Merry Christmas!

Happy Winter Solstice!

Happy Thanksgiving!

New Classes!

We've completed curriculum and are embarking on new classes in German and Geometry!

Some of our classes and curriculum:

German 1 (Komm Mit! with OM)
Jacobs Geometry (DO)
AP Human Geography (PAHS)
BFSU3 / Plato
WWS2
Literature (WTM reading list)
English Composition and Grammar (Warriners)

Happy Halloween!

Autumnal Equinox!

Happy Back-to-Homeschool!

Enjoying the Great Outdoors

and this beautiful summer weather - warm days and cool nights.

Field Trip!

Today we went blueberry picking with friends. It was fun and easy!

Happy Independence Day!

Summer Solstice!

Revised Summer 2014 Homeschool Plans!

Saxon Algebra 1 - review topics
Medieval History - finish
WWS1 - finish
German
Literature
APHG Summer Reading
Horn
Community Service
Enjoying the Great Outdoors!

Another Angel in Heaven

Vernal Equinox!

Finally!

Summer 2014 Homeschool Plans!

Saxon Algebra 1 (finish)
Medieval and Early Renaissance History
German
Literature
APHG supplementary reading
Horn
Community Service
Hiking

How Light Bends

     If a light beam hits a mirror, it reflects back at a different angle. The angle at which the beam hits the mirror is called the angle of incidence, and the angle at which it reflects is called the angle of reflection. These two are always equal.

    Prisms can also bend light, and at the right angle, can separate white light into its primary colors which are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Each color is bent at a different angle in the prism, which is why they are always in that order.

A prism separating light into its primary colors. Photo courtesy of: www.ask.com

    When a beam of light goes through glass or a container that is curved and then leaves it, the bent light rays cross. The point where they cross is called the focal point, and the distance between the focal point and the glass or container is called the focal distance. This is also how glasses work; if you are nearsighted or farsighted, the focal point will not be on your retina, but the glasses will bend the light so the focal point will be on your retina.
 

 


Refraction is when light enters another substance, such as water, after moving through air. The water bends the light and the light slows down ever so slightly. Once the light leaves the water it bends again and this is why things partly in water look bent, and things under water aren't where they appear to be
 .

The Life Cycle of Octopi

Octopi usually have a life span of 3-4 years, but some smaller octopi have a life span of only 6 months. The male dies within a few days of mating, and the female dies after the eggs have hatched.

                A common octopus’s eggs are usually teardrop or oval shaped and the size of a grain of rice. There are usually over a thousand of them, but only a couple of the eggs will survive; the rest will probably be eaten or lost. The female sticks them to the side of her cave where they hatch.

                 When the baby octopi hatch, they are literally flea-sized versions of their parents and can change color. Instead of hiding in rocks or crevices and avoiding sunlight like adult octopi, they enjoy the sunlight and float on the open ocean. Once they are older, they hide in rocks and crevices, only coming out to hunt, or, for the males, find a mate. They will inhabit a nest for a long period of time.

                 How they mate is not really known, but after they mate, the female finds a den in which to lay her eggs. She closes the entrance to the cave with rocks and guards the eggs, blowing water around them to keep the fungus and small fish who want to eat the eggs away. She never comes out to eat and guards the eggs until she dies.

                After the male mates, before he dies, he may crawl onto the beach. As his brain and his other organs start to deteriorate, he behaves strangely, crawling up and down the beach in a seemingly absentminded manner. The males will stop eating, lose weight, and develop white sores. At this stage, they are very vulnerable to predators, including slow moving sharks and killer whales. 

Baby Octopi. Photo courtesy of www.zooborns.com

Hydrothermal Vents

In 1975, an expedition called FAMOUS (French-American Mid-Ocean Undersea Study) sent a submarine to explore the hydrothermal vents in the Mid- Atlantic Ridge, which is located in the center of the Atlantic Ocean, between the African and European continents. No hydrothermal vents were found. In 1976, unmanned crafts (“diving saucers”) went into the Galapagos Rift. A rift is a boundary between tectonic plates. The samples of water that were that were brought back had strange mineral content. In 1977 scientists used the Alvin, a 25-foot long submarine designed for deep-ocean use, in an expedition led by scientist Robert Ballard. Alvin dove down 2,500 feet in the Galapagos Rift and discovered hot springs: the hydrothermal vents.

            Hydrothermal vents are created when there is a gap in the ocean floor and there is volcanic activity nearby. When the water touches the magma in this gap, it overheats and shoots back up at 212-570 degrees Fahrenheit, but the water doesn’t boil over because of the water pressure from above. After it shoots out, the water cools to about 73 degrees Fahrenheit and is cloudy with minerals. Some of these minerals were the strange minerals that were found during the 1976 expedition.

             One type of hydrothermal vent is called a “black smoker”. “Black smokers” are a kind of deep-ocean hydrothermal vent that spews out black sulfides, which might taste like black soot, and superheated water, which is about 662 degrees Fahrenheit. They are made out of mineral piles with holes in them, so that they look like chimneys. These “chimneys” can be as tall as 200 feet.

  Many life forms live near these hydrothermal vents, such as giant mussels, giant clams, white crabs, and tube worms. Giant mussels have yellow shells and live on bacteria they filter out of the seawater. Giant clams, however, have white shells, have red flesh rich in oxygen and measure about one foot across. White crabs eat the giant mussels, the giant clams and the tube worms. The tube worm has white stalks waving from the ground, and red plumes at the top, which are filled with blood. They have no mouths or digestive tracts, but live on the energy produced by the bacteria that live in them. They can grow as long as 8 feet. Scientists John Corliss and John Edmond wrote in Ocean: an Illustrated Atlas, “Shimmering water streams up past giant tube worms never before seen by man. A crab scuttles over lava encrusted with limpets while a pink fish basks in the warmth.”

Photo courtesy of www.wierdwarp.com