Rubber Bones-Science Fair

What happens to your bones when you don't get the proper nutrition? Well, they may become as soft as rubber as demonstrated by B's science experiment. In his Science Fair experiment he did some research on nutrition. Then he found an procedure to soften chicken bones. In the experiment he had to place a bone in a jar and cover it in vinegar. Next it was just a waiting game. Everyday he left the bone in the vinegar it got bendier. The calcium was slowly broken down. After about 2.5 weeks  he was able to bend the bone like a piece of rubber.

What is nutrition and why is it important?

It is how our bodies use the food that we eat. It is like the building blocks of our bodies. If we don’t get the right nutrients our bodies need they will get sick, and our bones can get week.

How do we get the right nutrients?

The Canadian Food Guide is one way to help you figure out what you need to eat, and how much.  It depends on your age and gender on what you should eat, but the most important food group we can consume is the fruit and vegetable. They can give us the widest variety of minerals and vitamins our bodies need to function properly.  

For example:

If you are a 35 year old woman you should aim to have:

• 7-8 vegetables and fruit
• 6-7 grain products
• 2 milk and alternatives
• 2 meat and alternatives
• 30 - 45 mL (2 to 3 Tbsp) of unsaturated oils and fats

Malnutrition

When our bodies don’t get the right balance of minerals and vitamins we can get sick and our bones can get weak. Just because we have enough food to eat doesn’t mean we are nourished. If we have weak bones they can break easily. If we fall down the chances of breaking a bone is greater if we are malnourished.  Malnourishment can come from eating the wrong foods, and the wrong amounts of food. 

Rubber Bones

In order to show what can happen to our bones if we done take care of them by eating the proper foods I have done an experiment that breaks down the calcium in bone.  

Procedure:

I placed a chicken bone in jar and poured enough vinegar in the jar to cover the bone.

Observation: 

After a few days the ends of the bone started to soften. After a few more days the entire bone was soft enough to bend.

Conclusion:

I learned that we need to be careful of the foods we put in our bodies, so we can keep them healthy and strong.

Why Wetlands? 

By 

Mr.B

What is wet, soggy, a great habitat, and worth protecting? Wetlands, thats what. Wetlands are wet, soggy, and a great habitat for animals and insects. Some species of animals like  the wood duck, can’t live without wetlands.                                                                                                   Wetlands are the area between land and water. Some wetlands hold water temporarily while others hold water permanently . There are different types of wetlands such as swamps, marshes and bogs. Antarctica is the one place on the planet where you will not find even one wetland.   

The Arctic has swamps , marshes and bogs. The Cost line has many different types of wetlands such as man grove forest, cost swamps and tidal marshes. Island regions have ponds, marshes, swaps, vernal pools and riparian systems. 

        Wetlands help humans as well as animals.  They have many functions such as preventing flooding, filtering water, and provide a buffet of food for the  animals that live there.  If we destroy the wetlands many species of animals may become endangered or extinct.  

I believe that wetlands are very important, and I hope you will  help protect them.  Not only do they benefit wild life, but mankind as well.

Kub Kar Time Again

It was his last year for Kub Kar racing. The last 2 years his cars have been fun for him to make and they have looked awesome, but didn't perform very well on the track. Our neighbour helped him cut it out this year. His "car" was in the shape of a skate board, and it did awesome on the track. He we one excited boy. He won lots of races and got 2nd place over all. 

Building a Community

Mr. W was learning about communities this year in Social Studies. After taking all he learned about communities and putting it all together, he made his own community. It looks like a beautiful place to live, and I would be excited to live there. It has all the amenities of the city, yet the feel of a small town. It has it all!

Turn Up the Music

My little dancers were wonderful this year. They have had so much fun learning the step and practicing for hours to get it just right. I have see their dances many, many times, but to see it performed in costumes and on stage with the rest of their class mates, makes it magical.

Color Fun

As part of our Color Unit is science we dyed Easter Egg.  I would normally make up different colors of dye for the kids to use, but this time I only made the primary colors, and the they had to guess what combinations they need to make up the secondary colors that they wanted. We had a few not so pretty colors come out out, but for the most part thongs worked out quite well.

Building

Science experiment, or snack time? Maybe a bit of both. In order to test if triangles are a stronger more sturdy structure than squares we built a tower out of squares using marshmallows and tooth picks.  The structure we constructed wasn't very sturdy, and twisted easily. We didn't get it to stand up.  Then we took spaghetti and reimbursed the square shaped tower, and made it into triangle shapes. The tower was strengthened and we were able to stand it up and hold a toy car on top.
Our conclusion was that triangles are indeed a stronger structure than squares.