kids and science
jstemwedel | July 30, 2010Younger offspring: Mom? I have a question.
Dr. Free-Ride: OK.
Younger offspring: If I got up really early --
Dr. Free-Ride: I hope you won't.
Younger offspring: No, I won't, but if I got up really early, way before it's time to wake up, like, midnight, and I tried to open my eyes and wake up, would I not be able to because my nerves are tired?
Dr. Free-Ride: Hmmm.
Younger offspring: Because I think if I decided to wake up at midnight I wouldn't be able to. I won't be able to open my eyes or get out of bed.
Dr. Free-Ride: I think you might be right about that. If your body needs sleep, it…
jstemwedel | July 23, 2010Driving home with the Free-Ride offspring yesterday, we heard a story on the radio that caught out attention. (The radio story discusses newly published research that's featured on the cover of Nature this week.) When we got home, we had a chat about it.
Dr. Free-Ride: What did you guys learn from that story on the radio about the yellow-bellied marmot?
Elder offspring: That, in the short term, climate change is good for some species.
Dr. Free-Ride: Tell me more about that.
Elder offspring: Well, it made the marmots increase in size and numbers.
Elder offspring: I was going to say that!
.…
jstemwedel | July 16, 2010Dr. Free-Ride: I know you have some views, maybe, or questions, or something, about the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations about children, adolescents, and television. Although it's not actually just television, it's other screens, too. So, first off, can I get your general reaction to the fact that your pediatrician even has a view about what you should be doing with respect to screen time?
Elder offspring: (Piteous wailing.)
Dr. Free-Ride: That's rather inarticulate.
Elder offspring: (Poses like the figure in "The Scream")
Dr. Free-Ride: While this shows that you've been…
jstemwedel | July 15, 2010I've been busy in the three-dimensional world, where I am in the middle of committing an unnatural act for an academic: writing out every word of a lecture. (As weird as it is, it makes the video production of that lecture easier -- more about that in the fullness of time.) In between such unnatural acts, however, I've been schlepping the sprogs to their summertime activities.
Today, during one such schlep, the following exchange occurred.
Younger offspring: If I walk in the shady parts instead of the sunny parts, bees and wasps won't try to sting me.
Dr. Free-Ride: Oh. So, you think bees…
jstemwedel | July 9, 2010Regular readers will recall that this is not the first time the Free-Ride family has discussed skepticism and trust.
Dr. Free-Ride: You two are both exploring the internet more lately, and you know that one of the things people use the internet for is to sell you stuff, right?
Younger offspring: Yeah.
Elder offspring: Yeah.
Dr. Free-Ride: So how do you tell if the people selling you stuff are telling the truth about what they're selling?
Elder offspring: Rave reviews about the item.
Dr. Free-Ride: Rave reviews about the item from whom?
Elder offspring: From ... people who bought the item.
Dr…
jstemwedel | July 2, 2010Last week, I noted that the Free-Ride offspring are off kicking it with The Grandparents Who Lurk But Seldom Comment, and that, to ensure that you would not have to endure a Friday without a Sprog Blog, I gave each of the sprogs a book to read during their visit with their grandparents and asked them to report back on their books via email. At the conclusion of the elder Free-Ride offspring's book report, emailed to me last Thursday night, I wrote:
Major props to the elder offspring for doing blog-homework without any prodding. This sets the bar pretty high for the younger offspring next…
jstemwedel | June 25, 2010The Free-Ride offspring are currently summering (for a couple weeks, anyway) with The Grandparents Who Lurk But Seldom Comment. Practically, this means the conversations between Free-Ride offspring and parents over the past week have been brief and focused on how awesome day camp is.
I have, however, taken steps to ensure that while I am deprived of the physical presence of my offspring, you will not be deprived of the weekly installment of sprog blogging. To this end, I gave each of the sprogs a book to read during their visit with their grandparents and asked them to report back on their…
jstemwedel | June 18, 2010Dr. Free-Ride: Do you remember what [Dr. Free-Ride's better half] said we were going to do at some point this summer? Using the machine in our garage that Uncle Fishy and RMD left for us?
Younger offspring: That ice cream machine?
Dr. Free-Ride: Yeah.
Younger offspring: Oh, I love that!
Dr. Free-Ride: Well, what are we going to do with it?
Younger offspring: Make ice cream.
Dr. Free-Ride: Do you know how making ice cream works? Or can you tell me your theory about what's involved in making ice cream?
Younger offspring: Well, I think there's, like, this thing ... in the machine, you put ice…
jstemwedel | June 11, 2010Dr. Free-Ride: What was it we were going to talk about today?
Elder offspring: The axolotl.
Dr. Free-Ride: Can you please spell that?
Elder offspring: A-X-O-L-O- ... wait. A-X-O-T-O-L. Wait! A-X-O-L-O-T-O-L. I think.
Dr. Free-Ride: Hmm. I shall do some checking on the spelling. And what is it?
Elder offspring: It's a salamander that has achieved eternal youth!
Dr. Free-Ride: Eternal youth?
Elder offspring: At least, youth for the rest of its life.
Dr. Free-Ride: Um, I guess that's eternal enough for that individual. So what does it mean for a salamander to achieve eternal youth? Does…
jstemwedel | June 4, 2010It's June already, and we still have not finalized summer plans for the Free-Ride offspring. (Hey, my semester just ended, and it was only yesterday that I wrapped up the Large Administrative Task That Shall Not Be Named Now That It's Finally Done. I've been a little distracted.)
Anyway, given that we're at the stage of summer planning where there are a lot of ideas still on the table, I decided to ask the Free-Ride offspring to muse on any science-y aspects of the possible summer activities they are considering.
Here's the younger Free-Ride offspring's list:
Sailing lessons.
We might want…
jstemwedel | May 28, 2010Jet-lag and grading fatigue (plus being on the other coast for three days) mean that I haven't had much time lately to sit down with the sprogs and have a conversation about science. However, Casa Free-Ride presents me with clues which suggest that the Free-Ride offspring have been thinking about science.
The younger Free-Ride offspring's backpack, for example, yielded a water quality report:
The dry-erase calendar on the door between the kitchen and garage still retains visual aids from a conversation Dr. Free-Ride's better half seems to have had with the sprogs about genetics:
And, on…
jstemwedel | May 21, 2010The Free-Ride offspring have been wary of extended conversations with me lately (maybe since most of them eventually come around to, "Surely you'd like to help your mother grade these papers!"). However, I was able to extract some pictorial evidence that each of them has been thinking about science.
From the younger Free-Ride offspring, some basic things you ought to know about phases of matter:
Also worthy of note: vocabulary from the most recent science unit was included with this week's spelling words. (Hurray for viscosity!)
Sure, we haven't yet integrated the discussion about…
jstemwedel | May 14, 2010The Free-Ride offspring are pretty sure what I do for a living is grade papers. But seeing as how they're both students, I thought I'd ask what the view of things is like on the other side of the red pen.
Dr. Free-Ride: When you come in and find me working on the weekend, what am I usually working on?
Younger offspring: Grading?
Dr. Free-Ride: Yeah. I know that you do a lot of homework and assignments.
Younger offspring: Mmm-hmm.
Dr. Free-Ride: And your teacher grades them.
Younger offspring: No! We correct them together.
Dr. Free-Ride: You correct it all together?
Younger offspring: Yeah…
jstemwedel | May 7, 2010This week, the Free-Ride family welcomed a new member.
Snowflake Free-Ride (who also goes by Notorious B.U.N.) is a 9-month old New Zealand White rabbit who we adopted on Tuesday. She is cute, fluffy, and big (nearly 5 kg). And, she seems to be adjusting to life at Casa Free-Ride.
Indeed, Snowflake has her own casita in the back yard. (I was pleased that I managed to assemble it without smashing my finger more than once.) It's hard to know how Snowflake feels about the scent of jasmine wafting into her hutch, but she has shown a fondness for both lemon balm and lemon thyme.
As well,…
jstemwedel | April 30, 2010
Despite the crush of the closing weeks of the semester, I found a little time to follow the conversation about whether Earthicans ought to welcome a meeting with whatever extraterrestrial life might be out there to meet us, or whether we'd be better off hiding under the bed.
Although the Free-Ride offspring have not followed the point and counterpoint on the best alien life action plan, they're generally more enthusiastic futurists than I am. So, I asked them to dig deep into their imaginations and give us their visions of first contact.
It should surprise no one that the elder and younger…
jstemwedel | April 23, 2010Dr. Free-Ride: So, you know how sometimes you have nightmares?
Younger Offspring: Yeah.
Dr. Free-Ride: I had a nightmare the other night.*
Younger Offspring: What was it?
Dr. Free-Ride: Well, I was supposed to be picking up snakes with two sticks and moving them from one place to another.
Younger Offspring: Why?
Dr. Free-Ride: I don't know why. It was one of those dreams where, in the middle of it, you really don't know why it is like it is, but you just go with it. But anyway, it was fine until I realized that one of the snakes that I had to pick up was a cobra.
Younger Offspring: Yikes!…
jstemwedel | April 16, 2010Dr. Free-Ride: So, you went on a field trip today to a lagoon.
Younger offspring: Yeah, I went to [Name redacted] Creek and [Name redacted] Lagoon.
Dr. Free-Ride: You know, I'm going to redact the names to protect your privacy. Tell me what you saw on your field trip that was interesting.
Younger offspring: I saw a lot of things on the field trip. Some I didn't know what they were called. I saw caterpillars, dandelions, cattails, and I have in my pocket some cattail leaves and some tules.
Dr. Free-Ride: So you do.
Younger offspring: (consulting notes made during the field trip in a…
jstemwedel | April 9, 2010The Free-Ride offspring have been enjoying their Spring Break visiting with the Grandparents Who Lurk But Seldom Comment. The night before they left, however, the younger Free-Ride offspring awoke in the wee hours because of a bad dream.
As we all know from the peer reviewed literature on the subject, the best treatment for that is to climb into bed with one's mother, stealing all the covers as one falls back asleep.
Before all the covers were stolen, the younger Free-Ride offspring generated a list of questions for further research:
After I wake up from a bad dream, I'm afraid to fall…
jstemwedel | April 2, 2010Unlike some of my dear readers, the elder Free-Ride offspring, upon reading yesterday's post, immediately recognized it as an April Fool's Day joke. (This recognition was accompanied by only the barest hint of a smile. A mother's fine, dry wit is, apparently, an acquired taste.)
Although that post was bogus, some of its content seemed worth discussing.
Dr. Free-Ride: Do you know what peer review is?
Elder offspring: No.
Dr. Free-Ride: Do you have a guess? Do you know what a "peer" is?
Elder offspring: Yes, a friend, or anyone you work with.
Dr. Free-Ride: OK, and do you know what "review"…
jstemwedel | April 1, 2010Observant readers will have noticed that three of my last four posts -- the ones sporting the spiffy Research Blogging icon -- were posts discussing peer-reviewed journal articles. This is a substantially higher proportion of writing about the details of scholarly research than I normally feature on this blog.
But I think I've developed a taste for it.
Thus, going forward, I've decided (for the foreseeable future, anyway) to stick to discussions of scholarly research and to set aside freewheeling musings on current events, answers to emailed requests for advice, passing observations of…