Aplogia Science

I sit here browsing through the Apologia Physical Science CD Rom. We did the fun experiment with atoms and molecules. So I checked the next experiment in the chapter. Hmmm. Measurement. Make a cubit string the length of your arm. Make a finger length. How many fingers in your cubit? 5.5? Measure the table with your cubit string. 3 cubits? Then how many fingers?
Goodness, we did that kind of stuff in 3rd grade.
Experiment 3 in that chapter…Concentrations. Nothing fancy with math formulas, just the basics. If you add double the salt to one cup of water then the other cup of water, which one has the higher concentration of salt?
We can skip that one. It’s probably from 3rd grade as well. The question at the end:

Question: Muratic acid is sold in hardware stores for use in cleaning. Pool owners, for example, use it to clean hard water stains and algae stains from their pools. Its active ingredient is hydrochloric acid. The Works is a toilet bowl cleaner whose active ingredient is also hydrochloric acid. There are approximately 350 grams of hydrochloric acid in a liter of muratic acid, and there are approximately 30 grams of hydrochloric acid in a liter of The Works. Why is muratic acid a more powerful cleaner than The Works?

Seriously? For 6-8th grade? Again. A 3rd or 4th grade thing. Maybe I’m just too much of science geek and expect too much from a science text.

Let’s just skip ahead to chapter 2.
Measuring air temperature. We did this one a few yrs ago, too. I’d actually do it again for practice writing an Experiment Log, but I think our bulb thermometers are packed away.
Ch2Ex2- Another concept they know, but I think I will do this one. It uses matches and hydrogen peroxide! That could be fun! Hmmmm. It is looking like a lot of work for something they already know. But….. I can think of a twist to it that’d be fun. I’ll have to see if we have 3 votive candles and 3 mason jars that can go over them. And there is a cool mega-version video of the experiment. Very dangerous. And at the end the guy says ”Even if you can get your hands on liquid oxygen. I warn you to never do this. It’d very dangerous.”…..LOL! Yeah right! I wonder how many husbands were looking over their kids shoulder at this video and went out to see where they could get their hands on some liquid oxygen.

Next it talks about the Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming. I need to read through that carefully. I’m not sure how much I buy into the full global warming theory.

maybe the lessons get more in-depth in a few chapters. I'm feeling a little overly-opinionated today.