Explore with FractalMom: Water Drops, Oceans, Planets and Galaxies
Karen Fisher Favret the FractalMom
Rising Star
Average rating:4.7Number of reviews:(177)
Explore the scales of the Universe, from inside a water droplet to whole galaxies.
Class experience
US Grade Kindergarten - 3
Designed to encourage learners to explore their own world, outside and inside, this class will combine simple experiments, local observation, and optional Citizen Science opportunities helping classify galaxies on Galaxy Zoo, or observing local biodiversity on iNaturalist. We will see how many water droplets will fit on a penny, calculate how many tiny plant plankton would fit in each drop of water, figure out how deep the oceans are compared to our street, across town, or maybe beyond, and...
I am an Oceangrapher-Mom who switched to soundscape ecology when my kids were young and we moved to Montreal. My kids and I started recording with a hydrophone in the lake and a recorder on a floating dock at the University of Montreal's Biological research station, and kept on listening in our backyard and the roof of their school. I have worked with marine biologists, fishermen, fisheries managers, ship captains, environmentalists, and all sorts of oceanographers (physical, chemical, biological, geological). As a team, we have looked at how plankton dynamics are affected by ocean currents, how fisheries respond to climactic changes in circulation, and how whales and dolphins respond to our research efforts in their homes. I am teaching these classes because the world needs citizen scientists who can think critically about how our world is changing, and find new ways to communicate, innovate, and compensate.
Handouts will be provided to allow students to follow the experiments, demonstrations, or data analysis that we do in class. For learners to do the basic physics experiments at home, they will need (depending on the week) two empty spaghetti-sauce sized jars, tap water (warm and cold), ice cubes, salt, and liquid food coloring (usually found in four packs in the baking aisle at supermarkets) some pennies or dimes, and a small eyedropper/pipette for making water droplets. For scaling the solar system, we will need: 1 basketball sized ball (Sun), 3 pinhead-sized planets (Mercury, Venus, Pluto, I usually use the little round multi-colored sprinkle candies from the baking aisle), 2 whole peppercorns (Earth and Mars), and three regular-sized marshmallows (1 for Jupiter, 1 squished small for Saturn, and one broken in halves for Uranus and Neptune).
In addition to the Outschool classroom, this class uses:
I will encourage learners to think critically, and get involved in Citizen Science to increase our understanding of how our world works!
Rising Star
Average rating:4.7Number of reviews:(177)
My goal is to bring as many new observers into the growing global network of Citizen Scientists as possible! I have a PhD from Cornell, am a visiting scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), have done forensics on hostage videos...
Group Class
$12
weekly1x per week
45 min
Completed by 587 learners
Live video meetings
Ages: 5-9
3-9 learners per class
