Got Science?

There are more experiments than any one mom has the patience to try, even when the kids are more than willing. We're still discovering great sources for experiment ideas, but here's a list of our favorites so far:

The public library. Our nearest library is a fairly small branch. While it's nothing compared to the big, fancy downtown library, it still has a few dozen books on science experiments. Look for books about ideas for science fair projects, or ask an always helpful librarian.

Also where Ms. Granger finds all her experiment ideas.

YouTube. This ginormous online video library has more videos of science experiments than we could ever hope to try, and that's part of the appeal. We can see what happens without the mess, the bomb squad, or the trip to the ER. Check out this family favorite: Sulfur Hexaflouride Demonstration

Blogs. There are thousands, if not millions of blogs out in cyberspace where people ponder, conjecture, theorize, apply, explode, and explore different types of science. We've found that one blog typically leads to another and another. Check your favorites for links to similar blogs, and then enjoy the trip down the rabbit hole.

Just jump already, Alice. Science is fun!

Teachers. I have received more great ideas from my kids' teachers over the years. Just the other day, I had a twenty minute conversation with one of my 2nd grader's teachers about different things to do with bubbles. Yep, even bubbles can be a science experiment.

Grandparents. They're good for more than just telling stories about the good 'ol days. My dad tells all sorts of stories about the crazy stunts experiments he and his buddies used to do as kids. Like the time they tested the theory about bulls getting angry when they see red (bulls respond to running kids, regardless of clothing color). Or, when they tested a mountain lion's reaction time to loud noise (mountain lions react faster than the human eye can discern to the sound of high pitched screaming). You may not want to recreate their experiments, but the educational value is high.

I'd run from a herd of screaming kids, too.



How I look during summer vacation.

Parks, zoos, aquariums, and science centers. These places are filled with information, if you can just get the kids to slow down and take a look. Good luck with that. I've found all sorts of useful handouts that I can take with me to read later, like when I've locked myself in the bathroom. We've done experiments, gone on tours, and logged wildlife observations based off information we got from these sources.

We even discovered an extra kid on this tide pool outing.

Your kids. Most kids ask loads of questions. Loads and loads. All the time. Why should I have to provide all the answers? Scientist throughout history have made incredible discoveries by asking questions, and then looking for the answers. When the kids ask me why there are different shapes of clouds, I turn it around by asking what they think. They hypothesize, and then they research the answers. Fostering a sense of curiosity and willingness to explore in kids is a gift that will reward them their entire life. And, it will get them off your back with all those nagging questions. For at least five minutes or so.

 But probably not.

We spend a lot of time reading other blogs and magazines, looking for fun ways to learn more science stuff. In between our regular posts, we'll post links to some of our favorites, like this one.

Blog: It's Okay To Be Smart: A Blog About Science and Other Interestingness

This is a blog we came across recently, and we can't stop reading. It's fun, well written, and the title is great. It's Okay To Be Smart blogger Joe sums it up as his guide to some of the "cool science-y things out there, with all the woo and BS filtered out." Perfect!

We know you'll enjoy it as much as we do!

Ready?

Ready for some scientific mayhem.

School is out! 

We are officially a half a day into summer vacation, and we're already planning our adventures! We've got big plans for our experiments this summer. In fact, you might even say we have explosive plans...


We're going to be trying out different ways of creating propulsion rockets, making the biggest bubbles you've ever seen, taking a fibery journey from hoof to foot, dabbling in some computer programing, and having all sorts of other messy fun.


So get out your protective eyegear,          
                                                your aprons, 
                                                           your sheep dip, 
                                                                      and your fire extinguishers, 

and get ready for summer!

 

The Colorful (and Delicious!) Sugar Star

Yesterday, Tater Tot and I had the house to ourselves. That rarely happens, and so we decided to take advantage of our freedom and try out some more experiments from the Stepping into Science kit. Tater Tot, never one to fall prey to moderation, chose seven experiments to try, all of them with the potential to create a very large mess. Of course.

We started with one called The Colorful Sugar Star, an experiment calling for colorful ink, sugar cubes, white paper, and water. The directions state that we drop a few drops of ink onto the sugar cube, let it dry, and then set it in a shallow dish of water. The idea is that the sugar dissolves in the water, the sugar particles move towards the edge of the dish pulling the ink along with it, forming a lovely star pattern. Insert a collective "ooh! aah!" here. It would have been helpful if the list of things needed for this experiment had included 'patience' along with the shallow dish and the pipette. The reality is that a four, almost five year-old does not possess the patience or self-control to perform the previously mentioned tasks.

The ink, being ink in the hands of a kindergartner, wound up on hands, faces (hers AND mine), clothes, the table, the paper, a wall, and the dog. A small amount wound up on the sugar cube. This being the fifth sugar cube in play due to the fact that the other ones kept not-so-mysteriously disappearing.


Once we succeeded in getting the ink on the sugar cube, I opened my mouth to explain that we needed to let the ink dry just as Tater Tot picked up the inked-up cube and plunked it into the dish of water. It dissolved almost instantly into a small, murky looking glob of sugary water that my always resourceful daughter then tried to drink. Apparently, sugar is too precious to waste on science experiments. Sugar star experiment, take 1: FAIL.

For our second attempt, we decided to try food coloring. It was about this point that it occurred to me that wearing white shirts probably wasn't the smartest choice. We need lab coats, but sadly, lab coats are also white.

Tater Tot veeeeery carefully dripped the color onto the sugar cube, and did a very, very thorough job of it. We set the cube aside and filled our shallow dish with water, and once again, she dropped the sugar cube right in. Sugar star experiment, take 2: FAIL.

This did lead us to a useful discussion on why experiments sometimes fail, though. We talked back over each of the steps, and then compared the directions with what we had actually done. Tater Tot, all by herself, concluded that the experiment hadn't worked because she hadn't waited for the ink to dry. Her conclusion: "I'm just not so good at waiting." Agreed.

We did work our way through the other experiments that she had picked out, but the sugar cubes were the highlight of the day. You just can't top the awesomeness of permanent ink, sugar cubes, and pipettes of water.

In addition to the sugar experiment, we created an air cushion boat by blowing up a balloon and attaching it to a small boat, forcing the air out the bottom and allowing it to hover across the table. When I asked Tater to punch out the cardboard figure that sits in the bow of the hover boat, she looked at me funny and then picked up the sheet, made a fist, and punched the tiny person as hard as she could. Bonus lesson for the day: alternate meanings of the expression "punch something out".

We learned how it is that heavy ships don't sink and the difference that shape makes in creating a vessel that can float by trying to float various clay shapes in a bowl of water. The flat raft did not float. The raft with curved up sides did float. Round shapes did not float. Boat shapes did. Tater Tot's ark floated. The ginormous clay ball did not. And dropping the giant clay ball onto the floating ark provided us with the perfect opportunity to try out the new phrase we had learned: "water displacement".


In all, we had lots of fun, made a big, soggy mess, and enjoyed having the time to ourselves. Tater Tot says her favorite experiment is the dragonfly one, though. I have no idea what that means. Maybe it's the code name for the experiment where she brainwashed me. How else did she end up getting to eat all those sugar cubes?

Crispy, Crunchies

About a week ago, we started some water cress seeds in a shallow dish. We sprinkled the seeds on top of some shredded paper towels, and used our nifty little pipettes to water them. We put the dish in a sunny windowsill and watched and waited. We quickly learned that the water dries up really fast in those hot windowsills! We had to water our seeds several times a day to make sure that they didn't dry out.

We speculated that water cress seeds have to be the fastest growing seeds in the world. We are pretty sure that they were growing every time we turned away or when we blinked, because when we came back to check on them even moments later they were significantly changed. You can almost sit and watch them grow and you can certainly see them develop from seed into seedling over the course of a day. It was pretty exciting to see those little seeds take over that dish over the course of a couple of days. As Tater Tot put it, "It's like we have a little jungle in here!" It really was pretty cool looking, and we were looking forward to sampling them as well.

Notice I'm using past tense.

Remember how we talked about the importance of frequent watering?

Another science lesson learned: Plants cannot survive without water. When I tried to introduce words like "dehydration" and "capillary action", the kids eyes glazed over a bit. Fortunately, Doodle Bug jumped in and cut straight to the chase though. "Without water, they shrivel up and turn into crispy, crunchies!" And once they reach that stage in the Plant Life Cycle, there is no bringing them back. No matter how much water you flood them with.

That's Just Ducky

We are adding a new, um, addition to our Summer of Science agenda. Nature watching. This came about last week as we were out at the field getting some exercise. Actually, I get the exercise, and the kids get sand in their hair rolling around in the long jump pit trying to make sand angels.

Today however, the kids were nowhere to be seen when I pulled up even with the sand pit. Usually, they come army crawling out at me when I get to this point, and try to surprise attack me, but for once, they weren't in their normal spot.

I kept walking and as I rounded the equipment shed, I discovered my missing children. They were lying flat out on the ground on their bellies, all in a row, peering over the edge of a small retaining wall. And, most surprisingly, they were completely silent. Something BIG was on the other side of that wall.

I tiptoed up behind them, and tried to peek over their heads to see what had so captured their attention. Instead, I was immediately and furiously hushed and shushed by the flailing of arms and other overly dramatic gestures. Once they were reassured that I wasn't about to pull a flying ninja move over the top of them, they made room for me. I peeked over the ledge and discovered some of nature's best camouflage.



















A quietly nesting momma duck.

At first, we thought she must be sitting on spoiled eggs. It's pretty late in the season for a duck to still be nesting, we thought. How sad for her. So we watched her for a couple of days, worried that she was so stoically sitting on her little pile of eggs, all alone. She calmly and quietly watched us back, never once budging off her carefully constructed nest of dirt, grass, and her own downy feathers.

We learned that the average female mallard can lay anywhere between one and thirteen eggs, and that she sits on her eggs for almost a month before they hatch. This particular lady was also in a rather unusual spot as well, considering that there was no open water anywhere nearby. But after a little more research, we discovered that because ducks nest on the ground, they sometimes choose to nest away from the water. And if you're looking for somewhere high and dry, the track behind the school definitely qualifies.

So we kept watch over the little mallard for a few days, and all the while I talked about the circle of life, and nature, and balance. But as I was really gearing up to launch into the biggest nature talk of all, the one about how some creatures don't make it and how all things must die, something happened. We were out for our walk for the day, at the end of it, and we had just stopped in front of the Duck Tree, as we'd been calling it, and suddenly Big Guy said, "Mom, sshhh! Do you hear that?"

We all hushed. And instead of hearing me talk about death, we got to listen to the tiny little peep, peep, peeps of newly hatched baby mallard chicks. If you look carefully at that picture above, you can even see one of the little newly hatched chicks just peeking out from between two of the eggs. We didn't stay long. We didn't want to stress the new mom. We decided to check back the next day.

But the next day, we learned yet another ducky fact. Ducklings are ready to leave the nest as soon as thirteen hours after hatching.

We don't know where they went, but we are pretty sure those ducklings are in really good hands, er, webbed feet.





Just to clarify, these are not the ducks we found, but the kids felt like everyone would want to see a picture of what they probably looked like as they went off on their big trek to the water.

How Jack and the Beanstalk came to a Very Bad End

Things we learned today:

1. Steak knives do not make good multipurpose cutting tools.

2. Bean shooters are not very accurate.

3. Water and oil do not mix.

4. Kids and water and oil do not mix.

5. Tater Tot likes to eat dried beans.

6. Pipettes are all sorts of fun.

7. Using Bean Shooters in the house in front of mom are a really bad idea, and result in mom yelling and ranting at kids using words like 'sanity', 'dust buster', 'normal people', and 'excessively farting dog'.



Today we did a whole bevy of experiments. We did the standard experiments, like soaking water cress seeds in a shallow dish to germinate them and trying to mix oil and water, which the kids thought was boring until I told them to shake the mixture. This led to about twenty minutes of what looked like a cross between convulsions and breakdancing as everyone tried to out-mix and out-shake each other. Tater Tot even tried to take the lid off hers and "accidentally" shake hers on Doodle Bug to "see if that would make them mix together with each other." They finally gave it up, a little wiser about the incompatibility of oil and water, and I have a new idea for wearing kids out for bedtime.


We made a Mini Weather Station, which sounds impressive, conjuring up pictures of weather balloons, bottled lightening, and spinning weather-vane thingies. In reality, it's a bottle with a balloon stretched over the top, a straw taped to it, and set in front of a chart to indicate when the air pressure is high or low. It's a little mini barometer! I thought it was fascinating, but the kids seemed to get more of a kick out of making fart noises with the cut off ends of the balloons. No big surprise there, really.



The biggest hit of the day by a long shot was, no surprise, the daily selection from the Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction book. We made Bean Shooters for everyone who would be most likely to put out an eye with one. They're really rather cute, but when I voiced this out loud, I was met with three sets of identically outraged glares. "These are not CUTE!" Doodle Bug bellowed at me, filled with righteous indignation. "These are the weapons of the Red Squadron! Red Squadron is not CUTE!" Apparently, they had unionized on me while I was off gathering the supplies.



I highly recommend limiting them to the great outdoors. Our house now looks like Jack and his Beanstalk came to a Very Bad End. There are beans everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Let's just say that the kids went through most of a two pound bag of dried red beans. That's A LOT of beans. Thousands and thousands of beans. A veritable bean massacre. Poor Jack. He never saw it coming. And most of these beans wound up in our relatively small house before I noticed what was happening and banished them outside.

Overall, these little guys are pretty harmless (the Bean Shooters, not the kids, never the kids), they fit nicely in pockets, and they really make planting beans much more fun, if a little more erratic than any method I've ever used in the past. On the other hand, it is going to be a little awkward explaining to the landlord why there are suddenly bean plants popping up all over the property.

Oh yeah,
8. Bean Shooters make great clown noses.