Thank You, Chartpak! Finished Biology Project

A lot can change in 11 years. It was about 11 years ago my mother bought this Visible Woman science kit made by Skilcraft for her granddaughter.

Now that baby granddaughter is in the 5th grade. For a school biology project she put together the Visible Woman. For the most part, the project went well. There was one mishap. When it came to painting the pieces we misinterpreted the instructions and painted the uterus the wrong color.

It was my (less than) brilliant idea to try removing the paint with nail polish remover. Bad idea. The acetone did remove most of the paint. It also etched a cloudy haze into the plastic. It apparently also weakened the plastic so that it cracked.

Since 11 years had passes since the purchase of this product I didn't have much hope, but I tried calling the company anyway. I wanted to see if I could buy a replacement uterus.

Hope dwindled as I searched on line and learned the company that makes Visible Woman, Skilcraft, a division of Craft House, had been bought by another company called Chartpak.

But by then I had invested so much time on line looking for a phone number I could not give up without trying. I called and learned from the customer service representative that I was calling Chartpak.

I asked if they were the company that made the Visible Woman.

They had acquired the company that made it.

I explained my problem and desire to order a replacement part.

The representative told me the parts did not come separately, but he would see what he could do. He took my information and told me to expect something in the mail by the end of the week.
I was so very impressed when a box containing a new Visible Woman kit was delivered! My daughter's science project was saved and her satisfaction with the project greatly increased, as you can see here.


Thank you, thank you, Chartpak! We will most definitely be ordering a Visible Man for our son when he is ready to do a fifth grade biology project.

Already impressed with Chartpak's customer service, I think we will be buying more of their products in the future. It just so happens we have an Artist here who would love to replace her watercolor set with these when it is used up. She also has an interest in calligraphy that has been thwarted by a difficult fountain pen. She will benefit from one of these fountain pens.

Some Assembly Required

The Artist's biology project in coming along nicely. It is time consuming to wait for one color paint to dry before handling a piece to apply the next color. The Artist says the model is fun to work with because it is fun to paint. She also likes that putting the skeleton together is like completing a puzzle. Just wait till she gets to put the organs in! She said so far she has mostly learned the names of different bones. There were some she knew before the project. I'm glad she can see her own learning.

We made one error on the project. The Artist asked my opinion on some confusing directions, and I see now that I misdirected her. I had her paint one of the clear plastic parts that should not have been painted. Now that the part is good and dry I'm going to try using a little nail polish remover to clean it. I'm not confident that will work on the acrylic paint though. I'm afraid I'll end up giving my fingernails a workout scraping the paint off the plastic fragment by fragment.

Back Yard Science

Or maybe drive way science?

I just love it when we just finish studying insects in science class and we come home from Latin in time to spy a grasshopper digging a hole in a wide crack in the asphalt with her dorsal and ventral valves and laying eggs in the exposed dirt.

She was one of the biggest grasshoppers I've ever seen. Her body was beautifully colored and she was doing a delicate balancing act employing five of her six legs, one didn't reach the ground from atop a pebble.Her location in the driveway must have given her a scare when I pulled the van into the garage! I can't imagine how I missed her, except I was a little more than usual toward the right wall of the garage.

After the excitement is over and we come inside it leads me to find websites like this field guide to help drive the knowledge home.

Best of all I hear statements like "That made my day!" from the Artist.