Alisha Curtin, Instructor

9/6 recap

📝 Forensic Science: we wrapped up our lesson on handwriting analysis and tested their forgery skills. I am happy to report, most of them do not have a promising career in forgery!

👮🏻‍♂️ Criminal Justice: the path from suspect to arraignment for someone who has been arrested.

🫀Dissection: lecture on the anatomy of our next upcoming specimen - the heart! We will be dissecting a sheep heart next week so be sure to wear your less favorite outfit and remember to bring a cover shirt.

🍫 Medicinal plants: we learned all about mint (wound healing, digestion support, cramp pain, scars) and had an opportunity to sample many different varieties - pineapple, banana, orange, pear, strawberry, peppermint, sweet mint, mojito mint, spearmint, and chocolate mint. After sampling them all, chocolate mint was the crowd favorite.

🫀Health Science: hands on CPR once we had a full understanding of the hearts anatomy and how it functions.

The school year has kicked off and I hope all are having a great time learning. I’m struggling to remember to take pics but will try to remember going forward 😬. Here’s your 8/23 and 8/30 recap:

✍🏻 Forensic Science: we began with an intro to what forensic science is and a discussion on some of the specialized aspects and how they can be useful. This week we began with looking at handwriting analysis and next week will be a lab activity where they will have to use some detective skills to solve a crime.

⚖️ Criminal Justice: we began last week with discussing the structure of our government - federal ➡️ state ➡️ local governments and how they supersede and interact with one another. Todays discussion was a continuation and organically turned into a discussion on the legal right of self-defense and it was great to see their brain gears turning as they were thinking the situations through and coming up with lots of “what-if” situational questions. Homework for this week is to first get caught up to page 15 if they haven’t already done so, and then to continue on reading through page 21.

🌸 Dissection: the first two classes have been about learning the safety aspects of the tools we will be using throughout the ready if the year. For practice today on east subjects, students carefully dissected flowers to not only learn about safe operation of their scalpel but also a bit of botany as they learned about the internal parts of a flower-they’re so much more then petals and stems.

🌱 Herbs, Medicinal Plants and EO: before we go in-depth with individual plants, we’ve been first learning about the importance of all the plan parts from the roots up to the flowers. The students showed an interest in a particular plant called Sugarbush and so we took advantage of the opportunity to learn about how to properly propagate a cutting so that they can forever perpetuate their love of plants and each who desires to, took a cutting start home to care for.

🫀 Health Science/CPR: we’ve been learning all about the cardiovascular system and the hearts function and flow of blood throughout the body. Videos you may find interesting to view that students have watched with me-
healthy beating human heart: https://youtu.be/vzTXCpCV8rU?si=B8rp_fAzGMhOCg6f
human heart in v-fib: https://youtu.be/riUAFkV7HCU?si=5MFF0b8JFuxzkAgt.
Students should be able to identify each rhythm by sight and be able to detail how each rhythm is impacting the body.

It’s time to get caught up! 2/15 to 3/15 recap

Forensic Science: using deductive reasoning to solve a mystery and uncover who was the guilty one. Intro to blood typing and DNA. We also completed a lab where we used simulated blood to do our own blood typing exercise.

Dissection: exploring a pig heart and learning all about its structure and function. We also learned about the sea cucumber and followed up with its dissection. On 3/15 we learned about the kidney and liver in anticipation of the upcoming dissection. We also had a little fun with various flowers and fungi.

Health Science: more CPR and all about the AED and the science behind how it works. We also learned about poison vs venom and how to treat for each. Bonus, we also learned how to identify a venomous rattlesnake apart from all the non-venomous and beneficial varieties we may encounter in San Diego. On 3/15, we learned about seizures and what to do if somebody has one as well as how to operate an epi-pen.

2/8 recap, I’m the worst at remembering to take pics. I try.

☠️ Forensic science: toxicology and hair analysis to determine toxin used and duration of exposure. 🗣️Talking point at home: rate of hair growth.

❤️ Dissection: discussion about the heart dissection we will be doing next week. 🗣️Talking point at home: describe the flow of blood through the heart chambers.

🫁 Health science: pathogens and option for breaths during life saving measures- with vs without barriers. 🗣️Talking point at home: what personal rules does your student have as to who they would perform breaths on vs not. Hint: breaths are optional. Students were also each given their own barrier device to keep with them.

1/25 and 2/1 recap-

🔎 Forensic Science: fingerprinting- arches, loops and whorls. Students prints were rolled in preparation for a mock case. Students identified characteristics in their own prints. 🗣️Conversation starter at home: what is the likelihood of an accurate fingerprint match when using human eyes for analysis.

🐖 Dissection: lecture and dissection of a pig stomach. We discussed the human digestive system and how each of its parts function. 🗣️Conversation starter at home: describe the patch of food through the digestive system. Define bolus and chyme, and how are they the same/different? Name the sphincters in the body.

❤️ Health Science: study of the cardiovascular system, v-fib vs regular beat and how to do CPR on an adult. We also learned how to put someone in the recovery position.

1/11 and 1/18 recap. What a great start to a new semester!

🖐️ Forensic Science: we discussed the history and evolution of forensics and began to learn about fingerprinting. Conversation starter at home 🗣️: what are the 3 main types of fingerprint patterns?

🌸 🦆 🐓 Dissection: we learned about and dissected flowers (botany) and chicken as well as duck feet to learn about the bone, muscle and tendon relationship. Conversation starter at home 🗣️: how are tendons and muscles different? Do muscles push or pull?

❤️ Babysitters club/health science: anatomy and physiology of the heart and intro to CPR. Conversation starter at home 🗣️: describe the flow of blood through the heart.

Recap of the end of the year! Looking forward to more fun and learning next semester.

🎲 Math tutoring: factional, statistics and probabilities.

🔍 Forensic science: evidence contamination, fingerprinting and an escape room where we had to use evidence to determine who the guilty party was.

🐷 Dissection: fetal pig and squid.

🩸 Health Science: anaphylaxis, AED use and how to control bleeding.

🔑 Entrepreneurship: calculating fees, marketing as a career and entrepreneurship escape room.

It’s been a busy few weeks, time to get caught up on the recaps!

Math tutoring: varies based on students needs.

🦶🏻 Forensic Science: we’ve been covering ballistics, discussed the jfk “magic bullet” and the science behind ballistics. We’ve also discussed footprints, calculating height based on shoe size, and have begun covering fingerprinting.

🐙 Dissection: octopus, clams, perch and frog dissections.

🐍 Health science: choking, venom vs poisoning, seizures, high vs low blood sugar.

💰 Entrepreneurship: calculating profits and selling prices, marketing, writing a business plan, logo design and colors.

9/21 & 9/28 recap

📄 Math tutoring: working with exponents and order of operations.

🔥 🏠 Forensic science: learning about arson by burning the houses students worked hard to make. So much was learned! 🗣️ Talking point at home: describe how to determine the point of origin of a fire.

⭐️ Dissection: dissection of a sea star. 🗣️ Talking point at home: how do starfish eat?

❤️ Health Science: continuing the cardiovascular system. 🗣️ Talking point at home: describe the difference between a heart attack and cardiac arrest.

🍬 Entrepreneurship: fun activities demonstrating how different personalities think and how it’s beneficial to understand one another. 🗣️Talking point at home: discuss how those in your family have different personality traits and learn how to best respect and motivate one another.

9/14 recap

⬆️ Math tutoring: exponents.

🔥 Forensic Science: the house construction continues in order to be able to demonstrate how an arson investigation is done. NOTE: for students who did not want me to take their headshot photo in class and said they would prefer to email it to me, please email me a headshot to [email protected] by Monday at latest. I will be making CSI badges for students using the photos.

🪱 Dissection: worm and grasshopper dissection.

❤️ Health Science: more about the cardiovascular system.

📝 Entrepreneurship: assessing our strengths.

9/7 recap

🔠 Math tutoring: ratio conversions and using unknowns to demonstrate rule structure. 🗣Talking points at home: how to convert a measurement of inches per second to yards per day.

🔥 🏠 Forensic Science: more about arson and beginning to build our houses that will be used to learn about burn patterns. 🗣Talking points at home: how can airgaps, open windows, etc change the pattern of a fire?

🪱 Dissection: learning about the anatomy of our next specimen dissection…worms and grasshoppers. 🗣Talking points at home: do worms or grasshoppers have a brain? If not, how do they function?

❤️ Health Science: how to initiate helping someone with a malfunctioning heart. 🗣Talking points at home: what’s important to remember if a 911 call is needed, who makes the call l?

🧠 Entrepreneurship: mindset of an entrepreneur and a few students presented about their chosen entrepreneur to report on. 🗣Talking points at home: parents, share with your students how the use of computers and internet has changed since you were a kid.

8/31 recap

#️⃣ Math tutoring: more work on ratios and conversions.

🔥 Forensic Science: introduction to arson. 🗣 Talking point at home: how can a hotter burning fire impact the burn pattern?

🌸 Dissection: safe tool handling and flower dissection (botany). 🗣 Talking point at home: what rests inside the receptacle of a flower and what is its purpose?

❤️ Health Science: more about the circulatory system. 🗣 Talking point at home: why are chest compressions critical in sustaining life for someone when their heart is no longer beating? Hint- what does a beating heart help deliver?

💰Entrepreneurship: understanding innovation. 🗣 Talking point at home: describe an invention that may have been good in theory but failed to fully meet the definition of innovative and therefore failed.