Human Anatomy

The Education Girlz reviewed their human anatomy

 by putting together a life-sized human puzzle. 

This puzzle is two sided:
side one includes the organs and veins, and side two is the skeletal structure.

Our puzzle turns out to be only three feet long!

The brain and torso are complete. Now for the legs.

This is not their first educational puzzle.
The girls have also completed a puzzle on the Periodic Table of Elements.

Colors and Culture

Where did the Native Americans come from? One theory is that they followed game over the ice bridge, now the Bering Strait, 15,000 years ago. These tribes have their own creation myths and trickster tales. One such trickster is the Raven who stole the sun to bring people light. After reading the Caldecott award winning book Raven, by Gerald McDermott, the girls studied the meaning of colors in various cultures like Kenya, China, Mexico, and the Navajo nation.

Did you know that in Kenya blue represents the Indian Ocean, but in Navajo culture blue represents blue corn? Similarly China uses red to express joy and good luck, yet the Navajo think of the Red Ant People.

After researching many cultures and colors, the girls began to fill in their ravens with colors and designs at their weekly art lesson with Mrs. Henry.

The ravens will be cut out and attached to a background to give this trickster depth.

Now the Ravens are free to fly!

P.E.

Just in case you were wondering what the Education Girlz do for P.E., 

here is a sampling:

Snorking

Swimming

Surfing

More surfing

Bowling

Tree climbing

Hiking

Sky cycling

Camel riding

Abstract Art

Wassily Kandisky lived from 1866 to 1944 and  is known as the "Father of Abstract Art". He said that he heard music when he saw color, so we spent this lesson painting to classical music. Believing that art should have tones and expression, Kandisky experimented with lines and shapes. The Education Girlz followed Kandisky in his journey by first reducing their art to lines: straight, wavy, thick, thin, arching, branching, and zigzag. 

Experimenting with black lines.

Learning about the color wheel and mixing colors with Mrs. Henry.

Lauren begins to add color to her black lines for composition and balance.

Samantha adds color.

After a week, Samantha evaluates her piece and contemplates possible additions.

Kandisky slideshow set to music

Masterpieces!

Squid Dissection

The "before" picture

Today at the Arizona Science Center we dissected a squid. Squids live in the ocean and are related to cuttlefish and octopus. They swim backwards using jets of water and can attain speeds of up to 20 miles per hour. They have 8 short arms and 2 long tentacles which have suckers and teeth. They even have teeth on their tongues! They also have 3 hearts and blue blood. Their blood is blue because it contains copper instead of iron like humans. Squids use black ink to hide from predators like seals and large fish.


http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/efc/efc_mbari/mbari_video.aspx This stunning footage of deep-sea squids comes from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), where researchers use remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to observe and record deep-sea animal behaviors.

Ready to dissect!

Notice how the 2 tentacles are longer than the 8 arms?

After the girls removed the beak from between the 8 arms, they used a microscope that projected the image onto the overhead computer screen to observe the tongue and its many rows of teeth.

Some of the squid parts:
eye, lens, beak, kidney, heart, sperm, brain, gill, funnel, ink sac.

Team work

S

The "after" picture




Watch a video here:

Giant squid dissection by a scientist