Feral Fridays: Fire!

This post is written by our special guest, Wanda Vesana, the guru of the Feral Homeschooling movement, which is rocking the homeschool world. You can read more about her here. Wanda is the mother of two extremely well behaved and multitalented children, son Silas and daughter Verna.  Wanda has been getting many requests to share a hands-on Feral Homeschooling project with our readers, and she graciously agreed.

Kids always say their favorite thing about doing chemistry experiments is setting things on fire.  Because it's wicked fun, and children naturally gravitate towards rich learning opportunities. My kids are no exceptions.  So I challenged myself to come up with a chemistry experiment that would maximize that. I used Feral Homeschooling Pillar #3, to use direct experience whenever possible, as my guiding light.

Now many of you have struggled in getting your families to accept your homeschooling choice.  It's heartbreaking.  My own mother has always used the "smile and nod" method; choosing a noncommittal ground that neither expresses disapproval, nor truly lends her support.  But this time, when my excited kids told her what we had in mind, I saw tears in her eyes and she said, "Please, Wanda, please don't do this."  That is when I knew I had to be strong and follow Feral Homeschooling's Pillar #1, which is to have the "who cares what you think, I know I'm awesome" attitude.

First, we learned about the five classes of fire, which include ordinary combustibles (Class A), flammable liquid and gas (Class B), Electrical (Class C), metal (class D), and cooking oils (Class K). Then we set each kind of fire, and experimented with putting out each kind of fire.  Of course it's essential to find out what happens when you attempt to put out a fire with an inappropriate fire extinguisher.

Boy was this fun!  A pack of Feral Homeschooing families joined us to make this a truly memorable event. To start the experiments, first, we gathered flammable materials.  Ordinary flammables were no problem; we just got together some of the "curse scrolls" our Feral Homeschool Group made for each other as part of our unit on Voodoo, so we could do a ritual burning and throw a little social studies into our science.  Gasoline makes a great flammable liquid; but if you live in one of those pesky states where you're not allowed to pump your own gas, and the gas station attendants make a big fuss about 'approved containers', I suggest just filling your tank as usual, and teaching the kids the skill of siphoning out gasoline.  This is not only a quick hands-on physics lesson in air pressure, it's a skill that can last a lifetime.  Electrical fires are likewise a cinch for beginners to start, as long as you've remembered to pay the utility bill lately.  A plug with some exposed wire should do the trick. Otherwise, I'm afraid you're left trying to rig something up with batteries. You might think metal fires would be tricky;  nothing could be further from the truth, as Uranium Ore is readily available from Amazon, it's only $39.95, and you won't hesitate when you see all the positive reviews.     Grease fires are a cinch.  We'd deep fried some Twinkies for dessert the night before our experiments and the oil was still on the stove, so all we had to do was turn up the heat and wait!

As per Feral Homeschooling Pillar #4, quality learning materials are essential to any successful homeschool unit. Of course, Wikipedia and Youtube are ideal places to turn, as they are goldmines of free, scholarly information on different types of fires and even fire appreciation.  In addition, an excellent book for children with many heartwarming personal stories of children learning the art of fire appreciation is Juvenile Fire Setters (Juvenile Delinquency and Juvenile Justice).*  Another favorite of my children is The Practical Pyromaniac: Build Fire Tornadoes, One-Candlepower Engines, Great Balls of Fire, and More Incendiary Devices, which contains many advanced experiments they will doubtless enjoy. 

Well, I won't spoil the fun of doing your own experiments, but I will share a couple of pictures.  Using Feral Homeschooling Pillar #2, that we learn best from our own mistakes, and anything, no matter how grim, can be used to meet educational goals, we were able to thoroughly capitalize on this as a learning opportunity.  Verna had the foresight to use her stopwatch as part of our experimentation, so she had it handy when it came time to find out what the exact response time is of our local fire department (3.7 minutes- nice one, guys!).  I was so proud of her!  And both kids were excited to have a chance to learn how to file an insurance claim.   Great fun and highly recommended!

Verna, in her fire helmet, reading up on fire appreciation.

Some members of our Feral Homeschooling pack pose for a picture mid-experiment (putting out a class D fire with a class A extinguisher, while roasting marshmallows) in front of our house.  

Beauty surrounds us, if we just take the time to look.  Our Daewoo  was transformed.

*(Fun facts: Surprise, surprise- schools are a top target for child arsonists!  According to an article published jointly by FEMA and the USFA in 2007, a quarter of all fires at US elementary schools, and almost half of all fires at high schools are "suspicious" in nature,  and students are the likely culprits.  This constitutes the leading cause of the 14,700 annual fires in schools, at 32% overall.  They peak at the beginning and end of the academic year, and the leading location of origin is a bathroom.  I ask you, why should schoolkids have all the fun? )