{"id":406,"date":"2014-05-01T22:31:42","date_gmt":"2014-05-02T02:31:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonesling.us\/blog\/?p=406"},"modified":"2014-05-01T22:56:26","modified_gmt":"2014-05-02T02:56:26","slug":"stem-night-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/?p=406","title":{"rendered":"STEM Night 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Our school system sponsored a &#8216;Family STEM Night&#8217;.\u00a0 Being nerds, of course we went.\u00a0 Two hours of playing with stuff!<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_409\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-409\" style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/jonesling.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/20140501-owl-pellet.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-409 size-medium\" src=\"\/\/jonesling.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/20140501-owl-pellet-225x300.png\" alt=\"20140501 owl pellet\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/20140501-owl-pellet-225x300.png 225w, https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/20140501-owl-pellet.png 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 85vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-409\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dissecting an owl pellet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The coolest table was all about dissecting owl pellets.\u00a0 I helped Beta uncover a vole (we think it was a vole &#8211; it could have been a small rat, the jaws are pretty similar).<\/p>\n<p>There were also tables with:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>magnets and electricity, with little motors and big batteries you could play with<\/li>\n<li>growing plants (with a seed and a cup of dirt)<\/li>\n<li>making goo (not sure about the science aspect, and it was sponsored by Pfizer so it&#8217;s even more dubious, but it was fun)<\/li>\n<li>making a levitating &#8220;train&#8221; with magnets and a fixed track<\/li>\n<li>making structures using toothpicks and marshmallows<\/li>\n<li>blowing up peeps and boiling cold water with a vacuum and a bell jar (my second favorite, I should have taken a pic)<\/li>\n<li>robots, with a large mobile robot, a roomba, and a small r\/c vehicle for the kids to try (with a video feed in the controller, woo!)<\/li>\n<li>using strobe lights, with a stream of green-colored water dripping in time with the strobe (so the drips appeared to be stationary)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_408\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-408\" style=\"width: 301px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/jonesling.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/20140501-dripping-strobe.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-408 size-full\" src=\"\/\/jonesling.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/20140501-dripping-strobe.png\" alt=\"Strobe light on continuous liquid drips\" width=\"301\" height=\"389\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/20140501-dripping-strobe.png 301w, https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/20140501-dripping-strobe-232x300.png 232w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 301px) 85vw, 301px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-408\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Thanks to the strobe light, the picture documents what we saw &#8211; stationary drops of water<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>One dark spot: a table that was supposed to be about archaeology but it was muddled, including this dubious definition:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Archeological Dig<\/p>\n<p>Next Generation Science Standard:<\/p>\n<p>3-LS4-1. Use fossils to describe types of organisms and their environments that existed long ago and compare those to living organisms and their environments.\u00a0 Recognize that most kinds of plants and animals that once lived on Earth are no longer found anywhere.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<figure id=\"attachment_407\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-407\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/jonesling.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/20140501-bad-science-definition-sign.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-407\" src=\"\/\/jonesling.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/20140501-bad-science-definition-sign.png\" alt=\"Archeological Dig Next Generation Science Standard: 3-LS4-1. Use fossils to describe types of organisms and their environments that existed long ago and compare those to living organisms and their environments.  Recognize that most kinds of plants and animals that once lived on Earth are no longer found anywhere.\" width=\"600\" height=\"506\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/20140501-bad-science-definition-sign.png 600w, https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/20140501-bad-science-definition-sign-300x253.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-407\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bad science at the STEM Fair. Can you see what&#8217;s wrong with this definition?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Well, the kids had fun and didn&#8217;t notice the mistakes.\u00a0 Alpha and Beta both left talking about going into biology &#8211; which makes me happy.\u00a0 And I guess the fair achieved it&#8217;s aims.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, and there was a hovercraft.\u00a0 <a title=\"Monty Python - Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=G6D1YI-41ao\" target=\"_blank\">It was not full of eels<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"840\" height=\"473\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gPy1H0PNzLU?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our school system sponsored a &#8216;Family STEM Night&#8217;.\u00a0 Being nerds, of course we went.\u00a0 Two hours of playing with stuff! The coolest table was all about dissecting owl pellets.\u00a0 I helped Beta uncover a vole (we think it was a vole &#8211; it could have been a small rat, the jaws are pretty similar). There &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/?p=406\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;STEM Night 2014&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4o3FW-6y","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=406"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":411,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406\/revisions\/411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jonesling.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}