Educating Risa

What a busy and fun day! We made the 3 hour drive north to Edmonton, to attend the University of Alberta’s 11th annual Science Sunday for Kids! After stopping for a quick bite to eat—and to get Jim a much needed coffee—we were off for an afternoon of geeky science fun:

After parking, we followed the signs to the Earth Science Building, and got each kid a name tag, a little bag with an activity centre/station grid (they collected stickers as they did them) and map. This also allowed the University to track numbers. The event, however, was free—donations welcome, of course! It was superb. There were so many stations we didn’t get to them all, and we were there the whole 4 hours!

The first activity the boys did was one of the simplest of the day: Seed Sort. The kids sorted various seeds 3 different times, according to different characteristics: size, colour, and shape, thus illustrating the importance as well as the variance of classification systems within science:

The next station was one the boys really enjoyed: Making Fossils. It was staffed by a very helpful and enthusiastic student who chatted with the boys about time periods and fossils and other things they hold dear. With her help, Gareth made a trilobite fossil, and Daegan a fern:

Next we were off for a session of Noises With The Nature Nut. John Acorn, a prof at the U of A, used to host a TV nature show called Acorn The Nature Nut. We’ve chatted with him many times over the years at various science and nature events in the province, and he recognized the boys and came over for a chat before starting. The boys ADORE him; he’s the closest thing my kids have to a hero. Gareth told him all about just making a trilobite fossil. Daegan mentioned he’s been learning more about reptiles, now that he has read every dinosaur book in our library branch (true!), and John wondered if Daegan was the kind of kid who’d want a reptile for a pet, as he’s got a leopard gecko he needs to rehome. We’ll have to think about that one!

John then played various nature sounds and asked the kids to identify them. He warmed them up first with some funny and loud sounds of the city:

He then moved on to the sounds of a common nightjar / nighthawk, a sharp-tailed grouse, a bat, and a grasshopper (pausing in between to talk about each and show the kids a specimen). Each time he asked “Anyone know what this is?” and while no one got either bird, Daegan shouted out both “bat!” and “grasshopper!” right away, prompting John to smile at me and say, “He’s good.” Gareth, on the other hand, said that the bat echolocation sound was “like the sound when your radio is broken”—cracking everyone right up! (He was in good company, though, as another child had said the nightjar sounded like a Sasquatch!) John then rounded out the presentation with a few more sounds that brought big laughs: a grasshopper that sounds like a lawn sprinkler (so much so that John’s wife asked him, “Why did you record a lawn sprinkler?”) and a ‘test run’ he made of his new underwater microphone—in his toilet while flushing (after a sanitizing scrub, he assured us)! Too funny!

Next we were off to the Fossil Detective station. It was sooooo well done. The kids received a sheet with a pic of a life form, and they had to find its corresponding fossil specimen, which were in little boxes labelled 1 to 16. Both boys were able to do so with very little help—I was so proud of Gareth as he patiently wrote in each number himself!:

This station demonstrated the best of Science Sunday. An awesome activity kids could take at their own pace, tons of hands on REAL SCIENCE specimens and equipment (note the microscope for viewing critters caught in amber), and helpful and enthusiastic folks manning the station. Well done U of A!

Another great feature of Science Sunday was simply the venue. Several of the rooms had stuff to look at aside from the planned activity. Fossil Detectives took place in the U of A mini palaeontology museum, and the boys spent a lot of time simply looking around at the items on display:

In the corner of the paleo museum, the Story Tracks centre was set up. I thought this was a really neat activity. Have a look at the mat of tracks, and see if you can figure out what story it tells:

With a bit of guidance, Daegan was able to put the pieces together. There were two small animals walking together (top left corner; two sets of dark blue tracks), along came a meat eater of some kind (red tracks—they tried telling him that the long mark was left by its tail but Daegan corrected them, telling them that it used to be believed that bipedal dinos like T rex dragged their tail, but the best of the current evidence suggests they did not…all was made well again in Daegan’s world at the suggestion that the meat-eater was a lazy dino! LOL!). In the corner of the red tracks, one of the little blue animal tracks stops, showing it was eaten. The other small animal’s tracks get further apart, suggesting it ran away, and at one point it jumped over a snake (or snake track). The meat-eater followed. Why wasn’t science this fun when I was in school?

Next was Fun Fern Facts, in which Daegan answered 5 true/false questions about ferns, and learned about their spore factories (which unlike the spores, could be seen by the naked eye on the specimen on hand.) He also learned one way to tell ferns and mosses apart—symmetry—which also suggests ferns are more complex plants (they evolved later):

Next was Teeth Tales, which was another super station. You started at one end with a mirror, examining your own teeth (with a bit of guidance from a student), and then compared it to the teeth in various skull specimens on the table (there were tons!). The kids learned about the types of teeth (canines, incisors, molars) and what those teeth were like on different animals (or sometimes they were missing entirely—walruses have no incisors, for example), and what that tells us about the animals’ food choices. This is content my kids are familiar with from their studies of dinos, but having all the different skulls for a close-up,  hands-on examination made it so much more real.

On we went to Mineral Match-Up, an activity that surprisingly greatly engaged the boys (yet not a dino or animal to be seen!)  They had samples of common household items (glass, table salt, pennies, sandpaper, etc.) and samples of different minerals. By feeling (smelling, etc.) both, the kids determined which mineral was used for which common household purpose. Here’s Gareth writing with chunk of graphite, just as Daegan is writing with a graphite pencil:

This activity centre so engaged the boys that they insisted on staying to complete the entire sheet. It was quite interesting, even for us adults! Did you know that table salt was made from halite? Or sandpaper from garnet?

Next was Bone Detective, in which the kids learned about the common traits of the bones of animals with similar lifestyles on different continents: the ant-eater, echidna, pangolin, and one more I forget! I was busy during much of this activity chatting with a U of A rep. to give them feedback about the event. The kids then figured out what the bones said about the animals’ lifestyles (strong diggers; eat insects, etc.):

Time was starting to run short so we moved on to the other activity the boys really wanted to do: Investigating Insects. The boys spent most of our last hour in this room, which also had nifty display cases with critters and models from different periods. You know your kid in in his element when he rushes up to an unlabelled display case with various models inside depicting a scene, and yells, “Look Daddy! The Ordovician!” Here’s Daegan at one of the dozen or so microscopes they had set up:

Gareth wanted to go check out the bug specimens first:

Then Gareth spent some time at various microscopes. Here he is looking at a bee (and the U of A even had lots of little stools around so kids could see easily without help!):

There were a couple additional microscopes in the room set up with a camera and attached to monitors, so you could see springtails and mites and centipedes poking along in a small soil sample. (Soil is alive—no kidding!) There was also a screen at the front playing videos by one of the students. To see them yourself, go to youtube and type in “Jeffrey Newton mites”. 

This picture of Daegan at another scope caught my eye not because of the foreground, but for the background. It was an event that appealed to the broad multi-cultural population of Edmonton. (See, we’re not all red-necked cowboys or perogy-lovin’ Ukrainians in this province!):

Our second last stop was Junior Botanist, in which Daegan made a drawing of fireweed (so named as it is one of the first things to grow after a forest fire) and Gareth the wild rose (the provincial symbol of Alberta—it’s on our licence plates):

Our final station was Dotted Dinos / Prehistoric Pouches, with some arts and crafts activities. The kids loved the prehistoric dot-to-dots:

The boys also enjoyed decorating their bags that carried their station grid and maps. Daegan used felt for his; Gareth drew and cut out the mammoth, and then wanted to add the G for Gareth on a ‘fancy-cut red square’. He also insisted on ribbon:

As if all this awesomeness at the U of Alberta wasn’t enough, here’s the 4 stations we didn’t even get to as we ran out of time: Rock Hounds, Meteorite Mania, Go Glaciers—Flow!, and Rocky Weather. There was also a bonus Archaeological Dig activity for kids ages 7 and up that you had to register for (though still free). As this is an annual event, we will definitely go again. It was just excellent!

After Science Sunday we went for dinner at Padmanadi, my very favourite veggie restaurant in Alberta. Such good food to cap off a wonderful day—and the belly fully of delish food made the 3 hour drive home seem more pleasant too! A wonderful day all around!

Oh, and I forgot to add, while we were there we bumped into other kids with our kids’ names! The ‘Daegan’ (pronounced the same) was spelled “Dagon", and Gareth found another Gareth, also in the dinosaur room, and also in a red shirt! As these are very rare names here, all of us, parents and kids, got quite the kick out of this! (Alberta lists the number of kids born in a given year with each name. Gareth was one of three Gareths born in his year in AB; ditto the 6-year old Gareth we met. Daegans/Dagons/Dagans are equally rare.)