Science Lessons For the Day

Since our family is set to embark on a major road trip in the next several days (I still need to blog about the details, huh?) & hubby is out of town attending a friend's wedding, we decided to stick around town this long weekend. The boys and I had yet to check out the new Imaginarium at the Anchorage museum. Saturday afternoon seemed a great time to utilize our membership & stimulate the minds beyond DS and Wii video games.

The photo to the left is called "String Theory". A nifty exhibit using light & motion. Many of the exhibits in the imaginarium focus on physics & boy did it remind me of how much I've forgotten since college.



O was very proud of his use of the Bernoulli Effect (Cool YouTube Video by Science Theatre here) and ability to get two balls to hover over a fast moving stream of air. You can easily accomplish this scientific feat at home with a blow dryer & ping pong balls. Kids love it (we do this as part of my science club's Elementary Science Day program) & you can use it to discuss the ideas of lift.

A favorite exhibit was the IR sensor. The kids sat in front of an InfraRed sensor & had their thermal images projected on a screen. IJ has always run at a higher temp than others - if I'm ever chilly, I just snuggle up to him & warm up almost instantly. It was pretty obvious that his temp is naturally higher. This was a lot of fun.

IJ couldn't wait to get to the bubble center. He was a bit disappointed that the large bubble wand (the one attached to ropes that you pull & envelope yourself within a bubble) didn't work very well. He was placated by the smaller versions & spent a significant amount of time creating large, long bubbles. Using the bubble wall, I demonstrated the idea of "Like dissolves Like" by soaping up my hands & placing them through the bubble film without breaking the bubble. He and other kids thought that was pretty cool. As long as your hands/fingers are soapy - the bubble will not pop. As soon as skin not coated in bubble juice touches the bubble, it will pop. Here's another fun YouTube video discussing hydrogen bonding, surface tension, and cohesion using a bubble wall like the one found in the Imaginarium. I think that's one of the cool things about being a science teacher - being able to invoke such awestruck moments in kids.

Science rules! Ciao~