Mother-Daughter Discovery Day

AAUW (American Association of University Women) organizes Discovery Day for 3-6th grade girls and their mothers. There was one organized on this weekend for 3rd and 4th graders and we sure did attend. It was 4 hours of science fun! There were 9 activities out of which we had to pick 5 that we could attend. Here are the science activities that we picked:

1. Origami -Magic circles: The session started with the discussion about matter, its forms and how matter changes. Paper was identified as a matter and ways to change it are cutting, folding, crumpling etc. Then the instructor led us through a step-by-step instructions to fold papers and arrange together. Here is the beautiful pattern we got to do with the papers:




2. Gravity Defying Frogs: This session started with a discussion about gravitational force and the instructor gave example of center of gravity. Then a sheet containing a figure of frog was handed out to each kid to cut along the outline. The kids had to guess how to change the center of gravity of the frog so it could be horizontally balanced on its "head". They were then asked to glue 2 pennies on the front legs of the frog and fold them a little. And there we had our frog completely balanced on tip of a tack/pencil etc. The instructor then showed a device for stabilizing camera and showed us the difference in quality with and without the stabilizer



3. Dry ice is nice: In this session we all had fun with a "mad science" teacher showing us the amazing, cool experiments with dry ice.

4. Levers and pulleys: In this session kids were shown simple machines like lever and pulley. Kids got to see how some of these machines reduce the efforts that are required to do work. They got to learn the class 1 , class 2 and class 3 levers with example demonstration. The best part was in the end where daughters got to lift their moms using a lever!

5. Electrical Circuits: In this session kids and their moms made circuits using RAFT materials and idea sheet.

Overall it was an educational morning for the daugher's and moms too. My 4th graders verdict: I loved the Origami and the dry ice the best!

Science Fair ideas and judging

I got the opportunity to judge science fair projects of 5-8th graders in my daughter's school. I wanted to see the ideas that the kids came up with and how they presented. A more personal motive was to see what my daughter will be getting in to next year when she would be in 5th grade!

Here are the guidelines on what a judge looks for while judging a science project. They have been derived from the evaluation sheet that was provided to us.

1. Has the student done enough research?
2. Is the topic of the project clearly understood and communicated?
3. Are the scientific principles on which the project is based clear to the student?
4. Is the student aware of the real world application of the project?
5. Has the student done enough iteration of his/her experiment to get a reliable data?
6. Has the student adhered to scientific method if he/she has experimented and made sure that there is only one variable at a time?
7. In case of demonstration projects, has the student created a proper model to demonstrate the scientific principle?
8. Has the student given thought to/is aware of alternatives in his/ her project (For ex. if a project uses microwave radiation, how does it compare with the UV radiation)?
9. Has the student put enough efforts on his/her board, do they have pictures that support their efforts if they don't have a model or experiment?
10. Is the student confident?

Following are some of the projects that I got to judge:

• UV rays and bacteria
• How does the caffeine affect the blood pressure
• Making breads
• Plants and the distance between them
• Microwave and plants (how microwave can affect the germination)
• Cloning
• Do plants store excess glucose as starch?
• What shape of the car causes less wind resistance?
• Water purification
• Can handsoap and dishwashing soaps be used instead of detergent
• Testing hardening of plants
• What angle of the windmill blade generates is optimum for generation of electricity
• Magnetic field to generate electricity
• Diabetes

The general trend that I observed was that the lower grade kids (5th and 6th) had taken up complicated topics and most of them were demonstrations. Having done an experiment project last year and a demonstration project this year with my daughter, I figured out that latter is slightly difficult since you need to come up with ideas to present the model. On the contrary the higher grades(7th and 8th) mostly chose experiment projects. Most of these were not as complicated for their level.

Recently I had read an article about the plight of science in the schools and that made me think that parents really need to take initiative to get their kids interested in science. It is an interest that can be cultivated!

Math Science Nucleus event: Heart

Math Science Nucleus organizes many science related programs in the libraries. Previous ones that we had attended were on Light and Dinosaur. The nature of the programs is that first the instructor reads a book or two explaining about the topic. Then there are various art and craft activities related to the topic.

This event started with a slide of internal body parts and kids had to match the names. After that the instructor read a very touching story about Rita Anselmo, "The damaged heart". All the stories that they read are available on their website under "Storybooks". A video was then played which showed what are the different parts of the heart and how the blood flows. It is very informational and also available on MS nucleus website.

Then the kids were shown the activities, one table had sthethescopes where kids could hear the lub-dub of the heart, the other table had papers which contained pieces of heart puzzle that the kids had to color and cut, yet another table had materials to make a heart book. There was a model of heart that the kids could explore, there was a heart mat where the kids could trace the flow of the blood in the heart.



Although the program was for 45 min., however it did provide us with wealth of information. And oh yes! we did read the story 2-3 times that night from the website! Both the kids loved the story and it triggered many more questions in their minds.

Chabot Space and Science Center - CSI Lab and telescope viewing

We have been to Chabot Space and Science Center many times and each time we visited, it was a learning experience for the kids.

Last weekend, the Climate Scout Investigator Open Lab theme was Wind Energy. Materials were provided to design and make wind turbine. These turbines were then put to test to see how much electricity they generate. The test data was recorded: number of blades, length of blades,weight of the turbine and the voltage generated. This was a very good opportunity for the kids to use the Scientific Method approach of experimentation, "Change only one variable at a time and see the effect".

We got to do multiple iterations to improvise our design. I also got a chance to talk to my kids about how much hard work and persistence needs to be put in to make things better.

Next there were few high school kids demonstrating science principles, how vacuum affects a balloon filled with small amount of air, how does it affect the water, what is a black hole. We also got to hold a rock which was a part of a meteorite. It was made of mostly iron and nickel and due to the presence of iron the small piece of rock was very heavy.

There were telescopes set up to view the moon, the sun and its prominences and Jupiter. There was a sun spotter which filtered the light energy, so the sunspots could be seen. Sunspots are "cooler"(@ 4000 deg F) areas on sun.