Newport Aquarium Visit

We made it to the Newport Aquarium in Kentucky.  Georgia got to see all the Amazon fish she has been reading about, as well as visiting Mighty Mike the alligator, and all kinds of sharks.

Kiva Loan January 2011

This month we loaned to:

Guadalupe from Honduras

Guadalupe needed the loan to buy more jewelry for her jewelry business.

Learning never ends

Georgia was interested in learning more about the South Sandwich Islands after seeing them on Google Earth.  Here's what unschooling does, and where it can lead...

 

• She learned more about the islands themselves,
• which then led to learning about James Cook and the Age of Discovery
• and learning more about John Montagu the 4th Earl of Sandwich
• with led to learning about the ranks of royalty and nobility
• She also learned about the Antarctic tundra

 

It is interesting and fun to see how one thing leads to another. (now I have that song stuck in my head)

January Junior Naturlalist



Georgia had fun at her Junior Naturalist class at the nature center.  Today was about "Stories in the Snow". They hunted for tracks in the snow, and other tell-tale signs of animal activity. She had fun!

Mike the Gator!



Just found out about Mike the Gator at the Newport Aquarium!  We'll have to see him before he leaves.  Especially since they have their Winter Family Days. (2 kids admitted free with each adult admission....a $30 savings)

Snowball effect: Unschooling



I love being able to witness my girls' passions, and see how they lead from one thing to the next. Georgia's interest in Crocodilians led to an interest in learning more about the Yangtze River, which led to learning more about rivers of the world, which led to traveling the world through Google Earth, which led to discovering the Sandwich Islands, which led to the history of the sandwich and explorers, lol.

She also discovered through her research that the Cincinnati Zoo has a special program with the Chinese Alligator. (one of two alligators, the second being our own American Alligator) It is one of the rarest of the crocodilians, with very few surviving to adulthood due to loss of habitat, pollution, over-hunting, poisoning (from local rice paddy farmers trying to poison pests, which the alligators then eat.)  What the Cincinnai Zoo does is they raise the Chinese Alligators until old enough to survive on their own, then they release them into the Yangtze River in China! We already have plans for visiting the Cincy Zoo when the weather warms a bit, and I'm sure we'll get into other interests along the way!!

 

Unschooling is an adventure I get to share with my kids!!!  I love it!!

Crocodilians

That has been a fascination of Georgia's for a few weeks now.  We've recorded a lot of documentaries on the subject, borrowed library books, and surfed the web for sites, photos, and videos.

One of her favorite sites is this site hosted by the Florida Museum of Natural History. (also found at http://crocodilian.com/ ) She has studied the species list and had me quiz her on the scientific names.  Phew...she got all but one of them...and there are 23 species! We looked up some of the scientific prefixes and suffixes and learned that suchus comes from Greek for crocodile. (and crocodilos from ancient Greek for lizard.)  She already knew what paleo meant. She also told me that the -ensis at the end is Latin and means that it is from that place, as in the American Alligator, Alligator mississippiensis.

She loves that site.  It has maps showing the distribution of crocodilians worldwide.

They talk about the taxonomy and how they are classified...and the debate about it.

And of course their species list, where you can click on a crocodilian to learn more about it.

There is also extensive information on crocodilian biology, including evolution and morphology.

And it wouldn't be complete without some mention of conservation.

Other sites to check out include:

The Visable Alligator Skull from the University of Texas Morphology Group

Gharial Fact Sheet from the National Zoo (we've visited there!!)

Gharials, Nile Crocodile, American Crocodile,  Saltwater Crocodile, American Alligator all at National Geographic.

Why do animals have scientific names? and Make your own scientific name from the San Diego Zoo.

And she made a salt dough crocodile that, once dry, she will paint!

 

This all of course led to other interests.  She's read up on estuaries, and she now wants to learn more about India and the Yangtze River in China.