Teaching Science to 5th Graders

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of talking to 90 5th graders about science...over the phone.  My cousin is a 5th grade reading teacher in Texas and their story that week had been about a scientist who used microscopes to see living things in pond water and volcanic ash.  Of course the scientist was a man and the girls in the class were totally grossed out by the idea of tiny, creepy, crawly things so she wanted to give them a different perspective on science.

We wanted to do video chat but of course there were technical difficulties and I ended up just talking to the kids over speaker phone but it worked out really well! Because it was breast cancer awareness month and I have been involved in cancer research, we talked a lot about breast cancer.  I was really impressed by the kids' willingness to ask questions about cancer and I hope that I helped them understand it a little bit better. We also talked about the scientific method and things like specimens and microscopes to include their vocabulary words from the week.

The best part was the stories that my cousin told me about her kids' reactions.  She said that a lot of the girls did get more engaged in the science and she is hopeful that we gave them the idea that science doesn't have to be gross guy stuff.  The most exciting story was about a little boy who my cousin has been struggling to get to write in his journal.  While I was talking the kids were suppose to be taking notes and while a lot of the kids got excited about asking questions and forgot to take notes, this kid took lots of notes, and not just useless notes like my name and where I went to school, he was taking notes about the science that I was talking about and understanding the important parts of what I was saying.  We may have just found this kids' calling in life: science!

This week I got a thank you card from the kids (please disregard my hideous floor)

There notes are so sweet and also show how much some of them truly got from talking to me.  Stuff like this reminds me why I also want to teach and not just do research for the rest of my life! I am looking forward to working with a bunch of 5th and 6th grade girls at a UNC event in a few weeks.  A friend and I are going to teach them about DNA and have them extract DNA from a strawberry! Hopefully they will be well behaved and I'll be able to take some pictures!

Exciting Saturday!

The North Carolina State Fair is wrapping up this weekend and Lucas had never been to the fair before so we decided to venture to Raleigh.  We didn't try any fried candy bars but we did enjoy lots of various fair food, Lucas tried his hand at a fair game (and predictably lost), and we did lots of people watching.  As we were leaving we saw this:

Ice cream being made with John Deere motors! We didn't try any because we were already stuffed but the idea definitely caught my eye!  Overall, the fair was a great time but I am glad we went during the day and didn't wait any later because it was busy enough when we were there and was only getting busier when we left.

When we got home I decided to make a Coca-Cola cake.  After three trips to the grocery store to get all the ingredients I finally ended up with a delicious cake!

For stopping in the middle of the icing to go get powdered sugar, it turned out pretty well.  Thanks to pinterest for the recipe!!

For any of you who are interested, here's the recipe:

Preheat oven to 300

Mix:

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

In a saucepan over medium high heat, stir this together until it boils:

1 cup butter

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup coca-cola 

1/2 cup buttermilk

Take off heat and add to the flour mix. 

Add

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix, put in 9 x 13 pan and bake for a little over 30 minutes

When cake is nearly done make the glaze in a saucepan:

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 cup coca-cola

Once the mixture boils, remove and slowly stir in 4 cups of powdered sugar.  Add a cup of chopped pecans and pour over the finished cake. 

Take Home Test= Fall Wreath

This weekend I have a take home test to do that is due Wednesday.  I didn't want to spend the entire weekend working because well, there's no way that would be productive so I decided this was the weekend to make a fall wreath.  I brought sunflowers, chrysanthemums, and fall leaves a few weeks ago but had never bought a wreath to put it on so yesterday when I got half way through my test I went to Joann's to get the wreath! CJ was very confused as to what I had brought home.

I still needed to work a little before I was ready to stop for the night and work on the wreath so CJ helped me study a little.

For the wreath, I took a grapevine wreath and just stuck the flowers and leaves down in the vine.  For the most part it felt like the stems intertwined with the vines would hold them in place but to make sure I glued some of them in place and used wire on other stems to make sure they won't fall out of the wreath. I added a bow in with the flowers because I thought the middle of my flower arrangement need a little more orange since it ended up mostly yellow. Here's a close up of the finish product. 

Making the wreath was pretty easy but hanging it was a little bit more difficult.  I wanted to make sure that the wreath didn't cover up the apartment number on the door but the problem is that a normal door wreath hanger would put the wreath over the apartment number.  So, I decided to use ribbon the hang the wreath.  I tied ribbon around the top of the wreath and then put the ribbon over the door and tied it to a hook on the inside of the door. It's working pretty well so far, hopefully it stays tied! Here's a picture of the final product!

Now I really want pumpkins but I'm trying to hold off until we can find a good pumpkin patch and maybe even a corn maze to go to!!!