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Teaching Creation Thursday ~ Made in Heaven {The Spider and Bullet Proof Vests} and giveaway!!

Teaching Creation Thursday ~ Made in Heaven {The Spider and Bullet Proof Vests} and giveaway!!

TeachingCreationsThursdays

Welcome to another week of Teaching Creation Thursday!  We have had some great discussions at Creation Conversations in Teaching Creation Thursday group.  We would love for you to stop by and join our group.

God’s creations are amazing.  What we will be sharing with you today will show you just how amazing His creations are.  The book “Made in Heaven” is written by Ray Comfort and Jeffrey Seto and they show you how scientists, inventors and engineers have studied and examined God’s creations,  and have drawn inspirations from all that God has created.  Let’s take a look at an example from the book “Made in Heaven” to see how they do use God’s creation as inspiration.

“Thoughts of a Rocket Scientist”

Attribution: Richard Gunther.

The Spider and Bullet Proof Vests

 We love the men and women who keep us safe.  From local police officers to our military and our troops who serve overseas, these faithful protectors face dangers on a daily basis.

One of the greatest dangers that these brave men & women face is gunfire.  Usually the only thing that stands between life and death is an anti-ballistic vest, commonly known as a bulletproof vest.
The most commonly known is Kevlar® which was invented in 1965 and has been synonymous with bulletproof vests.  Unfortunately nothing practical exists that is bulletproof, only bullet resistant.  Scientists have been cleverly searching new avenues to change that.  Where they are looking may surprise you.
The spider may seem an unconventional source for the next generation of anti-ballistic defines.  The spider has long been the stuff of myth, movie, story and fable.  What isn’t a fable is the amazing strength found in their spider silk.  It is the strongest known biological material to date.
Recently scientists have discovered that the Malagasy spider, also known as Darwin’s bark spider, is strand for strand 10 times stronger than Kevlar®.  Can the search for the next super material be closer than we think?

Adapted from Made in Heaven by Ray Comfort and Jeffrey Seto available at Amazon.com (Ray Comfort is a best-selling author and *Jeff Seto is an Aerospace Engineer).

Enter to win a copy of Made in Heaven!!  Giveaway runs Thursday, December 13 – Tuesday, December 18.

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Teaching Creation Thursday~ a lesson and activity on Mount St. Helens

Teaching Creation Thursday~ a lesson and activity on Mount St. Helens

This week, Dr. Reeves talks about lessons that were learned from Mount St. Helens.  As you may know, Mount St. Helens erupted back in  May of 1980 after being preceded by a long series of earthquakes.   When it erupted, the top north side of the mountain collapsed and caused a huge avalanche.  As the north face slid away, it quickly exposed steam rich earth and rock to normal atmospheric pressure, more or less like shaking up a bottle of cola and popping the top. In response to this, the core of St. Helens exploded and the heat  melted surrounding snow and created a series of massive lahars, or mudslides, that buried hundreds of square miles of the surrounding area. Dr. Reeves speaks  about this event and also has an activity to show a Christian alternative as to how evolutionary science views the age of the earth.

There are many ways parents and teachers can help students challenge the evolutionary explanations for the earth’s origin and history. There are a number of questionable assumptions that evolutionary scientists make that are based on the idea that the formation of thick layers of sedimentary rock requires millions of years.

 The worldwide flood described in Genesis provides a logical scientific explanation for the thick sedimentary rock layers that are found on every continent of the world. Contrast this explanation with the evolutionary explanation that they formed gradually over millions of years from shallow oceans that changed many times.

 Here is a simple lesson that shows how quickly sedimentary layers can be deposited out of water. It is followed by an excerpt from an article entitled “Lessons Learned from Mount St. Helens.”

How Little Tiny Things Settle Out of Water to Become Rocks

 Think About This

Anna’s house overlooked the Maple Trail Creek. After several days of hard rains, the usually clear water had become a murky brown and had overflowed the banks. The water kept rising and had gotten close to their house. Anna’s Dad finally said the flood waters were starting to recede, but most of the driveway to their house was still covered by sand, brown silt, and twigs. Where do you think these materials came from?

 The Investigative Problem

What are the different settling rates (sedimentation rates) of various sizes and types of material?

 Gather These Things

20-ounce water bottle with top (size may vary, but must be clear; plastic is safer)
Gravel (small pebbles)
Sand
Twigs (Very small dry pieces)
Water
Soil

 Procedure and Observations

Put sand, gravel, soil, and a few small dry twigs in a 20-ounce water bottle until it is about half way full. Then add water until the bottle is about 2/3 full. You need to leave some room at the top for mixing.

1. Predict which materials you think will settle to the bottom first and which ones will be on top after they have been stirred up.

Place the top on the bottle and shake vigorously to mix. Slowly stop shaking the jar, ending with a swirling motion. Place the bottle on a flat surface and let it stand until all the materials are settled and the water becomes somewhat clear. It may take several hours for the water to become really clear, but you may begin observing the results after about 15 minutes.

2. Observe and record the order in which the materials settled. Is this what you predicted would occur?

3. Make a drawing of what you observe.  Be sure to label the layers that
form.

 Shake the bottle again as you did before and place it on a flat surface. Wait 15 minutes.

4. Did you get about the same results that you did the first time?

 The Science Stuff

You should have noticed that materials were sorted out in order by particle size and composition. The larger heavier rocks settle out first, followed by sand, and then clay and the finer silt. The very smallest particles may remain suspended for several hours before they finally settle out. Your drawing will probably show a layer of gravel on the bottom of the jar, following by sand, then clay and silt, then humus and other materials that float. The spaces around the rocks will be filled in with sand.

The materials that are deposited by water are known as sediment. The process of depositing sediment out of water is known as sedimentation. As long as the water is moving, some of the particles may be carried along.  The finer particles tend to settle out when the water stops or almost stops moving.

When deposits have settled out of water and they become hardened, they are called sedimentary rocks.  Have you ever seen hardened layers of rock in road cuts that resemble the sediments in your jar?

Lessons Learned from Mount St. Helens

An evolutionary assumption: Whenever stratified layers of rock are found in exposed road cuts and other places, it is often assumed that each layer was gradually deposited and that a thick layer of stratified rock is millions of years old.

 An observation:

Here is what can be observed at one exposed cliff near Mount St. Helens:

If you visit Mount St. Helens today, you will find nearby cliffs where mud, silt, and sand were laid down rapidly in horizontal layers that have since hardened into solid rock. One particular cliff is composed of three distinct sections that formed on three different days. The bottom of the cliff is made up of a thick layer of volcanic ash, which was laid down shortly after the volcano first erupted on May 18, 1980. The top layer of rock formed from a mud-flow that occurred on March 19, 1982.

The middle layer is made up of numerous layers (or strata) of rock that were laid down on June 12, 1980, in about four hours. These layers formed as the volcano released large amount of ground-hugging steam. This steam mixed with volcanic ash and flowed across the ground like a giant river. It often traveled at speeds greater than 100 miles per hour. In only a few hours, sediment from the mud-flow had been deposited in horizontal stratified layers that resembled the sediment that formed in your jar. At first the layers were somewhat like wet cement, but eventually the sediment hardened and formed stratified rock.

 Do you think a worldwide flood is a logical explanation for the thick sedimentary layers found on every continent on the earth?

 (The lesson and the article were taken from The Earth: Its Structure & Its

Changes by DeRosa and Reeves, MasterBooks, pages 30-31, 60-62.)


Teaching Creation Thursday ~ Grand Canyon and a giveaway!

Teaching Creation Thursday ~ Grand Canyon and a giveaway!

This week Dr. Reeves will be sharing with us about the Earth.

Many evolutionists consider the “Geologic Column” the strongest evidence that life arose gradually over millions of years. They claim that the sedimentary layers of rocks found all over the world show that the first forms of life to evolve are found in the deepest layers and the living things that evolved later are found in the upper layers.

However, this explanation is found to have a number of flaws. We believe you may find the Flood provides the best explanation for the earth’s sedimentary layers and is much more logical than the explanation given by evolutionists. Go to www.investigatethepossibilities.org and click on the “articles” tab for a kid-friendly article about the sedimentary layers in Grand Canyon.  Or you can just click HERE.  Which explanation do you think fits the evidence best–millions of years of evolution or a world wide flood?

Take time to browse around Investigate the Possibilities!  There are a lot of experiments, articles and videos to help you Investigate the Possibilities!

Next week, Dr. Reeves will follow up with a lesson about how sedimentary layers form and how some now-hardened layers formed in hours and days as a result of geologic activity after the Mt. Saint Helens eruption.

Now on to the giveaway!  I will be giving away this teacher guide and student Journal to The Earth: Its Structure and Its Changes!  My oldest  daughter and I did this book together and really enjoyed it.  I think your children will too!

Just follow the instructions on the Rafflecopter!  If for some reason the widget is not showing, click on the link and it will take you to it.

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Teaching Creation Thursday ~ giveaway and a free download!

Teaching Creation Thursday ~ giveaway and a free download!

A Journey of Joy
Today for Teaching Creation Thursday, we have a worksheet to give to you all, as well as a giveaway of one of the books that Dr. Carolyn Reeves co-authored.

The worksheet that Dr. Reeves has prepared for you all is an activity that you can do with your children. It is an activity that Dr. Reeves has done many times to help students understand how scientists try to reconstruct the past. (It is found in Forces & Motion, DeRosa and Reeves, Master Books, and Understanding Science While Believing the Bible, Reeves, The Master Design.) Trying to figure out what happened in the past is much like a detective would try to figure out what happened at a crime scene. Print (or re-create) a copy of a “damaged” drawing of a tree and have students try to reconstruct the way it looked originally. Don’t let them see any of the examples of completed drawings. After they finish, tell them there is no “right” or “wrong” proven answer. Then compare their efforts to reconstruct the tree to how a scientist might try to reconstruct the past.

You can download the worksheet by clicking on HERE.

Now for the giveaway, we  have this wonderful book set, Forces and Motion that is written by Dr. Carolyn Reeves and Tom DeRosa.  The worksheet that you can download above is actually found in this book!

Forces and Motion
Tom DeRosa, Dr. Carolyn Reeves

From the New Leaf Publishing Group, the description of the books is:

This amazing full-color book is filled with 20 hands-on activities that ignite a sense of curosity about the wonderful God has made. Concepts are introduced in an engaging way – by highlighting the science behind kids at play, like rollerskating, skateboarding, and even running. By guiding students through these easy to understand investigations, they learn to explain, apply, expand, and assess what they have personally observed!

Learn how to:

  • Determine the speed and motion of favorite toys
  • Create a catapult and experience the mechanics of pulleys
  • Set up a floating pencil race
  • Discover why friction creates heat

Investigate the incredible world that God has created with science that is fun and educational in this comprehensive series!

Now how do you enter for this great set of books? Enter below! If the Rafflecopter widget does not show up below, please click on it and it will take you to the page to enter!
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Teaching Creation Thursday at Creation Conversations

Teaching Creation Thursday at Creation Conversations

I am so excited to be a part of a new group on Creation Conversations.  It is called Teaching Creation Thursday.   I will be helping out Carolyn Reeves from Underground Paradigm.  While Dr. Reeves will be doing the majority of the writing and having guests post, I will be heading up the social media for this amazing group.

Each Thursday, there will be a post from Teaching Creation that will help parents navigate a sometimes difficult, confusing pathway about the origin of life and humans. We live in a wonderful world that was planned, designed, and created by God. We want to be an encouragement to you that this can be taught to your students with confidence.  Advanced degrees in science are not needed. Be sure to check out the free resources and giveaways you will find on Teaching Creation Thursday.

So, how do you join? Sign up at www.CreationConversations.com if you have not already done this. Look for Teaching Creation Thursday under “Groups” and click the invitation to join this group.  Also, be on the lookout on Facebook, Twitter (using #hashtags  #teachthetruth and #HScreationThurs) and Google +, for updates and new articles from Teaching Creation Thursday.

We look forward to having you join us at Creation Conversations in the Teaching Creation Thursday group!    Here is a look into what Dr. Reeves will be discussing:

There are two accounts of the origin and history of the world. One account provides a naturalistic explanation of how everything in the universe began. Supposedly, a single spot in space rapidly expanded, producing all the matter and energy of the universe, an idea known as the Big Bang.  Stars, planets, and moons, condensed and cooled out of a swirling expanding nebula, along with energy and basic chemicals. Finally, one-celled forms of life arose on Earth from random, chance combinations of chemicals. Over millions of years, these first living cells became multicellular organisms, which continued to evolve into organisms with more specialized tissues and organs. Finally, some kind of ape-like animals evolved into modern humans. The primary mechanisms for these changes were natural selection, genetic recombinations, and genetic mutations. In this account, God is irrelevant or false.

The other account tells us that everything in the universe was planned, designed, and created by God with great wisdom and power. The first man and woman lived in a perfect garden in harmony with their Creator. Early in the history of the earth, these first humans disobeyed and rebelled against God, introducing sin, death, and imperfections into the world. Although they probably developed many kinds of advanced technologies, most people had little regard for their Creator. As violence and evil corrupted this civilization, God decided to destroy them and the things they had built, except for one man and his family, along with a sample of the land animals who were preserved in an ark. A catastrophic flood covered the world until that first civilization was destroyed. The Flood was a unique unrepeatable event, as was the Ice Age that followed it. A few generations after the Flood, there was a failed attempt to build a great one-world government, and people dispersed to all parts of the world.  But, in spite of man’s rebellion, God chose to redeem men and women from sin, eventually sending His Son Jesus to complete His plan for redemption. The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is celebrated by Christians as the greatest event in human history.

 The account of history we choose to believe form one of the basic planks of our worldviews and many of our fundamental Christian beliefs. There are a number of resources and great writers who will be sharing ideas about teaching the Creation version. We invite you to visit Teaching Creation Thursday often to find understandable ideas that will help you teach the Truth of the Creation account.