexican soup. The roasted seeds are a great snack. Pumpkin soups taste good.

There are several pumpkin breads. In fact, I just found a new one, a yeast bread using pumpkin puree and little sugar so it’s not a sweet bread. The Caribbean one has nuts, raisins and dates in it.

My favorite recipe is for pumpkin cookies. These taste a lot like pumpkin pie, but in cookie form.

fall pumpkins
Pumpkins have been around for centuries. Native Americans in South America were the first to plant them. They moved north and were planted by tribes in North America. Europeans adopted them and spread them around the world. This is no surprise as pumpkins taste good any way you fix them.

The Main Ingredient

Doing the activities and investigations require having pumpkin seeds, plants and pumpkins. The seeds can be purchased in the spring. Pumpkins are available in the fall.

But growing pumpkins is fun. The mini types can be grown in a big pot on a porch. Giant pumpkins take lots and lots of room and care as the stories about giant pumpkin growers explains.

I grow sugar pie pumpkins. These don’t get really big, but they are the best for eating.

My Plans

As I walk through my pumpkin patch admiring the many pie pumpkins, I picture them as breads and cookies. There are enough to share with the goats as they love pumpkin pieces. Perhaps I will ask for some of those display pumpkins and winter squashes for the goats to enjoy.

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Creating Teaching Units

As a teacher, I was always creating teaching units. Each chapter became one as I found or devised notes, work sheets, labs and more.

Once I started writing science books, this changed. The elements stayed the same. However, I could add so much more.

Trivia is interesting. My first science book “The Pumpkin Project” is full of fun facts about pumpkins.

cover of "The Pumpkin Project" by Karen GoatKeeper
This science activity book includes Investigations and Activites from pumpkin seeds to plants to pumpkins. Stories about growing pumpkins, recipes using pumpkins, puzzles about pumpkins, pumpkin trivia and more are in it too.

Telling Stories

The trivia led me on to other interesting things about pumpkins. Since I garden, I buy those little seed packets. This book let me find out how those seeds get into the packets.

Then there are the giant pumpkins. These are not the big Halloween kinds. These are the monsters grown by people around the world that can easily top a hundred pounds with records now over a ton! Who grows these and how? I asked and wrote a story about them.

Creating Puzzles

Teaching classes I often used worksheets. These didn’t seem to fit well in my science book. I put in puzzles instead.

There are sites online to create puzzles. I prefer to make my own. Hidden words, skeletons, tales, deduction and sayings are some of them.

cover for "The City Water Project" by Karen GoatKeeper
Water is an interesting chemical. It is essential for health too. This science activity book includes 8 stories along with many Investigations and Activities about and using water. Puzzles, trivia and more are also in the book.

“The City Water Project”

Writing about pumpkins was so interesting I looked over my teaching units and found some about water. There are so many interesting things about water, this substance we depend on, but take for granted.

Using the same model, the book has lots of trivia, stories, puzzles (including coloring pages), investigations and activities. Since this was not for a class lab, I could include some activities like boiling water in a paper boat that I couldn’t use in school.

Creating Teaching Units

Few people were interested in my science books. This was very disappointing to me. Part of it was that few people knew about them. Part of it was how much the books had to cost to cover printing costs.

I loved teaching science. I want others to discover how interesting science is. So I am trying to make my science books more accessible by making them into teaching units.

What I’ve discovered is that I can’t just break up a book into units. As I separate each part, I have to make sure my results and puzzle answers are there. Each has an introduction.

Summer is the time to play with water. Maybe some people will enjoy doing these Investigations, Activities and puzzles this summer and find out science can be fun.

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Science Basics

One of my professors told his students that, if someone read all the scientific journals in only one field of science twenty-four hours a day, they could not keep up with all of the changes and discoveries in that single field. My Chemistry Project activity book tries to stick to science basics and ignore these rapid changes.

A reminder of this professor was in “Science News” this week. It seems the 27th Annual Conference on Weights and Measures have added four new metric measures: the ronna, quetta, ronno and quetto. These extend the prefixes for both larger and smaller measures needed for some of today’s discoveries.

Why does a change in metrics matter to my Chemistry Project? Although these units won’t, science, including chemistry, uses the metric system.

Why Have a Metric System?

There was a time a few hundred years ago when every town and village had their own system of measurement. When these became part of countries, a countrywide system was used.

Science is international. Scientists in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Africa need to use the same system to make exchanging ideas easier. That system is the metric system.

Every major country in the world except the U.S. uses the metric system. Unknown to most U.S. citizens, we do use it every day as our money is a metric system. Any business doing business overseas uses the it.

Metric Is Part of Science Basics

The first part of my Chemistry Project is on the metric system. The only requirements for using the metric system are knowing the prefixes and being able to count to ten.

One of the puzzles in this part is a word skeleton for the various metric prefixes. Perhaps I should add the new ones.

However, I won’t. Devising a new puzzle takes time. And very few of these prefixes will be used in the Chemistry Project. I will stick to the science basics and leave those students interested to look up these new ones on their own.

cover for "The City Water Project" by Karen GoatKeeper
This science activity book has many investigations and activites about water. These use the metric system for most measurements.
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Chemistry Investigations

The genesis for my Chemistry Project goes back decades to when I taught chemistry in high school. It was one of several subjects I taught every day. I developed chemistry investigations for my classes.

The advantage of school was my access to many chemicals and lots of equipment. That meant I could develop challenging experiments.

I considered these experiments challenging. The real challenge came later when I was developing the chemistry investigations for my new website.

Authors are supposed to have websites to promote their books and connect with fans.

cover of "The Pumpkin Project" by Karen GoatKeeper
Science is a ‘hands on’ subject using investigations and activities to encourage students to think about what they are learning and apply it to new circumstances. I use investigations, activities, pencil puzzles, trivia, stories, recipes and more in “The Pumpkin Project” to try to do this. And the supplies and equipments used are mostly things easily available.

My website did promote my books, only a couple at that time. What I wanted to do was attract people to my site. “The Pumpkin Project” was coming out soon.

To me, science is science. It is looking for why things happen the way they do and are as they are. Chemistry was a familiar subject so I decided to post chemistry investigations on my website.

Doing Chemistry At Home

At home I had none of the equipment or the chemicals I had used at school. The topics were the same. The challenge was to develop ways to suit these topics using equipment and chemicals anyone could find.

Why chemistry? One reason is how interesting it is. Another is that every other science has some relationship with chemistry. Yet another involves reactions, seeing things change form and color.

“The Chemistry Project” is taking shape using the posts I put up nearly ten years ago. A couple have needed changes. One Activity had to be redone entirely.

So far, the first part on the metric system is complete. The chemistry investigations are done for the second part on matter. I’m short a couple of puzzles, trivia and a Chem Story.

Importance of Science

Another problem has appeared. Putting “The Chemistry Project” together will take a lot of work. It is a science activity book. And science is now suspect.

People question the validity of science. They ban science books.

To me, this ignores the fact that most of those people would be dead without science just as half of all children died before the age of five only a couple of hundred years ago. Science created the materials in their clothes, the engines in their vehicles, the appliances in their homes.

And future scientists, the ones who will give us more technology, begin now with books like “The Chemistry Project” that challenge them to think, to use the knowledge they gain through experiments. There’s a lot riding on those chemistry investigations I’m developing. I hope they measure up.