The Moon Tree Academy

You will need

• Three clear jars with lids (quart mason jars are perfect)
• A trowel
• Water
• A ruler
• A drop of dish soap
• Masking tape and a marker

Steps

1. Dig a trowel of soil from three different places. Label each jar with where it came from.
2. Fill each jar about a third full of soil. Pick out roots and stones.
3. Add water until the jar is nearly full, plus one drop of dish soap. The soap helps the clay let go.
4. Lid on. Shake hard for two full minutes. Set the jars somewhere they will not be bumped.
5. After one minute, mark the top of the sand layer with tape. After two hours, mark the silt. After a full day, mark the clay.
6. Measure each layer with the ruler and write the numbers on your sheet.

You will need

• Half a red cabbage
• A pot and a stove (an adult for this part)
• Five clear cups
• Soil from five spots
• Distilled water
• A coffee filter
• Real pH test strips

Steps

1. Chop the cabbage, cover it with water, and simmer ten minutes. Let it cool. The purple water is your indicator.
2. Put two spoons of soil from each spot in its own cup. Add distilled water, stir, wait ten minutes.
3. Pour each cup through a coffee filter into a clean cup so you have clear soil water.
4. Add the same amount of cabbage water to each. Watch the colour: pink or red means acid, blue or green means alkaline, purple means near neutral.
5. Dip a pH strip in each soil water and read the number.
6. Write the colour and the strip number side by side for each spot.

You will need

• White vinegar in a dropper bottle
• Dry soil from six or more spots
• A white plate or tray
• A magnifying glass
• A sketch of the farm

Steps

1. Put a spoon of dry soil from each spot in its own pile on the plate. Keep track of which is which.
2. Drop vinegar onto the first pile and watch closely with the magnifier. Listen too.
3. Bubbles or a fizzing sound means yes. Nothing means no. Mark it on your map.
4. Do every pile. Rinse the dropper between them if it touched the soil.
5. Try a pinch of crushed eggshell or chalk last, so you know what a strong fizz looks like.

You will need

• A large can with both ends cut out
• A rubber mallet or a block of wood
• A jug of water
• A ruler
• A stopwatch or phone timer

Steps

1. Push or tap the can two inches into the ground at the first spot. Do not tilt it.
2. Pour water in to a line you mark inside the can, say four inches up.
3. Start the timer. Stop it when the water has dropped one inch.
4. Write the seconds. Then fill again and time a second inch - the second number is the truer one, because the soil is now wet.
5. Repeat at bare ground, pasture, a garden bed and anywhere else you are curious about.

You will need

• An adult with the spade
• A white tarp or a large tray
• A magnifying glass
• A ruler or a one-foot square of cardboard
• A tally sheet

Steps

1. An adult lays the cardboard square on the ground and cuts around it with the spade, one spade deep.
2. Lift the block out onto the tarp and break it apart gently with your hands.
3. Count every animal you find: worms, grubs, beetles, centipedes, ants. Tally each kind.
4. Put the soil and the animals back where they came from.
5. Do the same at two more spots. Write the date and the weather too.

You will need

• A stiff wire marking flag
• A permanent marker
• A ruler
• A sketch of the paddock
• Sturdy gloves

Steps

1. Mark the wire every inch with the marker so you can read depth.
2. Walk a straight line across the paddock. Every ten paces, push the flag straight down with steady pressure until it will not go.
3. Read the depth it reached and write it on the sketch at that spot.
4. Make sure your line crosses the gate path, the water trough area, under a tree and the far quiet corner.
5. Colour the sketch: deep spots green, shallow spots red.

You will need

• Two soil or probe thermometers
• A patch of bare soil
• A patch under a few inches of mulch, hay or leaves
• A chart with seven rows

Steps

1. Push one thermometer two inches into bare soil and one two inches into the soil under the mulch, a few feet apart.
2. Every day at noon, read both without pulling them out.
3. Write both numbers and subtract to get the difference.
4. On a very hot day and a cloudy day, notice whether the difference changes.

You will need

• Soil from six spots
• A white plate or paper
• A sunny windowsill
• A pencil

Steps

1. Spread a spoon of each sample in its own spot on the plate and let it dry a day.
2. Line the samples up from lightest to darkest.
3. Write the order and where each came from. Note which spots were garden, pasture, sand path, or under trees.
4. Guess which one has the most rotted plant material in it.

You will need

• An adult running the fire
• Two clean tin cans or a foil tray
• A kitchen scale that reads grams
• Dry soil from two spots
• Long tongs
• A fire pit or camp stove
• Water bucket nearby

Steps

1. Dry the soil samples fully first - a day in the sun, or a low oven with an adult.
2. Weigh the empty tin, then weigh it with about 100 grams of soil in it. Write both.
3. The adult sets the tin in hot coals with tongs. Leave it until it stops smoking, usually 20 to 30 minutes.
4. Let it cool completely. Do not touch it hot. Weigh it again.
5. Subtract. The grams lost were the organic matter that burned away. Divide by the starting soil weight for a percent.

You will need

• Soil from three spots
• Distilled water
• Three jars
• Coffee filters
• A dark plate or black paper
• A magnifying glass

Steps

1. Put three spoons of soil in each jar with a cup of distilled water. Stir hard and let it sit an hour.
2. Filter each into a clean cup.
3. Pour a small puddle of each clear water onto its own spot on the dark plate.
4. Let it dry fully. Look with the magnifier at what is left.
5. Rank the three by how much white crust remains.

You will need

• A store-bought rain gauge
• A straight-sided can (a soup can works)
• A wide bucket
• A ruler
• An open spot away from trees and roofs

Steps

1. Set all three on level ground in the open before a storm. Set the bucket in a shallow hole or put bricks around it, not in it, so it does not blow over.
2. After the rain stops, read the gauge in inches.
3. Measure the depth of water in the can and the bucket with the ruler.
4. Write all three numbers. The gauge and the can should be close. The bucket will read deeper if its sides slope - work out why.

You will need

• A sketch map of the farm on a clipboard
• A blue pencil
• Boots

Steps

1. Right after the rain stops, walk every part of the farm. Draw every puddle and every trickle of moving water on the map. Add arrows for the direction water flows.
2. The next day, walk the same route with a fresh copy of the map and draw what is left.
3. Compare. Which puddles lasted? Where did the water end up?

You will need

• A white plastic lid about the size of a saucer
• String marked every six inches with a marker
• A weight (a big washer) tied under the lid
• An adult at the pond edge or dock
• A chart

Steps

1. Tie the string through the centre of the lid with the weight underneath so it hangs flat.
2. From the same spot each week, lower the disc slowly until you can no longer see it. Read the string depth.
3. Raise it slowly until it reappears. Read that depth too. Average the two.
4. Write the number, the date, and whether it had rained that week.

You will need

• Three buckets: one black, one white, one of any colour in full shade
• Three thermometers
• A chart with a row for each hour

Steps

1. Fill all three with the same cold water at 8 in the morning. Two in full sun, one in shade.
2. Read all three every hour until evening.
3. Plot the three lines on one graph, time across, temperature up.
4. Put your hand in the black one at 3pm. Would you drink it?

You will need

• A trough that only the goats use
• A marker or tape
• A gallon jug to measure refills
• A pen that can be kept closed so the count of goats is known

Steps

1. In the morning, fill the trough to a line and mark it. Count the goats with access.
2. Do not refill during the day. Cover the trough loosely if rain is likely.
3. In the evening, refill to the line using the gallon jug and count the jugs. That is the day's drinking.
4. Divide gallons by goats. Do it again on a hot day and a cool one.

You will need

• A wide baking pan
• A tall narrow jar
• A measuring cup
• A ruler to measure the openings

Steps

1. Measure exactly two cups of water into each container. Set both side by side in full sun.
2. Every hour, pour each back into the measuring cup, read it, and pour it back.
3. Write how much is left each time.
4. Measure the width of each opening and think about which one lets more air touch the water.

You will need

• An adult at the pond edge
• A dissolved-oxygen test kit (aquarium shops sell them)
• Goggles - the kit bottles are chemicals, read the box
• A clean jar on a string
• A chart with morning and afternoon columns

Steps

1. At sunrise, dip the jar under the surface and fill it without splashing. Test it right away and follow the kit.
2. At 4pm, do it again from the same spot.
3. Write both numbers in milligrams per litre. Do this for seven days.
4. Plot the two lines. Which is always higher?

You will need

• A two-litre bottle with the bottom cut off
• A square of cloth
• Clean gravel
• Clean sand
• Crushed charcoal (from a bag of natural lump charcoal, not briquettes)
• Muddy pond water
• Two clear cups

Steps

1. Turn the bottle upside down. Push the cloth into the neck, then add two inches of charcoal, two of sand, two of gravel.
2. Pour a cup of muddy water in slowly and catch what comes out the bottom.
3. Compare the before and after cups against a white page.
4. Build a second filter with only sand, and a third with only gravel. Which layer cleaned the most?
5. This water is still not safe to drink. Filtering removes mud, not germs.

You will need

• Ten seeds from each packet you want to test
• Paper towels
• Zip bags
• A marker
• A warm spot out of direct sun

Steps

1. Wet a paper towel and wring it out so it is damp, not dripping. Lay ten seeds on it in a row.
2. Fold the towel over, slide it into a bag, label it with the seed and the date. Leave the bag open a crack.
3. Check every day. Add a spritz of water if the towel dries. Count the sprouted seeds.
4. After ten days, write the day the first sprouted and the final count. Ten of ten is 100 percent.

You will need

• A clear jar
• Paper towels
• Four dried beans
• Water

Steps

1. Stuff the jar loosely with damp paper towel. Push the beans between the towel and the glass so you can see them.
2. Keep the towel damp. In a few days you will see a root going down and a shoot going up.
3. Once both are an inch long, lay the jar on its side.
4. Each day, draw what the root and shoot are doing. How long until they have turned to point down and up again?

You will need

• A shoebox with a lid
• A bean seedling in a small pot
• Scissors
• A ruler
• A sunny windowsill

Steps

1. Cut a hole the size of a quarter in one end of the box, near the top.
2. Put the potted seedling inside at the far end from the hole. Lid on. Hole toward the window.
3. Each day, open the box, measure how far the tip has leaned toward the hole, water if dry, close it.
4. After a week, take it out and look at the shape.

You will need

• Nine seedlings of the same kind in nine pots
• Table salt
• Measuring spoons
• Three labelled jugs
• A ruler

Steps

1. Make three waters: plain, half a teaspoon of salt per quart, and two teaspoons per quart.
2. Give three pots each water, the same amount, every two days.
3. Measure each plant's height twice a week and note any brown leaf edges.
4. After two weeks, average the three plants in each group and compare.

You will need

• Six seedlings of the same kind and size
• A bucket
• A shovel of well-aged goat manure
• An old pillowcase
• A ruler
• Gloves

Steps

1. Put the manure in the pillowcase, tie it, and steep it in a bucket of water for three days. Stir daily. That is the tea.
2. Water three plants with plain water and three with tea, same amount, twice a week.
3. Every week, measure height and count leaves on all six.
4. Wash your hands after handling the tea. Do not use it on anything you will eat raw.

You will need

• Nine seedlings of the same kind
• Manure tea (see the manure-tea card)
• Three jugs
• A ruler
• Gloves

Steps

1. Make three strengths: tea diluted one part to ten of water, one to three, and full strength.
2. Three plants each. Water twice a week, same amount.
3. Measure height and count leaves weekly. Watch for yellowing or burnt leaf tips.
4. At the end, rank the three groups. Was the strongest the best?

You will need

• Six seedlings of the same kind
• Finished compost
• A pillowcase and a bucket
• A ruler
• A notebook

Steps

1. Steep a shovel of finished compost in a pillowcase in a bucket of water for two days.
2. Three plants get plain water, three get tea. Same amount, same days.
3. Before you start, write your guess: will the tea make a difference?
4. Measure weekly. At the end, average each group. Be honest about the result even if it is no difference.

You will need

• Two clear plastic bags
• Twist ties
• A leafy branch in the sun and one in shade
• A kitchen scale
• A small cup

Steps

1. Slip a bag over a leafy branch and tie it shut around the stem. Do the same on a shaded branch.
2. Wait an hour or two. Watch for fog and drops inside.
3. Carefully take each bag off, pour the water into the cup, and weigh it. One gram is one millilitre.
4. Count the leaves in each bag and work out drops per leaf.

You will need

• Graph paper
• A pencil
• Ten leaves from a plant in full sun and ten from the same kind in shade

Steps

1. Lay a leaf flat on the graph paper and trace around it.
2. Count the whole squares inside, then add half for each square the line cuts through.
3. Do all twenty leaves and average the sun group and the shade group.
4. Feel the leaves too. Are the shade leaves thinner?

You will need

• Thick white paper
• A spoon
• Six kinds of leaves from around the farm

Steps

1. Fold the paper over a leaf and rub hard with the back of the spoon.
2. Open it and look at the green stain. Label it.
3. Do all six. Line them up from darkest green to palest.
4. Try a yellow autumn leaf or a pale new leaf too.

You will need

• Annual ryegrass seed
• Seven one-yard squares marked with flags
• A rake
• A ruler
• A calendar

Steps

1. Every two weeks from early September, rake one square and scatter a handful of seed. Label the flag with the date.
2. Water each new square lightly for a week.
3. Once a week, measure the tallest grass in each square and note how thick it looks.
4. By December, decide which sowing date won.

You will need

• A trowel
• Five clover plants with roots
• A bowl of water to rinse them
• A magnifying glass
• A fingernail or a butter knife

Steps

1. Dig up a clover plant carefully and swish the roots in water to clean them.
2. Look for tiny round bumps on the roots. Those are nodules. Count them.
3. Press one open with a fingernail. Look at the colour inside with the magnifier. Pink or red means it is working; white or green means it is not.
4. Do five plants and write nodules per plant and how many were pink.

You will need

• A strip of cotton cloth
• A strip of polyester cloth
• A leaf
• A piece of apple
• A chicken bone
• A mesh onion bag
• A trowel
• A flag
• Gloves

Steps

1. Photograph everything on a tray before you start.
2. Put it all in the onion bag and bury it a hand deep in moist soil. Mark the spot with a flag.
3. Wait a month. Water the spot if it gets dry.
4. Dig it up, rinse gently, lay it on the tray in the same order and photograph again. Gloves on for this. Wash hands after.
5. Rank what rotted most to least.

You will need

• A long-stem compost thermometer
• A compost pile at least three feet across
• A pitchfork and an adult to turn it
• A chart

Steps

1. Push the thermometer into the centre of the pile every day at the same time. Read and write it.
2. After a week, turn the pile with the fork so the outside goes in.
3. Keep reading daily. Circle the day you turned it.
4. Plot it. What happened in the days after turning?

You will need

• Two buckets with holes drilled in the bottom
• Dry leaves
• Kitchen scraps (no meat)
• A thermometer
• A notebook

Steps

1. Fill one bucket with only dry leaves and one with only kitchen scraps. Damp both lightly.
2. Every other day, take the temperature, smell each, and write one word for the smell.
3. After three weeks, tip both out and see how far each has rotted.
4. Then mix the two together in one bucket and start again.

You will need

• Three slices of the same bread
• Three zip bags
• Water
• Vinegar
• A marker

Steps

1. Slice one goes in a bag dry. Slice two gets a spoon of water sprinkled on. Slice three gets a spoon of vinegar.
2. Seal the bags, label them, and leave them somewhere warm and dim.
3. Check daily without opening. Write the first day you see a fuzzy spot on each.
4. When you are done, throw the bags away unopened. Do not sniff them.

You will need

• Six small pots
• Potting soil
• Fresh goat manure
• Six-month-old goat manure
• Bean or radish seeds
• Gloves
• A ruler

Steps

1. Two pots plain soil. Two pots soil mixed half and half with fresh manure. Two with aged manure.
2. Plant three seeds in each. Water the same.
3. Count sprouts daily for a week, then measure height weekly.
4. Wash hands after every step.

You will need

• A lidded tub with air holes
• Shredded newspaper
• Red wiggler worms (not garden worms)
• Kitchen scraps
• A kitchen scale
• A log sheet

Steps

1. Fill the tub half with damp shredded paper. Add the worms and let them settle a day.
2. Every feed, weigh the scraps before they go in and write it. Bury them under the paper.
3. After a month, pull out the finished dark castings, weigh them, and write that.
4. Compare in and out. Where did the missing weight go?

You will need

• An adult who knows the goat
• A digital livestock thermometer
• Lubricant
• A helper to hold the goat
• A chart

Steps

1. The adult shows you once. The goat is held against a wall or in a stand, calm.
2. Lubricate the tip, lift the tail, and insert the thermometer gently an inch. Hold until it beeps.
3. Read, write, wipe the thermometer clean.
4. Do it in the cool morning and again in the afternoon. Three goats if you can.
5. Compare to the normal range. A goat over 104 in the morning is a goat to watch.

You will need

• A calm goat that is used to being handled
• A helper to hold the goat's collar
• A watch with a second hand
• A chart

Steps

1. Kneel beside the goat. Press two fingers flat against the inside of the back leg, high up where it meets the body. Move slowly until you feel the beat.
2. Count beats for 15 seconds and multiply by four.
3. Write it. Then let the goat trot around the pen for a minute.
4. Count again right away, then again after five minutes of rest.

You will need

• A calm goat
• A phone camera
• The same shady spot each week
• A printout of the FAMACHA colour chart (search "FAMACHA card")

Steps

1. Hold the goat's head. With your thumb, gently pull the lower eyelid down so the pink inside shows.
2. Photograph it close, in the shade, no flash. Same spot, same time of day, every week.
3. Score it against the card: 1 is deep red, 5 is white.
4. Line the photos up in date order. Is the colour steady, or fading?

You will need

• A calm goat
• A helper to hold the goat's collar
• A watch
• A cheap stethoscope if you have one, or just your ear

Steps

1. Stand on the goat's left side. Put your ear or the stethoscope against the flank, just behind the ribs and below the spine.
2. Listen for a slow rolling gurgle, like a distant wave. That is the rumen turning over.
3. Count how many you hear in two minutes. One or two per minute is normal.
4. Try a goat that has just eaten and one that is resting.

You will need

• Goats resting after eating
• A watch
• A tally sheet
• A chair

Steps

1. Sit quietly where you can see one goat. Wait until it brings up a cud - you will see it swallow and then start chewing with nothing in front of it.
2. Count the chews until it swallows. Do it three times and write all three.
3. For ten minutes, tally each minute the goat was chewing cud.
4. Do it on a hay day and a grass day.

You will need

• Two identical feeders
• Two kinds of hay
• A hanging scale
• A notebook

Steps

1. Weigh out two pounds of each hay. Put one kind in each feeder, side by side.
2. After two hours, pull the feeders and weigh what is left.
3. Next day, swap which side each hay is on and repeat.
4. Add up each hay over both days. Which did they eat more of?

You will need

• A soft sewing tape measure
• A bathroom scale
• A helper
• Several goats
• A chart

Steps

1. Wrap the tape snugly around the goat's chest just behind the front legs, over the top of the back. Read it in inches.
2. Now weigh the goat: a person steps on the scale holding the goat, then alone, and subtracts. Small goats only.
3. Write tape inches and scale pounds side by side for each goat.
4. Plot the dots. Draw the line through them. That line is your herd's own weigh chart.

You will need

• A cheap pedometer or an old fitness band
• A goat collar
• Tape to secure it
• A chart

Steps

1. Fasten the pedometer to the collar so it hangs at the side of the neck. Reset it to zero.
2. Put it on at dawn, take it off at dusk. Write the steps.
3. Measure a goat's stride by walking beside one for ten steps and measuring the distance. Multiply.
4. Try a day in a small pen and a day on open pasture.

You will need

• A milking doe
• A hanging scale or kitchen scale
• A logbook by the milk stand
• Graph paper

Steps

1. Weigh every milking in pounds, right at the stand. Write date and weight.
2. Every week, add up the seven days and plot the weekly total.
3. Keep going from kidding until she dries off.
4. Look at the shape: a climb, a peak, then a long slow slide.

You will need

• Fresh raw goat milk
• Non-homogenised cow milk (labelled "cream top")
• Two tall clear jars
• A ruler
• A fridge

Steps

1. Fill each jar with its milk and mark the top. Put both in the fridge overnight.
2. In the morning, hold each up to the light and find the line where the cream sits on the milk.
3. Measure the cream layer in each.
4. Check again after two days.
5. Raw milk is for the experiment, not for drinking. Pour it out when you are done.

You will need

• Three quart jars of fresh warm milk
• Three thermometers
• A fridge
• A bowl of cold tap water
• A bowl of ice water
• A watch

Steps

1. Put a thermometer in each jar. One jar in the fridge, one in cold water, one in ice water.
2. Read all three every five minutes.
3. Write the minute each reaches 40 F.
4. Plot three cooling lines.
5. Raw milk is for the experiment, not for drinking. Pour it out when you are done.

You will need

• A cup of raw milk
• pH test strips
• A warm spot on the counter
• A chart

Steps

1. Dip a strip in the milk and read it. Fresh milk is about 6.7. Write it and the time.
2. Test every hour or two while you are awake.
3. Note the hour the smell changed and the hour it thickened.
4. Plot pH against hours. Then pour it out - do not drink it.

You will need

• Three cups of store milk or pasteurised milk (do not taste curd made from raw milk)
• Vinegar
• Lemon juice
• A pot and an adult at the stove
• Cheesecloth
• A kitchen scale
• Three bowls

Steps

1. Warm one cup of milk to steaming, not boiling. Stir in a tablespoon of vinegar. Watch it split.
2. Pour through cheesecloth over a bowl. Weigh the solid curd and the liquid whey.
3. Do it again with lemon juice in warm milk.
4. Do it a third time with vinegar in cold milk straight from the fridge.
5. Write the curd weight for each. Which made the most cheese?

You will need

• Three cups of milk
• Vinegar and a measuring spoon
• A thermometer
• A pot and an adult at the stove
• Cheesecloth
• A kitchen scale

Steps

1. Warm the first cup to 120 F, stir in a tablespoon of vinegar, wait five minutes, strain and weigh the curd.
2. Second cup to 160 F. Same vinegar, same wait, strain, weigh.
3. Third cup to 190 F. Same again.
4. Plot curd grams against temperature.

You will need

• An adult at the stove
• Two quarts of the same raw milk
• A pot and a thermometer
• Two clean jars
• pH strips
• A fridge

Steps

1. Heat one quart to 145 F and hold it there for 30 minutes, stirring. This is low-temperature pasteurising.
2. Cool it fast in ice water. Put both quarts in jars in the fridge.
3. Next day, compare the cream lines. Taste a spoon of the pasteurised jar only. The raw jar is for looking at and testing, not tasting.
4. Test pH daily. Write the day each one turns.

You will need

• Cream skimmed from pasteurised goat milk, or store cream (raw cream is for shaking, not tasting)
• Three small jars with tight lids
• A clean marble
• A watch
• Strong arms

Steps

1. Half fill a jar with room-temperature cream. Lid on. Shake until it stops sloshing and a lump appears. Write the minutes.
2. Do it again with cream straight from the fridge.
3. Third time, drop a marble in the room-temperature jar and shake.
4. Pour off the buttermilk, rinse the butter in cold water, and taste it.

You will need

• An adult who makes soap, running the whole thing
• Goggles and gloves for everyone in the room
• Two heat-proof jugs
• A thermometer
• Sodium hydroxide (lye)
• A cup of frozen goat milk cubes and a cup of cold water
• A kitchen scale

Steps

1. Goggles on. Gloves on. Outdoors or under an open window. The adult handles the lye; you handle the thermometer and the pen.
2. The adult weighs 30 grams of lye and sprinkles it slowly into the cup of water, stirring. You read the thermometer every 30 seconds and write it.
3. Write the highest temperature it reached.
4. Now the same weight of lye into the frozen milk cubes, sprinkled slowly. Read and write again.
5. Compare the two peaks. Never lean over the jug. Never add water to lye - always lye to water.

You will need

• An adult who made the soap
• A freshly cut bar
• pH strips
• Distilled water
• Gloves for the first two tests
• A chart

Steps

1. Day 1: gloves on. Wet a strip with distilled water and press it firmly on the bar for ten seconds. Read the colour. Write it.
2. Day 7, 14, 28 and 42: same test, same spot on the bar.
3. Plot pH against days.
4. Do not use the bar on skin until the adult says it is done, no matter what the strip says.

You will need

• A freshly cut bar of soap, at least a week old so it is safe to handle
• A kitchen scale that reads grams
• A chart with 42 rows

Steps

1. Weigh the bar at the same time every day. Write it.
2. Keep the bar on a rack with air all round, where the soap maker cures the rest.
3. After six weeks, plot the weights. Draw the curve.
4. Work out what percent of its starting weight the bar lost.

You will need

• An adult soap maker who runs the batches
• Three tiny single-oil batches, made and cured six weeks
• Three identical bowls of water at the same temperature
• A phone camera
• A ruler

Steps

1. The adult makes three small batches weeks ahead - all coconut oil, all olive oil, all tallow - using a lye calculator for each. You label and cure them.
2. After the cure, put a bowl of warm water in front of each bar. Rub each bar in its bowl for exactly 30 seconds.
3. Photograph the foam in each bowl from the same height. Measure the foam depth.
4. Rank them. Then feel each foam - big bubbles or creamy?

You will need

• A bar of cured soap
• A jar of rainwater
• A jar of tap or well water
• Two identical jars with lids
• A ruler

Steps

1. Put one cup of rainwater in one jar and one cup of tap water in the other.
2. Rub the bar in each for 20 seconds, lid on, shake ten times.
3. Measure the foam height in each jar right away and again after a minute.
4. Look for a greyish scum on the water in one of them.

You will need

• An adult soap maker who makes the three batches
• Three cured bars labelled A, B, C on the bottom only
• Five volunteers
• A sink
• A score sheet

Steps

1. The adult makes three small batches from the same recipe, changing only the superfat setting in the lye calculator: 0, 5 and 10 percent. Only the adult knows which is which.
2. Each volunteer washes their hands with A, dries, waits a minute, then B, then C.
3. They score each for how soft their hands feel and how well it lathered, 1 to 5.
4. Add up the scores, then reveal which bar was which.

You will need

• An adult soap maker running all three batches
• Goggles and gloves for everyone
• Three small identical batches of oil and lye water
• A thermometer
• A stick blender
• A stopwatch

Steps

1. The adult brings oils and lye water for batch one both to 90 F, then combines and blends. You start the stopwatch at the pour.
2. Stop the watch when the mix leaves a faint trail on its own surface when drizzled. That is light trace.
3. Batch two at 100 F. Batch three at 110 F.
4. Write the seconds for each.

You will need

• An adult soap maker running the batches
• Goggles and gloves
• Four small identical batches at the same temperature
• Three different fragrance oils and one unscented control
• A stopwatch

Steps

1. The adult brings each batch to light trace. You time from the pour to light trace for the unscented batch. That is the baseline.
2. For each other batch, the adult stirs in the fragrance at light trace. You time how long until it is too thick to pour.
3. Write the seconds for each fragrance.
4. Note which ones went grainy or lumpy - that is seizing.

You will need

• Active sourdough starter
• Three identical jars
• Flour and water
• A kitchen scale
• Rubber bands
• A ruler
• A phone camera

Steps

1. Feed the starter and split it into three jars, 50 grams each. Put a rubber band at the surface line of each.
2. One in the fridge, one on the counter, one in the oven with only the light on (do not turn the oven on).
3. Every hour, measure how far each has risen above its band. Photograph them side by side.
4. Plot three lines. When did each peak? Did the fridge one move at all?

You will need

• Active starter
• Four jars
• White, whole wheat, rye and a gluten-free flour blend
• A scale
• Rubber bands
• A ruler

Steps

1. Put 25 grams of starter in each jar. Feed each with 50 grams of its flour and 50 grams of water. Band the surface.
2. Same warm spot for all four.
3. Measure the rise every two hours for twelve hours.
4. Smell each at the end and rank the sourness.

You will need

• Active starter
• pH strips
• A spoon
• A chart

Steps

1. Right after feeding, dab a strip on the starter and read it. Write it.
2. Test again at four, eight and twelve hours.
3. Plot pH against hours. It should fall.
4. Smell it at feed time and at twelve hours. Can you smell the number?

You will need

• Three small batches of the same dough recipe
• Cold, room-temperature and warm (90 F) water
• A thermometer
• Three straight-sided containers with tape marks
• A watch

Steps

1. Mix three doughs the same in every way but the water temperature. Take each dough's temperature right after mixing and write it.
2. Put each in its container and tape the starting height. Mark a second tape at one and a half times that height.
3. Check every 30 minutes. Write the time each dough reaches the top mark.
4. Plot dough temperature against hours to 50 percent rise.

You will need

• Active starter
• Three jars
• Flour, water, salt
• A scale
• Rubber bands
• A ruler

Steps

1. Feed three jars identically: 25 grams starter, 50 flour, 50 water.
2. Jar one gets no salt. Jar two gets one gram. Jar three gets four grams. Stir well.
3. Same warm spot. Measure the rise every two hours.
4. Plot three lines.

You will need

• Active starter
• A glass of water
• Flour and the rest of a small loaf recipe
• An oven and an adult to run it
• A chart

Steps

1. Each day at peak rise, drop a spoonful of starter into water. Write float or sink.
2. Bake a small loaf from that starter the same day.
3. Score the loaf 1 to 5 for rise and crumb.
4. After a week, look for a pattern. Did floating predict a good loaf?

You will need

• Loaves as they are baked
• A bread knife and an adult
• A phone camera
• A fixed spot with the same light
• A notebook for what changed each bake

Steps

1. Cut every loaf through the middle once it is fully cool.
2. Photograph the cut face from the same distance, same spot, same time of day.
3. In the notebook, write what was different about this bake: flour, how much water (bakers call that hydration), time, temperature.
4. At the end of the month, lay the photos out in order and look for what the changes did.

You will need

• A small cabbage
• Non-iodised salt
• A kitchen scale
• A clean quart jar
• A smaller jar or a clean stone to weigh the cabbage down
• pH strips
• A watch

Steps

1. Shred the cabbage. Weigh it. Add salt at two percent of its weight and squeeze it with clean hands until it is wet.
2. Pack it into the jar and press until the liquid covers it. Weight it down. Cover loosely.
3. Every day, dab a strip in the liquid and read the pH. Count bubbles rising in one minute.
4. When it reaches about pH 3.5 and tastes sour, it is kraut. Put it in the fridge.

You will need

• Six eggs laid the same day, pencil-dated
• A deep clear bowl of water
• A chart

Steps

1. Every day, gently lower one egg into the water and watch what it does. Lie flat, tilt up, or float?
2. Write the day and the position. Dry the egg and put it back.
3. Use the same egg each day, and once a week test one of the others to check it agrees.
4. Write the day it first tilted and the day it first floated.

You will need

• Eight fresh eggs from the same day
• Warm water and a cloth
• Two cartons labelled washed and unwashed
• A bright flashlight
• A dark room
• Two plates

Steps

1. Wash four eggs in warm water and dry them. Leave four as they came from the nest.
2. Both cartons on the counter, not the fridge.
3. Weekly, candle one egg from each: flashlight against the wide end in the dark. Draw the size of the air cell.
4. At three weeks, crack one of each onto a plate. Compare how tall the yolk stands and how the white spreads.

You will need

• A bright flashlight
• A toilet-paper tube
• A dark room
• A fresh egg and a two-week-old egg
• A fertile egg on day 7 if you have an incubator running

Steps

1. Put the tube over the flashlight to make a narrow beam. Lights off.
2. Hold the wide end of the egg against the tube. Look at the shadow inside.
3. Draw what you see for each egg: the air cell, the yolk shadow, any veins.
4. Handle a fertile egg gently and put it straight back in the incubator.

You will need

• Eight eggs: four from hens fed oyster shell, four from hens without
• Four bottle caps
• A light plate
• Bags of sugar or flour and a few books, each weighed first
• A tray to catch the mess

Steps

1. Stand four eggs pointy end up in bottle caps in a square. Rest the plate on top.
2. Add weight to the centre of the plate one item at a time, keeping a running total in pounds.
3. Stop when an egg cracks. Write the total.
4. Repeat with the other four eggs. Compare.

You will need

• Eggs from pastured hens and eggs from the store
• A white plate
• A yolk colour fan (search "DSM yolk colour fan" for a printable) or paint-chip samples from pale yellow to orange

Steps

1. Crack one of each onto the plate side by side.
2. Hold the fan next to each yolk and find the closest match. Write the number.
3. Try eggs from a hen that has been on fresh grass this week and one that has been in the run.

You will need

• A flock with more than one breed
• A watch
• A thermometer in the shade
• A chair in the shade
• A chart with a row per hen

Steps

1. From 11am on a hot day, watch the flock. Write the shade temperature every 30 minutes.
2. When a hen opens her beak and pants, write her breed and the time.
3. Note who holds her wings out from her body and who heads for shade first.
4. Rank the breeds by who panted first.

You will need

• A brooder with chicks and a heat lamp at one end
• Three thermometers
• A chart with a sketch of the brooder

Steps

1. Lay a thermometer under the lamp, one in the middle, one at the far end. Read all three.
2. Every hour, write the three temperatures and draw dots on the sketch for where each chick is.
3. Look at the pattern. Are they under the lamp, at the edge, or spread out?
4. Piled under the lamp means too cold; pressed to the far wall means too hot; spread out means just right.

You will need

• A kitchen scale that reads grams
• A pencil for writing on eggs
• A chart

Steps

1. Collect eggs and weigh each one. Write the grams on the shell in pencil.
2. If you saw who laid it, or can tell by colour and shape, write the hen too.
3. After a week, line up each hen's eggs from lightest to heaviest and circle the one in the middle.
4. Find the heaviest and lightest egg of the week.

You will need

• A flock
• A daily egg tally
• A low-watt bulb on a timer in the coop (an adult wires it)
• A calendar

Steps

1. Tally eggs every day from October. Watch the number fall as the days shorten.
2. In December, the adult sets the timer to turn the light on at 4am so the hens get close to 14 hours of light.
3. Keep tallying for two weeks.
4. Compare the two weeks before the lamp to the two weeks after.

You will need

• A ruler
• A paddock about to be grazed
• Ten flags
• A chart

Steps

1. Before the goats go in, push in ten flags across the paddock. Measure the grass at each flag and write it.
2. When the goats come out, measure at the same flags.
3. Look at the before and after number at each flag. Which flag lost the most?
4. Did any spot go below three inches?

You will need

• Four flags
• A ruler
• A phone camera
• A freshly grazed paddock
• A chart

Steps

1. Flag a one-yard square right after the goats leave. Measure the grass and photograph it from the same spot.
2. Every three days, measure and photograph again.
3. Stop when the grass stops getting taller. Write how many days it took.
4. Do it once in spring and once in late summer.

You will need

• A piece of welded wire fence about 6 feet long
• Zip ties or wire
• Four stakes
• A ruler
• A camera

Steps

1. Bend the fence into a cylinder and tie it. Stake it into the pasture where the goats graze.
2. Photograph inside and outside on day one.
3. After a month, measure the grass inside the cage and just outside it, five spots each.
4. Count how many plants are in a hand-sized patch inside and outside.

You will need

• A paddock with goats just turned in
• A notebook
• A plant guide or a phone plant app

Steps

1. Follow the goats at a distance. Write down each plant you see them go for first.
2. After an hour, walk the paddock and look for bitten stems and leaves. List what is eaten and what is untouched.
3. Rank the plants from favourite to ignored.
4. Check the untouched ones - are any of them poisonous to goats?

You will need

• A sketch of a paddock on a clipboard
• Two coloured pencils
• Someone who can point out dog fennel and pokeweed

Steps

1. Walk the paddock in strips. Put a dot for every dog fennel in one colour and every pokeweed in the other.
2. Count the dots. Write the date.
3. Next season, walk it again on a fresh sketch.
4. Lay the two side by side. More, fewer, or moved?

You will need

• Fresh manure pats (goat berries in a pile, or a cow pat if you have one)
• A watch
• A stick
• A magnifying glass
• A chart

Steps

1. Find or make three fresh piles in the sun and three in the shade. Note the time.
2. After an hour, gently turn each pile with the stick and count the beetles in it and under it.
3. Write sun and shade counts separately.
4. Look at the beetles with the magnifier. How many kinds?
5. Wash your hands when you are done.

You will need

• A sketch of the paddock
• A pencil
• Boots

Steps

1. The day after goats have been in a paddock, walk it in strips.
2. Put a dot on the sketch for every pile you find.
3. Draw the water trough, the shade, the gate and the feeder on the sketch.
4. Where are the dots thickest?

You will need

• Five cheap outdoor thermometers
• String or tape to hang them at the same height
• A chart with five columns

Steps

1. Hang one thermometer at each spot, all at chest height and all out of direct sun (under a little shade or on the north side of something).
2. Same hour every day, read all five and write them.
3. After a month, plot five lines.
4. Which spot is always warmest? Coldest? Which one changes the least?

You will need

• A shiny metal can
• Water and ice
• A thermometer
• A spoon
• The day's weather forecast

Steps

1. Fill the can halfway with room-temperature water. Put the thermometer in.
2. Add ice one cube at a time, stirring slowly, and watch the outside of the can.
3. The moment fog appears on the metal, read the thermometer. That is the dew point.
4. Compare to the dew point in the forecast. Try again on a muggy day and a dry day.

You will need

• A frosty morning
• A sketch of the farm
• A blue pencil
• Warm clothes

Steps

1. Right after sunrise, before the frost melts, walk the whole farm.
2. Shade in blue everywhere the grass is white.
3. Mark the slopes, the low spots, the trees and the buildings.
4. Which places were frost-free? Why?

You will need

• Three plastic grocery bags
• Three tall stakes or poles
• String
• A compass or a phone compass
• A chart

Steps

1. Tie a bag by its handles to the top of each pole so it can swing. Put one in the open, one behind the barn, one by the trees.
2. Every day, look at which way each bag streams. The wind comes from the opposite side. Use the compass to name that side.
3. Write all three each day.
4. Which spot was calmest? Which direction did the wind come from most?

You will need

• A phone camera
• A fixed spot to photograph from
• A chart with a column for your guess and a column for what happened

Steps

1. Every morning at the same time, photograph the sky from the same spot.
2. Write your guess: rain today or not.
3. At 6pm, write what actually happened.
4. At the end of the month, look at the photos of the days it rained. What did those mornings have in common?

You will need

• A plant in full flower
• A watch
• A tally sheet with rows for bee, wasp, fly, butterfly, beetle, other
• A chair

Steps

1. Sit still an arm's length from the flowers at 9am. Start the watch.
2. For ten minutes, tally every insect that lands on a flower. Do not count the same one twice if you can help it.
3. Do it again at 3pm.
4. Which kind came most? Which time was busier?

You will need

• A yellow, a blue and a white plastic bowl
• Water and a drop of dish soap
• A spoon and a white tray
• A magnifying glass
• A tally sheet

Steps

1. In the late afternoon, set the three bowls on the ground in the pasture, outside the fence or where the goats are not, a few feet apart. Fill each with water and one drop of soap.
2. Next morning, spoon the insects from each bowl onto the tray.
3. Count and sort: bees, flies, beetles, others. Write it by bowl colour.
4. Which colour caught the most? Which caught the most bees?

You will need

• Yellow sticky cards (garden shops sell them)
• A post or wire near the pen, out of the goats' reach
• A chart with a row per week

Steps

1. Hang a card near the goat pen where you can get to it. Write the date on it.
2. After a week, take it down and count the flies. Hang a fresh one.
3. Write the count each week for a whole year if you can.
4. Plot it. When did the flies arrive, peak and leave?

You will need

• A sketch of the farm
• A pencil
• Boots and long trousers
• A stick for pointing - never a hand

Steps

1. Walk the farm in strips. Put an X on the sketch for every mound. Do not step on or poke them.
2. Count the total.
3. Mark where the goats spend their time, where it is mown, where it is wet and where it is sunny.
4. Are the mounds in the open sun? Near the pens? Along the fence?

You will need

• A white bed sheet
• Rope or clothespins
• A bright lamp or lantern (an adult runs the cord)
• A phone camera
• A warm, still night with no moon

Steps

1. After dark, hang the sheet between two posts and shine the lamp on it.
2. Wait. Every ten minutes, photograph what has landed.
3. Count the different kinds. Look at the patterns on the moth wings with the camera zoom.
4. Turn off the lamp when you are done so they can leave.

You will need

• Two identical bars of soap
• A flat dish with no drain
• A slotted or ridged soap dish
• A kitchen scale
• A chart

Steps

1. Weigh both bars. Put one in each dish by the same sink.
2. Use both bars the same: one hand wash each per day, alternating hands.
3. Once a week, dry each bar with a towel and weigh it.
4. After a month, which lost more? Which one went soft and mushy?

You will need

• Twelve slices from one loaf
• Zip bags
• A fridge and freezer
• A chart

Steps

1. Three slices on a plate in the open. Three in a bag on the counter. Three bagged in the fridge. Three bagged in the freezer.
2. On day one, three and seven, take one slice from each set. Thaw the frozen one.
3. Squeeze each between two fingers and score how hard it is, 1 to 5. Then taste and score.
4. Which kept best? Was the fridge a surprise?

You will need

• A jar of raw honey
• A jar of pancake syrup
• A jar of jam
• A shelf out of the sun
• A notebook and a camera

Steps

1. Open all three, take a spoonful from each so air is in, and put the lids back loosely.
2. Once a month, look at each. Photograph it. Write what you see: mould, crystals, colour change, smell.
3. Keep going for a year.
4. Do not taste anything that has mould on it.

You will need

• Eighteen unwashed eggs from the same day
• A carton in the fridge
• A carton on the counter
• A sealed tub in the fridge
• Three plates each week
• A camera

Steps

1. Six eggs in each place. Write the date on each.
2. Every week, crack one from each onto its own plate side by side.
3. Photograph. Write how tall the yolk stands and how far the white runs. Smell each.
4. After six weeks, which storage kept the eggs closest to fresh?

You will need

• Three bunches of the same herb, 50 grams each
• A kitchen scale
• String
• A window screen
• An oven and an adult to run it on its lowest setting
• Three jars

Steps

1. Weigh each bunch. Hang one in a dry airy room. Lay one on the screen in the sun. Put one on a tray in the oven at its lowest setting with the door cracked.
2. The oven bunch is done in a few hours when it crumbles. The sun bunch in a day or two. The hanging bunch in a week.
3. Weigh each when it is fully dry and crumbly. Write it.
4. Crush a pinch of each and smell. Rank the smell.

You will need

• An electric-fence tester (the kind with a ground probe)
• An adult who knows the fence
• A sketch of the fence line
• Rubber boots

Steps

1. The adult shows you how the tester works: probe in the ground, hook on the wire, read the number in kilovolts. Never touch the wire with your hand or let the tester lead touch you.
2. Read at the charger first. Write it on the sketch.
3. Walk the fence and read every hundred feet or at every corner. Write each on the sketch.
4. Where does the number drop? Look there for grass, a broken insulator, or a wire touching a post.

You will need

• Two thermometers
• A stack of hay bales
• A cold night
• A chart

Steps

1. In the afternoon, push one thermometer deep between the bales in the middle of the stack. Hang the other in the open air beside the stack.
2. Read both at dusk.
3. Read both at dawn.
4. How many degrees warmer was the inside? Did the inside change much overnight?

You will need

• Three pulleys
• Rope
• A beam or branch to hang from
• A spring scale that reads to 50 pounds
• A hay bale or a bucket of sand
• An adult to rig it

Steps

1. Weigh the load by hanging it from the scale. Write it.
2. Rig one pulley on the beam, rope over it to the load. Pull with the scale and read the pounds while it is moving slowly. Write it.
3. Add a second pulley on the load so the rope goes up, down, and up. Pull and read.
4. Add a third. Pull and read. Measure how much rope you pulled to lift the load one foot each time.

You will need

• A small trough or a bucket
• A tape measure
• A bathroom or hanging scale
• A calculator
• Water

Steps

1. Measure the inside length, width and depth of the trough in inches. Multiply them for cubic inches.
2. Divide by 231 to get gallons. A gallon of water weighs 8.34 pounds. Multiply.
3. Write your predicted weight. Then weigh the empty trough, fill it, and weigh it full. Subtract.
4. How close was your prediction? What could explain the difference?

You will need

• A hose
• Two buckets
• A step or a bench
• Water

Steps

1. Put a full bucket on the bench and an empty one on the ground. Fill the hose completely with water and pinch both ends.
2. Put one end in the full bucket under the water and the other in the empty bucket. Let go.
3. Watch it flow. Now lift the empty bucket up onto the bench too. What happens?
4. Lift the empty bucket higher than the full one. Which way does the water go?

You will need

• A straight stick about three feet long
• A sunny flat spot
• Small stones or golf tees
• A marker
• A camera

Steps

1. Push the stick straight up in the ground in the morning. Every hour, put a stone at the tip of the shadow and write the hour on it.
2. At the end of the day, photograph the fan of stones.
3. Leave it. A month later, on a sunny day, do it again with tees in a different colour.
4. Did the shadows get longer or shorter? Did noon move?