We’ve done it! We have survived another Science Fair season. If you would have told me a few years ago that my kids would be in Science Fairs before elementary school, I would have laughed and laughed. It’s not until you have children that you realize they start asking questions very early. ALL children ask questions, and 3 year olds are especially good at it. A Science Fair is nothing more than asking a question, guessing an answer, and then going about trying to answer that question in a meaningful way. For the grand finale, we simply compare how good our guess is to the actual result. Having done it with both the girls, I’m now a big believer in starting science experiments at a young age.
Kelly wanted to make a rainbow. She knows that water plus light makes rainbows because we do it with mirrors and bowls of water in the living room all the time. Doing it with a flashlight? Well let’s just say The Momma was actually stumped by this tiny experiment. I’ve taken Physics at Purdue University, and I couldn’t make a rainbow. I almost shed tears, and I’m too embarrassed to admit how many flashlights I bought. I finally realized I was using an LED flashlight, which doesn’t have pure white light, and the only way to view it without using sunlight is to be in a dark space. I glued two presentation boards together and created a cover. I then closed the whole thing up with the flashlight balanced on a plate holder, reflecting off a mirror in a jug of water at what was probably a 42 degree angle. VOILA! After 2 weeks of attempts, Kelly and I found our rainbow on cardboard.
Sara wanted to compare glues. She titled her experiment, “Now You Have A Clue About Glue”. She also wanted to mix something, so we made a homemade glue, and compared its strength to Elmer’s, Lightening Bond, and Gorilla Glue. Her hypothesis was that Gorilla Glue was the strongest because she saw Daddy use it all over the house. Daddy made a structure that held dowel rods and hanging pins, and they easily broke the homemade glue by hanging a 6.8 lb jar of pennies off of it. Elmer’s and Lightening Bond took 40 lbs of books and a platform to break. After using a concrete block PLUS Sara, the hanging pin broke before the Gorilla Glue. Now we have a clue about glue, and Sara’s hypothesis was correct.
Unfortunately, the girls were very tired at the Science Fair. They enjoyed the middle schoolers’ exhibits which allowed them to eat candy, brush their teeth, and then eat the purple capsules to see which spots they missed. They loved recreating the structure of mitochondria with jello and candy pieces. But when I finally got to view the posters comparing insulin spikes in relation to the pH of beverages consumed with meals? They were beat. I barely had time to breeze the comparison of Vitamin C treatment on lung cancer cells. Good stuff! Things I wanted to read…but alas, little people get sleepy on dark winter evenings.
As I tucked them in, we had a nice, long chat about Science Fair 2011. I told Sara that I heard many people talking about how useful her information was. Everyone uses glue! She sat up, looking very relieved, and said, “They did? SEE, here’s the thing. I THOUGHT glue would be very interesting, but when I did it, it wasn’t very interesting. I like experiments with PARTS. I wish had nothing but PARTS.” She was referring to the last exhibit she saw which demonstrated mechanical advantage using pulleys and weights. They’ve decided next year, they will enter TOGETHER, and make a model of DNA made entirely out of gumballs. ALRIGHT! 2012? ONE exhibit baby. Gumballs are terribly useful little critters, and not just as fake cherries on top of fake milkshakes….