Biology With Halfmoon

My 11 year is old is witty, articulate, and outgoing. She enjoys the arts- music, dance, acting. She, like her mother, is not gifted with a hunger for knowledge for how things work and why. Right now we are reading a book called the Diversity of Life, by Pan Canadian Science Place. (I have another of their books, called Extreme Environments, and they are quite nice- broken down into units with attractive pictures.) (note- there is a bit of evolution in this particular book) MS. A. has cracked me up several times while discussing this book. I asked her to answer the following questions about the first lesson, called Exploring Life: Are you curious about how scientists keep track of so many living things? NO. What are you curious about? NOTHING ABOUT THIS STUFF. What do you wonder about? NOTHING. She wasn't being cheeky- when we went over these questions she expressed that she just doesn't wonder about these kinds of things. I should have re written the questions to say something like: "If you were portraying a stunning scientist with a sharp mind and a curious disposition, who traveled to the Far North to be with her one true love and save civilization at the same time by answering these following questions about exploring life, what would your reply be?" I would have gotten a whole brainstorm of ideas if I had only approached it from that angle.

Today we discussed symbosis: a type of relationship where 2 species of organisms often live in close partnership with one another in their environment. I took great delight in reading her the description of parasitism, which is one form of symbosis. The definition for that particular kind is when one of the partner species benefits and the other partner species is harmed. Hmmm. Been there and had that relationship! A. plugged her ears and sang over top of me when I tried to read the paragraph on those who live inside their hosts. It is one of the most disgusting topics in the world, so while I could empathize, I also couldn't stop laughing and finally gave up on that teaching moment, while she chanted, "I don't ever want to know this. I have lived this long without hearing this, I don't ever want to know this!" She researched a couple of other forms of symbosis, and I thought it quite interesting when I related them to human relationships:

Are you in a commensal relationship?
* where one of the species in a relationship gain without affecting the other.

What about a mutualist relationship?
* where two species live together and both gain.

Hmmmmmm. I hope my hubby would say the latter. He will totally say parastic when I ask him, but after I pinch him, he might change his answer to one I like. I am sorry if you have the heeby jeebies after this post, but it could have been worse- I could have included pictures!