Science At Home and In My Neighborhood



Moth flittering around the garden


Having students discover what science is around us is a fairly easy task. All you have to do is take your students outside and 'discover'. Living organisms, wild life and plant life are several of the topics covered under earth science. Students begin to observe, investigate, question and record their findings. These pictures are records of my investigations into discovering what science is around us.

I know that I was excited when I found this moth fluttering around my front garden. It took me several pictures of it flying from flower to flower before I got some really great pictures of what it was actually doing. 



Moth drinking nectar 



This moth was drinking the nectar from the small flowers that grow in my garden. It made me wonder if moths and butterflies prefer certain flowers over other ones.  

As my husband and I planted Jack Bean plants from seed and watched them grow, it reminded me of the science projects in school where the whole class grew a plant from a seed and graphed the plants, as well as learning about how plants need sunlight and water to grow.



Small Jack Bean Plant



Large Jack Bean Plant



For  my next picture, I was determined to get a picture of one of the many bees that buzz around my Russian Sage. In the process of chasing several bees around the flowers, my youngest came home and asked me what I was doing. I explained about the blog we had to do for our science class and he began to observe the bees as well.  (He also told me to be careful- I might get stung.) As I tried to capture a bee on my camera, my youngest began to ask questions about the bees. We both also observed a spider's web and that a poor unfortunate bee had been caught by a fuzzy black spider. Yuck!  I then explained that science is all around us-not just at school and in a textbook. A hands on minds on approach is definitely more fun than just reading about it.


Success at last!