Science Fun Day Camp 2011

Our campers.


Monday
    Insects, arachnids, and other arthropods and things like them.
We collected insects from a wild area around a small pond near the school.  There were a lot of dragonflies, damselflies, Japanese beetles, bees, butterflies, and leaf hoppers.  Later we searched close to the school and found a different mix: ants, bumble bees, caterpillars, sow bugs, and crickets (including a mole cricket).  We made jars with acetone absorbed on plaster of Paris in the bottom that were used to kill the specimens so they could be mounted.
We were so busy capturing them that we forgot to take any pictures so here are a couple of examples of what they collected.
If you want to see a lot more of our insect pictures click here.

    We played Bug-Go.  It's kind of like Bingo but you have a card with 24 pictures and a free cell of course.  You have to find the picture of each insect called.  If you would like to try it for yourself you can find it here.

    We made our our own camp t-shirts using stencils, markers, ink stamps, and silk screen printing.
            The kids would be glad to tell you how they decorated their shirts.

Tuesday
    We worked more on our insect collections with proper pinning and labeling.

    Other sites have help with identification.  If there is an insect you would like to learn more about it you can click here.
    Some pointers for collecting and preserving them can be found here.

  
    We also made cyanotype blueprints.
I used solutions of these chemicals in equal amounts, mixed, painted on paper, and then allowed to dry in a dark room.

The resulting paper has a greenish color.  The darker areas are where it touched other things while it was drying or there was more of the mixture.

The kids put all sorts of stuff on the paper while they were in the classroom then carried it out into the sunshine.  Some of the things we used were coins, keys, leaves, stencils, letter cutouts, bugs (real and plastic ones), picture  transparencies, and other stuff. 
Here are some of the transparencies.

We could see the paper change color over the next few minutes.  We then took it back inside and rinsed it.  This removed the unreacted chemicals so they wouldn't react later.  When the paper dried it process was complete.

I am sorry we didn't think about taking photographs while the campers were making their exposures but here are examples of some results.  The figure between the I and M in the last picture is where one of the kids put some sunscreen on a piece of clear plastic to see what it would do. 
 

Wednesday
    COSI Trip

          There may be more pictures.  If any campers or chaperons would like to share pictures they took please email them to me.
We often challenged the campers with puzzles when we had a few minutes.  Here they are trying to disentangle some wire puzzles while we were waiting for the rest of the campers to arrive.

The COSI science museum is in Columbus Ohio so we loaded into a school bus for a 3.5 hour trip.

We finally arrive.

Some of us went to a presentation all about the weather.  Air pressure is enough to keep two hemispheres together against our camper's efforts to pull them apart.  That is if there is no air inside to equal the outside pressure. Let some air in and they are separated easily.  Liquid nitrogen was used to make a cloud.  Our campers dove in and rolled around in it (the cloud not the liquid nitrogen).
A specialized cannon demonstrated that a pencil could penetrate a solid board if it is moving fast enough.  Tornadoes can easily get projectiles moving that fast.  There are pictures of straw stuck through a fence post.



Some straws in chunks of wood after a tornado.


Presenters had stations along the halls where they would talk with the visitors, give them a peek into various sciences, ask, and answer questions.

Stare at the rotating circle for 30 seconds or so and then look at your friends. Your eyes will have adapted to the motion and they will try to compensate producing some interesting squirming effects in their faces.  Not so apparent in this short clip but you can see the kids reactions when they try it.

Here is a video of the disk that you can try.


The electrostatic shows gave the kids a chance to see the effects of electric fields and feel what high voltage, low current electricity feels like.  If you are charged the person you point at will feel his hair attracted to your finger.  Get too close and you will both feel a spark.  If there is a chain of people holding hands electricity will flow through all of them.  Those closest to the Van de Graaff will get the biggest shock since some of the charge goes to ground at each link of the chain.





Can you ride a unicycle?  These campers did.  Not only did they ride it they did it on a wire 18 feet over COSI's main lobby.  A counterweight under it makes it stable.
 




In the Big Science Park you can try some things that you may not have done before. That granite ball weighs 5000 pounds but it is supported by a flow of water that provides a nearly frictionless bearing.  It isn't hard to spin but you can feel its massive inertia.  Pull on the rope attached to the big lever and you lift a car.  Ride the gravitron.  It is a room that spins fast enough to hold you against the wall ... then the floor drops out and you are stuck there.  Until it slows down and you slide down and may find you get an atomic wedgie.




We all had fun at the fireworks show.  All about the chemistry of fireworks with the requisite explosions and colored flames. The green barrel fired smoke rings out over the audience.

In the Gadget Cafe campers and some of the rest of us got to disassemble some computers to see what they were made of.  We will get to do a lot more with other things back at camp on Thursday.
We went to Space where we practiced landing a lunar lander and the space shuttle.  Lots more displays and demonstrations too.

Then into The Ocean where these intrepid explorers found some intriguing fountains and a yellow submarine.

Thursday
    Back at camp we took a look at what's inside all sorts of stuff.  Campers took apart computers, scanners, cell phones, hard drives, laptops, a steam iron, an Addressograph machine, and a fax/scanner/printer.  And tried to identify what they found.  We were able to help with some of the things that they hadn't seen before.  You can learn a lot by disassembling old/broken stuff to see what's inside.   A good site to learn more is here.  Use their search bar for whatever you want to find out about.


We had the campers pick out something that they had discovered and than tell us about it.  The "bloody" mess in the last picture is the print unit from the Addressograph machine.

Friday
    How observant are you.  We took a look at some short videos to see if we would be good witnesses. You can see how you would do with the two tests found here and here.
    We also studied ballistics, trajectories, and how to measure muzzle velocity of a bean shooter.
    The computer simulation of the trajectories of cannon shells, golf balls, pianos, Buicks, and people can be found here.
    You can use this page to calculate the muzzle velocity of your bean shooter.

Everyone got to try the three camper water balloon slingshot.  This series of pictures shows several of the campers preparing to load, then just as it is released, when it has just stated its flight, and the looks of concern when it nearly goes beyond our shooting range.




  
We also investigated cryogenics using liquid nitrogen.   We did some of the experiments on this page.
   Campers learned a little magic like how to make a penny disappear.  I showed then a few other tricks for them to try to  figure out.  Some did!
    I don't usually reveal how I do my tricks but here is one you can do that will stump most people.  Here's another.  Remember to practice so you can do them smoothly before you try to fool people.


I know the campers had a lot of fun, learned some science along the way, and are looking forward to their next camp.  See you then.

Go to our Science Fun page
Go to our Travels page
Go to our Personal home page
Go to our
Community page

E-mail Nancy and Alan

Creative Commons License
The www.mrtc.com/anvk/ web site by Alan Kuehner is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Additional information and permissions beyond the scope of this license
are available here.