Unschooling Science

All in a day's unschooling! We spontaneously drove up to the lake and discovered that the amphibians - frogs and newts - were newly awakened.

Helena built a warmer pond for the newts and carefully noted what they looked like. We were trying to figure out if the bulge on the bottom of them was part of the male anatomy or an egg sac or what it was... 

Laying on the dock she found a frog still in torpor. We couldn't remember the correct term and came home to look it up! He hopped away when she took him out of the water, but he was very slow and sluggish and in the water she could touch him and he didn't move. He was just floating with his little head up, soaking in the sunshine, thawing and awakening from his long winter's rest.

Back at home, we looked up the lifecycle of the Eastern newt and were surprised to realize they live for 10-20 years. The sac, we discovered, is a cloaca and is part of both male and female anatomy. It is Latin for "sewer" and contains the outlets of the digestive and urinary systems and the reproductive organs. We also watched a few brief videos on amphibians. 

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