Peabody’s first summer project: ice hands! He filled surgical gloves with water, tied them off and left them in the freezer. Once frozen, he tore off the gloves. They’ll make a funky centerpiece to a family cocktail party. Next up, Jello hands!
Archive for the 'The Laboratory' Category
Peabody has been making mounds of Gak, a homemade polymer that’s fun to squeeze. There are many different recipes online. Peabody mixed eight ounces of Elmer’s glue with 3/4 cup of water. Then in a separate bowl, he dissolved a tablespoon of Borax into 1/4 cup of warm water. Then he mixed them together with a plastic spoon. You can get different consistencies of gooiness by reducing or increasing the amount of water. You can also add food coloring. Peabody recommends putting it in a plastic zip-lock bag and using a rolling pin to flatten it out like pizza.
Peabody found some ladybug eggs in the backyard by the bamboo and wild rose bush. He’s put them in a jar, waiting for them to hatch.
Peabody’s class made tiny Earths with Crayola’s Model Magic. First they rolled a small red ball to be the inner core. Then they wrapped additional layers in different colors: yellow for the outer core, orange for the mantle and brown for the crust. He let it dry overnight and this morning we sliced it in half to reveal its cross section. Model Magic is also perfect for creating model cell’s like these. Although Nettie prefers Jello for her cells.
Just as we were wrapping up a day long meeting at the EA offices in Cologne, we stepped out of the conference room for some fresh air and noticed a space shuttle floating up the Rhine. It was a former Soviet Buran (Blizzard) orbiter on its way to the Technical Museum in the city of Speyer. Scientific American has a news item on it.
We finally caught a glimpse of the eclipse after the moon broke through the clouds. I was able to take a few pictures, but clearly I have work to do master astronomical photography.
Residents of North and South America will get to see Earth’s shadow fall across the moon tomorrow night. Check out NASA’s eclipse home page for local show times. (Image courtesy F. Espenak of NASA’s GSFC)
In the same week that Peabody got his first loose tooth, Nettie lost two of her few remaining baby teeth. Wondering how many more she had left, Nettie copied the page on teeth out of one of her human biology books and tried to make an assessment. Even with the guide, it was difficult to know how many more visits the tooth fairy would be making. Nettie made an extra copy of the chart for Peabody so that he could start tracking his teeth from the moment he loses his first.
Today Nettie and Peabody broke open a couple owl pellets. A pellet is a regurgitated hairball full of the undigested bits of a bird’s meal. Carefully opening the ball usually reveals a selection of mouse bones. Identifying the bones is a lot of fun. They found intact skulls, mandibles, ribs and a variety of smaller bones. Both are taking their finds to school to share with their classes. We bought our pellets at a park nature center, but they’re available online for under $3 a piece.
The glyptodon has been Nettie’s favorite prehistoric creature since writing an Ice Age report last year. They’re giant cousins of armadillos. that just have the sweetest look about them. Nettie was lucky enough to find a nice plastic model of one at the Natural History Museum in Vienna this summer. In celebration of the identification of the remains of a new species of glyptodont in Chile, Nettie’s toy version joined the merriment at the Playmobil advent calendar park. The Weiner dog doesn’t look surprised.