09.29.07
Posted in The nuts and bolts of it at 8:03 pm by Meg
Justyne over on Schoolless just had a neat activity on survival of the fittest using Legos. It looks like fun and I may have to remember it.
But reading over what they did reminded me of something similar that I did a few years ago for the biology labs that I taught. But instead of Legos, we used M&Ms.
Justyne asked me to send her the info and since I needed to type it up, I figured I’d post it here for anyone to use.
Now for anyone who isn’t familiar with the terms: macroevolution is the idea that we ‘came from apes,’ or at least share common ancestors with them; microevolution is the idea that creatures’ characteristics can change from one generation to another because of some kind of pressure on the population. Believe it of not, there are groups that will accept the idea of micro-, but still argue against macro-.
Anyway.
This activity uses the concept of Punnett squares to model the typical offspring produced for two individuals. For our hypothetical population:
- Red M&Ms have 2 dominate genes
- Pink M&Ms have a dominate gene and a recessive gene
- White M&Ms have 2 recessive genes
This activity also assumes that every pair of individuals produces 4 offspring that perfectly model their Punnet square probabilities. So, it helps to start this activity by developing the Punnett square for each pairing (Red-Red, Red-Pink, Red-White, Pink-White, Pink-Pink, and White-White) to have as a resource.
- You start with putting 16 Red, 32 Pink, and 16 White M&Ms (you can use any set of colors, and any particular item for this. But the M&Ms work well, and as you’ll see, the kids love to model with them) in an opaque container.
- Now individuals with 2 recessive genes have a potentially lethal phenotype that may kill them before they have a chance to reproduce. - Take out 8 of the White M&Ms and eat them.
- Mix up the remaining M&Ms and then, without looking, remove them in pairs. As you remove them, log each pair in the correct column of the chart
until all of the M&Ms have been pulled. These pairs are the parents of the next generation.
- Now record the number of parent pairs for each combination in the second column of the data table
Using the Punnett square predictions calculate the expected number of each type of offspring - columns 3, 4, and 5. Add up each of those columns for the composition of the next generation. (You can ignore the 4 spaces on the bottom, they were to be able to answer questions from the lab book.)
- Begin generation 2. Take each of your totals and put that number of Red, Pink, and White M&Ms into your container.
- Assume that half of the White M&Ms die without reproducing - take them out and eat them.
- And so on…..
When we did it, you could see the population start to clearly shift by the 3rd generation, but we ran out of M&Ms to be able to model the next generation. (We would have needed - 176 Red, 160 Pink, and 44 White.)
And, of course, when we were done the kids got to eat all of the M&Ms.
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Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 5:43 pm by Meg
I AM NOT A LESBIAN, AND I WILL CONTINUE TO PROTEST AND RESIST THE PEARLS AND THEIR TEACHINGS.
Just trying to have fun with anyone searching.
Read this for the full story.
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Posted in Co-op class, The creative side of life at 5:29 pm by Meg
Hubby helped me decide on the theme for the third Map Club. He thought the kids would enjoy learning about non-Euclidean geometry and studying Taxicab geometry. It looked really fun, but at first I wasn’t sure how I was going to develop sessions at all three levels. It took a little playing with, but I finally came up with a structure for the classes.
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The pages’ abilities are all over the place. I decided before I could even introduce them to coordinate systems, I needed to work in one dimension. In fact, I ended up deciding their class goal would only be to introduce the girls to a coordinate system.
So we started off with a number line (I printed them each out a numbered strip) from 1 to 20. Our guessing game focused on the terms ‘greater than’ and ‘less than’. The person who was ‘it’ would chose a number and then we’d go around trying to guess what it was. After each guess, she’d tell us whether her number was greater or less than the guess. The girls enjoyed it and it gave them some idea of order and location.
From there I explained who Rene Descartes was and that he is credited with developing the Cartesian coordinate system. Earlier in the morning a couple of the older boys had drawn a large grid on the driveway and using it as a visual, I explained that each line represented the same distance.
We then used the grid to play an oversized version of Animal Crossing 
from Stenmark, Thompson, and Cossey’s book Family Math.
We first played it without any walls, so they could understand the what they were trying to do and then I drew in the walls and they played again until we ran out of time.
The idea of the game is that you roll a die that just has the numbers 1, 2, or 3 and then move in a straight line that number of spaces. When you run into a wall, you need to stop moving and then on your next turn change direction to continue on your way. The goal is to reach the opposite side.
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For the knights, I started with Descartes’s quote “I think, therefore I am.” and asked them what they thought it meant. After a short discussion, I explained he was a French philosopher and a mathematician (and even a lawyer) and that unlike today when we tend to think of these as separate areas, during the Renaissance period people would be interested in a board range of ideas.
We then went over the grid (which I had now added labels to the axis) and we discussed it’s 3 characteristics: origin, perpendicular axis, and a scale for measuring distance. We also went over how to name a point (x,y).
To use the grid, we first played another game from Family Math called Hurkle. For this game, whoever is ‘it’ chooses a point and then when another player guesses, they have to tell them what direction their point is from the guess (north, west, northeast…). The kids quickly figured out that by having everyone stand on the point they chose helped narrow down where the next choice should go.
After playing that for long enough for each kid to be ‘it’ once, I discussed that on typical grids the distance from two points is a straight line. But that wouldn’t work for a taxi in a city unless it could fly like a bird, so I explained how taxicab distances are measured. We then went around again, but this time instead of indicating direction, the person who was ‘it’ would give the taxicab distance to their chosen spot.
To finish coordinate systems we ended with a discussion of 3 dimensional systems that are used in ‘real’ life. They came up with examples from GPS systems to aircraft systems.
Since we had a few minutes left, I gave them another puzzle dealing with movement. The Konigsberg Bridges problem was solved by Euler (or actually not), but it kept them busy for their last 5 mins.
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By the time of the squires’ class it was getting hot. I think it actually hit close to 90 and we were in the sun. It definitely had me dragging a little.
But we jumped in with Descartes’s quote and why a Renaissance philosopher was also a mathematician. I started by introducing them to the grid by playing Animal Crossing and then we discussed the Cartesian coordinate system and how to name points. From there we played Hurkle, had a similar discussion about measuring distance, and then played taxicab.
And with that, their class was over.
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09.28.07
Posted in Meme at 6:51 pm by Meg
I haven’t done a meme in such a long time and this one of Carrie’s looks fun.
Rock Star Name (first pet & current car):
Candy Sienna
Gangsta Name (fave ice cream flavor & fave cookie):
Oreo Cookie Yankee Snickerdoodle
Fly guy/girl name (first initial of first name & first three letters of last name):
Mlea
Detective name (favorite color & favorite animal):
Blue Horse
Soap Opera Name (middle name & city where you were born):
Ellen Cleveland Heights
Star Wars Name (first three letters of last name & first two of first name):
Leama
Superhero Name (”The” + second favorite color + favorite drink):
The Purple Coke
Nascar Name (first names of both grandfathers):
William Samuel
Witness Protection Name (mother’s and father’s middle names):
My mom dropped her middle name (which was a family name) when she got married and took her maiden name as her middle name, so I’m not sure which to use. - McClay Leonard
TV Weatherperson/Anchorperson Name (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name & a major city that starts with the same letter):
I have no feaking idea!
Spy Name/Bond Girl (favorite season/holiday & favorite flower):
Christmas Rose
Cartoon Name (favorite fruit & article of clothing you’re wearing plus “y” or “ie”):
Apple Jeannie
Hippy Name (what you ate for breakfast & your favorite tree):
Bagel Maple
Rockstar Tour Name (”The” + your favorite hobby/craft, favorite weather element + “tour”):
The Leather Storm Tour
Anyone else?
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09.24.07
Posted in Co-op class, The nuts and bolts of it at 9:45 am by Meg
When the first class ended, I had no idea what the next class would entail. It was some point over the weekend before I finally figured out an idea.
Since we covered counting, we could look at measurement. I quickly settled on only focusing on measuring length.
As I worked out different activities, I quickly decided that this would be an outside class. (And believe me, I was watching the weather report for any chance of rain.)
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My classes ran in the same order, so I started with the pages. I started by asking them what we can measure and it was like pulling teeth to finally get one to respond with ‘a rock.’
Okay, ‘what can we measure about a rock?’ After some nudging and guiding we touched on mass, volume, and length.
Then I approached how we might start working on a common unit. I had them line themselves up by height and we talked about how comparison was fine, as long as everyone was together. From there we went into some history of units, ending on feet.
So, we first all lined up and counted out 10 heel/toe feet across the driveway to see how they all varied.
Our next activity was to trace and cut out everyone’s foot so they would each have a ‘foot ruler’ to measure with and we measured each other’s height and then the width of the driveway.
So we discussed the need for standardization and the fact that most towns would post how long a ‘foot’ was for their town. Which then expanded into national standardization and the stories about Henry I setting them.
Lastly, we talked about measuring longer lengths. I took an exercise from my college level survey class years ago and had them count paces between two stakes set 100 feet apart. We then roughly calculated their pace length and used that to measure the width of the driveway.
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My oldest class, the knights, was next.
We started by discussing the history of units used for measuring.
How the body was the basis of small units. The inch was the width of a thumb or between two joints on the pointer finger, and was set at 3 barleycorns (pre 1066 England). The foot was either a natural foot (shoe included), 36 barleycorns, or set by the Romans as 12 inches. And we touched on digits (width of a finger, .75 inches), palm (3 inches), hand (4 inches), shaftment ( a palm with the thumb at a right angle to the pointer finger, 6 inches), span (fingers outstretched, 9 inches), cubit, yard, and fathom.
That the mile was a 1000 paces of a Roman legion (which was 2 paces by our standards).
We then did the same pacing exercise as the first class, but used the result to measure the length of the driveway.
From there we discussed how we might measure longer distances and I introduced how surveying was done a generation ago using transits and poles. While I couldn’t borrow a transit from the local engineering college, I did find this fun little exercise for them to try.
From there we talked about chains and rods and how their length was set by the mile.
And I split them into 3 groups. Two groups each had a 9 foot chain. (a real chain is 66 ft., but I didn’t want them to have to deal with so much, let alone have to buy that much for the class), the other group had a modern chain, or measuring tape. 
I then gave each group a sketch of the property and asked them to measure distances. They spent the remaining time surveying the property.
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As before, my last group gets a blend of activities from the first two classes.
They started with the ‘What can we measure?’ question (with much better results) and we compared heights, made ‘foot rulers’ and measured the width of the driveway with them.
We discussed some of the history, hitting on points closer to the details of the older class, but not as complete.
They then did the pacing exercise and paced the length of the driveway. We followed with the thumb trick and discussed using chains.
Lastly, I split them into two groups and they used the chains to measure the length of the driveway.
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