3126 Main Street, Vancouver
Always have coloured acetates (red and blue most useful).
Sometime have pieces of scratched plastic to make a spectrum.
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Kitchen Sink Press. 1993.
Ask students what they noticed about the skeleton that might give us clues about its life and what happened after it died.
Listed in probable order of events:
Probably had bad toothache before it died, as a molar is missing on one side. The gum would be rubbed by the opposite sharp teeth.
How did it die? Maybe got it’s foot stuck in a boulder, or broke it’s leg. Maybe it got an bacterial infection from the damaged gum. Maybe it caught a disease from another deer. Maybe attacked by a predator.
Missing lower half of a leg. Likely that another carnivorous animal took the leg after the deer had died.
Tooth marks on the skull. Small rodents scraped the last of the flesh away.
The bones were white when I found them. Beetles, worms, bacteria and fungi ate as much as they could.
Comic strip art: the story of how this deer died and what happened to its body.
Draw as a comic strip a part of the story of how the deer died and what happened to its body as it is recycled into other living things.
Some events will take a long time (e.g. the years of toothache, the slow decompostion of the body by bacteria and fungi) and some will happen fast (e.g. a predator killing the deer, the small rodents eating the meat from the bones).
Use tricks of graphic artists to show how fast events are happening.
Quote from Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud: “Each panel shows a frozen moment in time. Between the panels, our mind fills in, to create the illusion of time and motion.”
From experience we know about how much time has passed between panels (show two pairs of images in the centre of p.100). But the graphic artist can emphasize and lengthen or shorten the time between panels using some tricks: (page numbers from Understanding Comics and from Bone: Out from Boneville by Jeff Smith):
1. Shape of the panel: Lengthen/shorten a panel to make more/less time pass. Understanding Comics p.101. Bone p.18, 36.
2. Use visual complexity in a panel or add dialog, so that it takes time for the reader to move through the panel, and there is a sequence of events. Understanding Comics p.95. Bone p.18, 49. With less visual complexity and no dialog, the reader will move faster through the panel, and time will seem to go faster. Bone p.98
3. Number of panels: draw two or more panels the same to show time passing. 'Pause panels'. Understanding Comics p.100. Bone bottom of p.41, 52.
4. Closure between the panels: widen/narrow the space between the panels for time passing slowly/fast/simultaneous events. Understanding Comics p.101. Bone p.93.
5. Border of panel: borderless panel gives a timeless quality. Leave border off top or run panel off side of page. Understanding Comics p. 102, 103. Bone p.26.
Version 1: necklace strings plus ACGT letter beads, one of each for each student, if making the version with one of each of these letters on the necklace
Version 2: necklace strings plus ACGT letter beads, and possibly also BJOXZ beads, depending on the student's names - see the attachments
This stuff, your DNA, contains the instructions to make your body (look at student's tubes of DNA)
(There is also some protein mixed in. The long strands you see are the DNA molecules. The protein sticks to these strands and makes them a little whiter than pure DNA.)
The instructions are made up of just 4 units, that we call A, C, G and T.
We each have 3 billion units in our DNA, just made up of those 4 letters.
In each of us, these units are linked together in a different order. That means our instructions for making our bodies are different from each other – so we all look different.
(Identical twins have the exact same order of units, so their instructions are exactly the same - that is why they look the same.)
You will hang your DNA on a string, that you can make into a necklace or bracelet if you like, with the 4 letters of the code.
Pick out one each of the 4 DNA units, one each of A, C, G and T and thread them on the string.
Carefully open up your tube of DNA loop the cap around the string and close it again tight.
If students are making the code on their necklace to spell out their name, explain how every 3 DNA letters make a protein unit. They will use the protein unit letters to spell out their name (see attachments).
The tube of DNA was put in a ring box, named "the family jewels", at the Hall of Science gala.
Selkirk with Chloe and Wendy was outdoors at Trout Lake near the concession (south east).
This lesson is good outdoors near to native plants, but an electrical outlet is needed for the gazpacho soup.
This lesson is on how people, particularly Indigenous People, use plants for dyes, weaving and for food.
Do the plant dyes activity.
Discuss what plants First Nations use as dyes, and discuss other ways of extraction.
Twine grass to show how plants can be used for weaving to make strong strands, for rope or fishing line and nets.
If possible, walk to find plants that could be used for twining or for dyes;
e.g. at Trout Lake we found:
Willow bark (for ropes, fishing line and nets) and willow branches for making a fish weir (they take root in the river bottom).
Small flowered bullrush for basket weaving.
Cedar for wood (canoes) bark (clothing).
Iris leaves for snares for elk and large animals (!)
Native yellow iris used for a dye (we found purple iris).
Berries used for dyes.
Make Gazpacho soup from plants.
Show students the technique of printing:
Lay a leaf or plant structure on the ink pad and press on it with the paper towel to cover the underside with ink.
Lay on the paper, lay a sheet of newspaper over, and rub with your fingers to transfer the ink to the paper. Rub firmly and evenly without moving the leaf or paper.
Make a design or picture with different leaves and different ink colours.
Discussion on what you see in the prints:
What are these structures that show up in the prints? The vessels that carry food and water around the plant.
The underside of the leaf often has the most prominent vessels. These are phloem, carrying sugars from the leaves to the rest of the plant. (The xylem vessels carry water from the roots up to the leaves).
Leaves rot on the ground with the help of bacteria and fungi. Leaf skeletons (e.g. magnolia leaf) shows where bacteria and fungi have digested away the thinner parts of the leaf. The thicker vessels are still there.
Art and science
Please note that in a class of students it is likely that one of them is at least partially colourblind (1 in 12 males are colourblind). As this is an activity distinguishing colours, these students will not be able to tell some colours apart and perceive some colours differently. The common red/green colour blindness means reds and greens (or colours containing reds and greens such as browns) look similar. More information at colourblindawareness.org and colorblindguide.com/post/the-advantage-of-being-colorblind.
Add a drops of colours to the tray and look for new colours.
For a lesson on Fall leaf colours:
Use only yellow, red and green dyes.
Look for which colours can mask others - see attached worksheet.
The yellow is masked by both green and red.
A yellow pigment is always in green leaves, but is usually masked by the green pigment. In the fall, when the green pigment decays, the yellow is revealed, turning Fall leaves golden.
Red fall leaves also have yellow pigment. In these leaves the green pigment has decayed and new red pigment is made. The yellow is still hidden under the red, though sometimes leaves look orange when there is less red pigment and the yellow shows through a little.
Lacy West Supplies. #102-480 Smithe Street, Vancouver. 604 669 5229. www.lacywest.com
Bird Calls by Frank Gallo. Published by innovative KIDS. 2001
Mostly east coast birds:
American Robin
Killdeer
Barred Owl
Eastern Towhee
Black-capped chickadee
Red-Winged blackbird
Northern bobwhite