Inside the Earth Study

We have been studying Earth Science lately. Not that I planned to, of course :) It's all part of this new land of "Unschooling."  It all began when Buck found this book

in the basket.  Some of you may know that he has not been like my girls who are always reading something.  Anyway, this was one of those books he asked me to read again and again.   And we did.  (By the way, I found this book in Maureen Whitman's For The Love of Literature.  I use this book for strewing good books about.)

How cool was it when this book

was on our history reading list? 

I found these pages on Enchanted Learning and ordered other books and DVDs from the library.  You can see which ones below.

Then we put these into a lapbook to keep for future reference. 

Honeybee drew this while Buck and I were working on the lapbook.  I'd say she had the idea of what was going on.  Notice the frowns ;)

We also worked an experiment in.  I had everything together and asked Dad if he'd perform the experiment for us.  He was happy to and I was happy he did.  (He's more 'science-minded' than I :)

First he added the baking soda (the base).

Then some dish detergent,

a little water,

and some vinegar (the acid) which had been mixed with red food coloring.

When the vinegar reacts with the baking soda, carbon dioxide gas is formed and the bubbles push the "lava" out of the volcano.  

Note:  I wasn't sure how messy this would be.  It wasn't too messy after all.  This pan held all of the lava flow.

Afterwards, Dad had a good discussion on chemical reactions with the rest of us.  After all, his dad is a chemical engineer!