10th Grader's Amazing Butterfly Photography

 Pictures taken from a pollinator garden at a local college.  If you click on the picture, it should enlarge.

More Plant Identification/Nature Study

 For biology, we are familiarizing ourselves with different species of local plants.  Here are some books we checked out from the library:

• Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities
• Wildflowers of Texas (Adventure Quick Guides)
• Foraging Texas (Falcon Guides) - this book is very interesting
• Trees of North America (National Audubon Society)

We took a trip to a local college with edible plants and a pollinator garden.  Here's some pictures.

Buffalo Melon (gourd) - this plant was used by Native Americans.  They would roast the seeds and eat them, similar to pumpkin seeds.  They would also make a tea from the root.  This plant grows in semiarid environments.  https://www.foragingtexas.com/2012/09/buffalo-gourd.html

Silverleaf Nightshade.  One of the most dangerous plants in Texas, according to Foraging Texas.

https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=soel

These are butterflies flying around the pollinator garden.  The flowers are Fall Aster.   https://austinnativelandscaping.com/plant/symphyotrichum-oblongifolium-fall-aster-aromatic-aster/

Zinnia, I think.

Mealy Blue Sage.  Important plant for pollinators.  

https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=safa2

More butterflies.  We spotted monarch butterflies in this garden.

Wild garlic.  https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=alca3

Standing Cypress.  https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=ipru2

Passionflower with a caterpillar, I think.  https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=pain6

Manmade Debris Orbiting the Earth

 For astronomy, we bought the premium version of the SkyView app. 

 https://www.space.com/skyview-review

Just the free version of this app is pretty incredible.  When we looked at the premium version, we could see so many weird objects orbiting the Earth - old rocket launches from the 80s, decrepit satellites, old Russian spacecraft....

I found this article from NASA "Space Debris and Human Spacecraft."    There's about 27,000 large pieces of space trash orbiting the Earth, some of it traveling at speeds of up to 15,700 miles per hour.  It's actually a hazard to the International Space Station and any spacecraft that launches.  The article said even paint flecks traveling at that speed can damage ISS or spacecraft.  

Reading the article, it says there are about half a million objects the size of a marble (or bigger).

PlantSnap - plant ID app

 I just downloaded PlantSnap, an app for plant identification.  Here's the link: https://www.plantsnap.com

The app was free.  I went outside and took a picture of a plant.  The app has you move the image and expand it into a box, then it tells you what the plant is.  It gave me the common name, scientific name, a description, some of its classification (kingdom, division) and then there are options to learn more about the plant from tutorials on PlantSnap's Youtube channel.  Near the description of the plant, you click on the three vertical dots, click "watch tutorials" and it takes you to the videos of that plant species.  

There is an option for a premium version.

Plant Identification Lab

 Today, we went to the park and chose several plants to identify.  I brought along the book Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification.

We also used the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center website.   It has a native plants database put together by University of Texas at Austin.

We were able to identify Texas Frogfruit: https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=PHNO2

Also, a member of the Aster family, which I think was Symphotrichum sericeum. (I could be wrong)

The 10th Grader sketched the flowers in her biology notebook and labeled them.

Homeschool Day 10/17

 2nd Grader

• He did all of his Sonlight reading
• He just couldn't stop playing and riding his bike, so not much got done

10th Grader

Math

• Mathusee Geometry

Bible

• Daily Bible reading (finishing up 2 Kings)

Easy Grammar 10th Grade Ultimate workbook - she says this book is helping a lot

Astronomy

• Smithsonian's The Planets

Fine Arts

• She played classical guitar for a couple of hours
• Ballet class (outsourced)

Foreign Language 

• DuoLingo Korean

Bookshark J History of Science (history and literature)

• The Clockwork Universe
• Ethics in experimentation
• Galileo's trial
• The Westing Game (read-aloud)
• The Giver

I'm Reading *Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom*

 Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom by Kerry McDonald.

I just started reading this last week.  Good read!  I already agree with the fundamentals of unschooling, even though we have always leaned towards unit study homeschooling.  I'm only about halfway through the book at this point, but it's been an enjoyable read.

The comments on goodreads.com are worth browsing.  The second half of the book appears to spend a lot of time talking about unschooling outside the home and institutions like the Sudbury schools, which feels like a hypocritical topic, considering it's a book about unschooling.  I may skim those sections.

Our library had the book, so it was definitely worth it for me to give the book a chance.