Crafts and Chemistry

Today there was an event at my school where various clubs had arts and crafts activities for kids. I was there volunteering with the chemistry club. Unfortunately, not that many kids showed up. My guess as for why? It was an outdoor event on a very windy day. We had to weight almost everything down, and were just generally cold throughout.

Then again, it's possible that the goal was to attract few children. I honestly can't think of another reason for the person in charge of creating the playlist for the event to put "I'm Sexy and I Know it" on the playlist, much less for who ever was in charge to let it play in full.

Anyway, here are some pictures.

Coffee Filter Chromatography:

Draw on a coffee filter with marker, and then brush with water.
Black marker is especially cool.

Stained Glass Glue:

Mix glue with a little water. Add a drop or two of food coloring. Touch  a toothpick into some dish detergent, then touch that toothpick to the food coloring in the glue.

Tomorrow is the last day of BEDA! Whoo!

Even More Baby Chicks and Science!

I went back to the Museum of Science and Industry today with some friends.

Foucault's Pendulum. 

We started in the storm science section.

Avalanche Simulation

Launching a hot air balloon.

Then we moved to the genetics area of the museum.

That black thing is a mouse.

Then it was time to see what we (somewhat) came for.

BABY CHICKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Without the weird color distortion from the glass.

Look how cute they are!!!!

With the weird color distortion from the glass.

Still really adorable!!!!!!!!

The back two were fighting. It was so cute.

The eggs in the other section, with some very newborn chicks in the back. Apparently there was a hatching chick, but I couldn't tell which egg it was.

There was an exhibit about people. There was a place where you could here what your voice would sound like as you aged. There was a section where you could play with sonar. And there was a section where you could select goals for your future.

I was amazed by both the number of things I wanted to do, and also by the number of things on the list I had done.

After that we came back to school and celebrated a successful navigation of the public transit system.

Science and Baby Chicks.

This weekend was parents' weekend. I went with my parents to the museum of science and industry in Chicago. Can I just say how amazing this museum is? They did a demo with lots of fire. I got to push lots of buttons. We went into a coal mine.

The best part however was the baby chicks. In the genetics exhibit they have this hatchery of baby chicks. They are the cutest things, all fluffy and adorable. They also had a side with eggs that were hatching and two newly hatched not yet fluffy chicks.

Some cute baby chicks.

These weren't the chicks we saw but you get the idea of how they looked.

Anyway, as adorable as the chicks were in general, seeing baby chicks at a science museum had a special significance to me. A few years ago when my sister was in school we went to the Boston museum of Science for parents' weekend and I got a sweatshirt that had pictures of baby chicks on them and said "Science Chick" (or something like that, I don't have the sweatshirt anymore and couldn't find a picture online).

It seems it is my destiny to associate science with baby chicks. To bad I'm not a biologist. Oh and before you go...

From the MSI website

Chicken for dinner anyone?