More "by the way" science

As I wrote before, science turned out to be the most unschooled subject around here.  I guess there is science in the air , so they just get it by osmosis:)  The four year old is now into "what is it made out of, and where does it grow" stage.  She also generally asks a million questions a minute.  Today, when we were eating halva, she wanted to know how halva grows and what is it made of. So I told her it was made out of sesame seeds, very popular and widely used here in Israel as tehina or plain.  But then it occured to me that I really had no idea what a sesame plant looked like or how it grew.  So today I learned something new.  When a neighbour had some appendix trouble that led to some conversations about appendicitis, appendectomy and other exciting things connected to this mysterious part of the human anatomy.  Next, being that we are unfortunately in a midst of a terrible drought here, there was talk about water conservation and drought effects on agriculture and economy.  Generally speaking they happen to be  very environment conscious and are into recycling and such anyway.  As always just being outside here and observing the nature around us is an education in itself.  The kids also watched a tractor out in the fields, either plowing or planting, I am not sure, this week. So there was quite a lot of unplanned science going on.