Now that my daughter is in the 9th grade, she is studying Biology I for her science studies with Dr. Jay Wile.
According to his wonderful textbook, it was time to collect microorganisms in a pond to study under a microscope.
Looking on a map for the nearest pond to our Texas house, since we are usually in drought mode in Texas, I discovered a pond in the in the neighborhood behind ours.
Thus, we packed our supplies to become scientists.
Even though my younger son had recently started studying Dr. Wile’s General Science course, he was quite happy to assist his sister in this fun pond experiment!
When the kids expressed concerns about falling into the pond, I started quoting Magic Schoolbus:
Take chances, make mistakes, get messy, never say never! – Mrs. Frizzle
I knew I should have stayed home today. – Arnold
According to my research… – Dorothy Anne, aka DA (my favorite)
Meanwhile, the ducks had a grand time watching.
After collecting the water, my daughter observed it under the microscope.
Then she filled several clean jars with the pond water and various mediums of common food around the house, like egg yolk.
After a few days she observed each of the samples under the microscope again, and then again in about a week, to see how they had grown.
EPILOGUE 2010
Two years later we are living in Virginia, in a neighborhood that has a stream that flows through the woods below our house.
Now my son was taking Biology I and it was his turn to do the experiment.
About the time he was gathering supplies it started raining and raining and raining.
We had a gully-washer of rain from the tropical storm that had descended upon us.
Upset, my son agonized that the massive amount of rain had surely flooded the stream, diluting the microorganisms.
Had we known the storm was coming, we could have been true scientists and taken samples before and after to compare.
Trying to assure him that his samples might not be useless, he didn’t believe me.
Again, the three of us packed our supplies to become scientists, walking through our neighborhood to the wooded trail to see what we could find.
Since we arrived at the stream at dusk, it was too dark in the woods for photos.
Nevertheless, my son had a blast strategically collecting samples in the higher water levels where the water was the most still.
This time, I was the one who worried about him falling in, but the stream wasn’t that deep where he was collecting.
When he observed the water under the microscope, he was surprised at the life that abounded in the water!
Thankfully, the experiment was not a wash!
And how interesting that we learned so much from the same experiment performed in two parts of the country, in different types of body of water, with different amounts of rain/sun.
