Biology for Kids?

Question

He's 8 years old and homeschooled. Very bright for his age and likes doing active things. I babysit for him and his parents asked if I can do a few biology things for him. My old HS biology teacher suggested the old DNA from the onion experiment. Do you know any SPECIFIC (not links) things that work well and teach a good lesson that is understandable? I'll look into the ones I like, so please provide me ideas/names of experiments, not links.

Thanks.

Answer 1

8 years old would probably be most interested in the natural (visible) world.  I would suggest growing butterflies, learning all about their life cycle, different types. You could do a field trip to a local museum with a butterfly house (NYC Natural History museum has one right now, but so do many other museums).

Growing plants from seeds is also cool - learn the parts of a plant, branch off into pollination and why bees are so important, mix in a nutrition lesson too.

DNA - you'd get better results with wheat germ in my experience. Even a bright 8 year old might have difficulty with this experiment though. You need to have excellent coordination and fine motor skills to pull it off (you layer alcohol on top of the mix and get the DNA to precipitate in between, it is a bit tricky).  It isn't all that impressive, white stringy stuff, eh.  I'd start with larger stuff, personally.

What about getting a stereo microscope? These are great for viewing big things whole - like bugs!  

Finally, don't underestimate the power of exploration outside sparking discussions. We found a toad yesterday in our garden. We are going to learn more about frogs and toads today because of that.

Have fun!

Answer 2

Check out Robert Krampf's site:

http://krampf.com/news.html

Or the Janice VanCleave book, _Biology for Every Kid_:

http://www.amazon.com/Janice-VanCleaves-...

EDITED TO ADD:

Sorry for the links.  I read your question early on a Monday morning, with kids yelling for me in the background.  I missed the "no links" in parentheses.  I only use links, so to me they are "bible".

Also, you didn't write "no links" in caps in your original question.  You wrote it in parentheses both times.  So if you're going to pick on me...look at what you wrote yourself.

Answer 3

There are several things that you can do with biology, nature is a good place to draw from at this age.  You have a good one to teach DNA, it's also helpful to have him build models - pipe cleaners and beads work well and his mom probably has everything in stock.  Here's some ideas that have worked well with my son over the past few years (he's now 10):

teach taxonomy through sorting shoes into kingdom, phylum, etc. (it takes every shoe in the house, but my gifted 10yo had a blast with this);

marine biology - run a small electrical circuit (attached to a flashlight battery) through some distilled water, and then through salt water, to show how sharks sense electrical pulses in ocean water/why many of them don't live in fresh water;

set up a scavenger hunt with him to find birds, land animals, fish, plants, and signs of them (anthills, eggs or nests, tracks, etc.), and then help him make a nature journal with a bit more research on what he finds - this can lead off into all sorts of "rabbit trails" that would lead into other activities and experiments;

food sources - have him set up two simple birdfeeders - they could even be plates on the ground - with different food types that he thinks birds in your area would like.  Give him time each day he's at your house to "birdwatch" and keep track of why the birds go to a particular food source.  Help him chart or graph his results on a notebook page (would be great to go along with the nature journal);

offshoot of the above activity - is there a certain color that birds prefer?  Once he knows what type of food they like, set up the food in two different colored feeders.  Does one get more attention than the others?

teach him the parts of an egg - yolk, albumen, germinal disk, outer and inner shell membrane, chalazae, shell, and air cell - and have/help him draw a diagram.  Then, make omelets :)  Very carefully crack open an egg so that many or all parts of the egg are still intact, and let him identify them.  Heck, my husband (who went through bio, chem, physics, and calc) got a kick out of this one! (Be sure to tell him that the eggs we get at the store are unfertilized, so he's not actually eating baby birds.)

with eggs, another fun activity is to compare the shape and thickness of the shell - why is it the way it is?  When you crack it against a sharp surface, it cracks neatly; if it hits a broad surface (like rolling out of a ground or low nest), it's likely just to splinter a bit.  If it has pressure from all sides (such as the nest, other eggs, and the mother's brood patch) it stays intact.  How does this apply to what the egg is likely to go through?

plants - oh, so many things you could do.  Have him raise plants from seed, dissect a seed (large beans work well for this), raise a butterfly garden in containers in your or his yard, plant a bean seed and pour a thin layer of Plaster of Paris over it to see how strong a plant is, plant a seed in a dark box with an opening in a wierd place (like high up on one side) to see how phototropism works...all sorts of things you could do!

There is also a great book that's available at any public library (children's section) by Janice Van Cleave called Biology for Every Kid - it has TONS of experiments in there, more than I could even post.  What I posted above are things that my son enjoyed from age 8-10, and things that the kids in his science co op enjoyed.

Hope that helps!  When working with this age, it's important to remember to attack the experiment from several different sides - explain it, show him pictures, let him draw or make a model, and then help him do it.  He can understand the same *concepts* you studied in HS bio, he just needs them presented in a way that gives him time to grasp them.  Have fun!