This month our homeschool energy project continued with a trip to
Historic Speedwell in Morristown, NJ, to research the beginnings of the
Industrial Revolution. The students attended two workshops, "The Dream
of Steam" and "A Cast From the Past". During the "Cast From the Past"
workshop the students discovered more about the iron industry and its
importance to the Industrial Revolution.
Later in the month, they also had an opportunity to learn, in a very
hands-on way, more about alternative energy sources through the
use of
science kits provided by Ralph Tillinghast. Ralph works for the
military and, as a result of a government-sponsored program to
encourage
more young people into the sciences, is able to provide these kind of
workshops free of charge.
At the end of the month the students
participated in a timber framing and green building workshop with
Michael Margulies of Eclectic Architecture and Mike Hathaway of Revival
Construction. The morning comprised of a talk about green building and
the afternoon involved lots of opportunities to use different hand (and
some powered) tools to build a timber framed structure.
This was quite
a different way of constructing a shelter than we had done with Mike
Dennis of Traditional Earth Skills, the week before, when we erected a
tipi, a simple shelter.
Jack attended an open evening at Warren County Community College and he
had plenty of opportunity to meet with and chat to many of the
professors he will be taking classes courses with in the fall and over
the next couple of years.
Jack also had a community service opportunity with PPL at the Lower
Mount Bethel Community Center, in PA, where Phil and Jack planted some
trees to celebrate Earth Day.
We celebrated Easter and the children at Sunday School enjoyed felting
wish eggs on Easter Sunday.
Phil began making some mead, and Lorna began her adventures in silkworm
raising.
