Black Holes and Gardening and whatever

Today we started off our homeschooling day by looking up black holes.  This site was sent to us by clickschooling.

This is the write up sent to us by diane flynn keith

Age Range: 9 and up (approximately, with parental supervision; non-readers will need assistance)
The Space Telescope Science Institute offers this terrific website that allows you to engage in a multi-media, in-depth inquiry into the astronomy and physics of black holes through animations and interactive experiments. Explore light, gravity, and the scale of our universe.

When you get to the site, watch a brief, narrated animation that provides information on how black holes are formed. Then, begin your virtual journey to a black hole through three interactive modules that include:

*Finding the Invisible — Loc ate and identify various objects in the universe such as a binary star, the Cygnus galaxy, the Andromeda spiral galaxy, the sun, the moon, the Milky Way, a quasar, a red giant, Saturn, the crab nebula and more. As each object comes into view, read more about it on the sidebar and by clicking on the "Learn More" button.   

*The Voyage — Learn about scales and distances by taking a virtual trip to a black hole. Find out about the objects you pass on your trip through space. Measure your speed and distance traveled. Get explanations of the concepts of lightspeed and lightyear. When you reach your destination, mouse over the black hole to learn about its features.

*Up Close and Personal — Orbit a black hole and learn all about it. Try some interactive experiments and answer related questions. Get the latest scoop from notable scientists.

You can also explore the "Black Hole Encyclopedia" and "Glossary" to learn even more.

We found it be quite interesting.  I can't say my six year old understood everything, but he was able to pull information out of this site to go with other things he's learned about black holes.  It was quite interesting and answered some of his questions.   We did not read through the whole site but I imagine it will be one that we come back to.

We then went out to finish the gardening that we started yesterday.

The lad wants to have his own garden this year so He's going to share daddy's "pepper" garden.  Daddy likes hot peppers and I like bell peppers and having them in their own "bed" means they don't get crowded out by other plants so it should work well for the lad to have his carrots, lettuce and corn in the same bed (at least we hope so).  :)