Unschooling Moment: Tub Chemistry

Josiah was soaking in the tub the other night. I gave him his chunk of Coconut Oil to moisturize with. He loves to play with it in the tub, and watch it "melt" and  form bubbles, which he thinks look a lot like jellyfish. Amazed at how the bubbles seem to be attracted to one another, and actually move towards one another to combine in the water, he began to wonder.

(We actually came across Cohesive Force a few months ago at Home School Science in the Park, where we made a lava lamp. We talked about it then and thought it was great...)

Well, I couldn't remember what it was called exactly, so we called Dad in and he couldn't remember the exact term Cohesive Force, but we agreed that the molecules were attracted to one another, and Dad said that this is a way they clean oil spills from the oceans. Dad admits that Chemistry is not his strong subject, and Mom admits that it *is* hers.
(Aha! Now we remember...we read that in our Oil Spill book!)

So Mom authorizes more Coconut Oil, and we observe the wonders of Cohesive Force as we soak in a tub and get the best moisturizing you can give your body.

Next morning, pulling out our books on hand and making use of Google, we pull it all together.

Then we remember Surface Tension! Yeah, we did an experiment on that before as well! Wow! Talk about real-life application. 

We love animals, and one Google Hit caught our attention. Which animals are most affected by oil spills, which animals repel the oil, etc. We get sad sometimes by what we learn.



As it turns out, Cohesive Force covers a wide range of things and leads to others. We can cover it all if we like, and in the time we want.

We didn't cover Cohesive Force because we came to that chapter in our textbook, or because it was listed on the South Carolina Public School Curriculum for this year. Nor did we wave the natural curiosity away because it wasn't on the South Carolina Public School Curriculum, or because we were too busy or too lazy or too accustomed to being spoon fed limited information only to spit it back out on a test for our "Grade". 

All A's? Honor Roll? Great. Way to go. You caught on to how to play The Game. But much more importantly, when your child shows curiosity about something, and says, "Hmmm .We will have to research that and find out about it.", just because we want to know....*that* is of life-long value.