This year we have been participating in a group called Classical Conversations. It has been quite the change from the unschooling we've been doing the last two years or so. But it has been good. The big project for Annie this year was a science fair. She and I tackled it together. We made a ton of mistakes, and I think it was those mistakes that taught us the most about science!
Clickbait title cred: Aaron Dennis
One of our big mistakes, which Annie had a brain wave about at 3 am, was that we had an extra variable! Classic mistake, but one that you really learn if you learn from your own sad experience. Also, we learned how to grow bacteria on petri dishes. And it was fun! The seed germinating mat was the key. Further knowledge included the fact that your phone maybe isn't actually that dirty. When we first took samples from the phone, we couldn't get any bacteria to grow. We ended up spraying the phone with a bacterial solution and then testing our cleaning products.
The best and most useful thing we learned from this project was how to make homemade bacterial solution. Here is our special recipe:
1 dirty dishrag
1 spray bottle
1 tsp of human saliva
tap water
Annie got the dirty dishrag wet. Then she squeezed the dishrag and collected that dirty water into a spray bottle. Then she spit into the bottle. Repeatedly. She might have gotten a little carried away. Then she shook that up and sprayed it on her phone. Voila!
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