Our First Science Friday!

Today was awesome. We had 150 kids come through the doors of the John Muir Community Science Workshop. After I gave my “Welcome to your Workshop and What is Science?” opening, I told the students we were going to make flying machines and launch them through our wind tube. For K-2 graders, I asked them to name things that fly and asked whether or not it was made by people or nature. We talked about different reasons for flying machines and their different shapes. For 3-5 graders we talked about the wind tube and how the air flowing through it was a type of fluid, just like at the water slides how the water pushes you through a tube or a slide, the wind will push up a flying machine. Gravity is pushing down at the same time so we talked about characteristics of the flying machines and the forces at play; we also talked about thrust, wingspan and aerodynamics. Each class spent about 10-15 minutes designing and building their creations. Once during the 4th grade class I had to step out for a minute and when I came back several students were using scissors. The kids with scissors were much more creative with their designs and also had a lot more mess to clean up. The best design was a cylindrical tube with a flat surface on the bottom and wings - just like a rocket - go figure. They had a half piece of construction paper, some string, pipe-cleaners, craft sticks masking tape and crayons. 

It worked well to keep them busy for most of the time they were there. Some kids were able to go outside in the back of the Workshop and explore the water table, the bubble tray, the marble wall and to look for bugs under a magnifying glass. Some kids just zoomed their rockets around outside. 

We had two extra interns from New Leaf come to job shadow to see if they are interested, so we had 3 high school interns to help all day and they were terrific. We also had the help of our New Leaf graduate/ intern coordinator and wind tube operator as well as a parent volunteer. So considering we had 6 people plus the teacher to help - the day went smoothly. 

It was the most fulfilling day I remember having in a really long time. There were so many happy faces excited about the space and everything in it. This was really, an incredible day - feeling blessed.