E9's Week with Marie Curie

E9 did some really nice experimenting with magnets this week. After doing experiments and reading more about different types of magnets and what is magnetic, he made a fact page about magnets. It was interesting to learn that the chips the kids use with the magnet wands are actually temporary magnets. Ok, who remembers what a temporary/permanent magnet is??

Last week E9 worked diligently to make a meter stick carefully marking off by the decimeter until he reached one meter which would be 10 decimeters. Unfortunately, he found that our recently taken down blind slats are just short of a meter. He was able to improvise and measure all sorts of things in the house in meters. This was also a great way to show that a meter is longer than a yard. We talked a lot about the metric system and he recorded the basic units of metric measurement for many different areas. He measured the amount of liquid he drinks per day in liters.

Scientists use the metric system exclusively even in America. After graduating with a biology degree I sure know that 2.5 cm is one inch and 5ml is a tsp. Funny though...just like a foreign language I still relate it back to units I am more familiar with. Well except I don't know how many quarts are in a 2L bottle of soda!

It was funny to talk about how when I was in school going metric was a big deal and now I can't remember the date that the US was going metric! Well America made it as far as the 2 liter bottle and said, "That's it! No more!"

One assignment was to identify and discuss the Baltic Sea and it's importance for Eastern European nations. This gave us the chance to realize why ports are crucial to countries for trade and why countries need to trade.