Week 6 - To Be or Knot to Be? Möbius Strips with the Mad Scientists!

OM NOM NOM nom nom!

Sadly, last Thursday was our last Mad Scientist meeting at the Beaver Valley Public Library :( since this Thursday will be our Summer Reading Club Party, see my post about that here: http://beavervalleylibrarykids.blogspot.ca/2012/08/whats-happening-this-week-party.html

Today for out theme I thought science is awesome and so far this summer we've had lots of fun looking at science themed stuff, from biology, zoology, chemistry to math, so I thought more science is always a good thing!

Voila! You see? A simple piece of paper, one loop with a twist (Mobius Strip) and a circular loop!

So, the day before I practised my Möbius strip making and paper loop making! The above and below pictures are the before and after of my loops! The fascinating thing about Möbius strips is how simple, yet complex they are! All a Möbius strip is a loop that has a twist through it! (see above picture on the left!)

Tada!

The Strange ... But True? fact about a Mobius strip that makes it so weird, is that it is characterized as a surface with only one side and one edge, WHA- what!?!! right?

But its true and you can totally try it out for yourself its easy! Cut out a strip of paper and give it a twist before you tape your loop! Then with a pen or pencil start in the middle at a point in our loop and draw a continuous straight line down the middle until you connect the line. :O

The Möbius strip was found by two great German mathematicians, August Ferdinand Möbius (for whom the Möbius strip is named for) and Johann Benedict Listing in 1958.

I'm probably not it explaining it right, but there is this great story on YouTube, that introduced me to Möbius Strips! It's a video done by Vihart, who calls herself a Mathmusician and has a YouTube channel full of crazy, awesome math and music related videos that will blow your mind!

Anyways, I played the story of Wind and Mr. Ug for the Mad Scientists, its a good story that may make you cry :( its a little sad but also well told! I'll post the video here for you to watch! Let me know your thoughts!

After watching our YouTube story I laid out a bunch of pre-made Möbius Strips, construction paper, glue, tape, and scissors for the Mad Scientists to make their own Möbius Strips! Some of the Mad Scientists also went ahead and made some "get better" cards for Sara, who missed the Club because she broke her finger! :O ouch!

Here's some pictures of the Mad Scientists going crazy with making, decorating and constructing some Möbius Strips!

Kyleen made a crazy awesome Möbius Loop, where instead of having 1 twist, she made a loop of about 3-4 twists - as much as she could without ripping her paper!

She then cut down the middle all the way through her loop and it ended up becoming 3 interlocked loops with twists in them! Awesome!

We then went into the game of the Human Knot, which I wrote about in the Young Professor post for Week 6, you can see how to play that game here: http://beavervalleylibrarykids.blogspot.ca/2012/08/week-6-trick-of-light-with-young.html

Ha! I love the pictures of the Human Knot game! It kinda looks like a big awkward group dance! Although in well life it wasn't quiet as graceful.

After a few rounds of the Human Knot game, we carried on to another game, one that I call the Prisoner's Trick! All you need is some string!

Here's how it works!

• Get everyone to get paired off into groups of 2! Or picked out the pairs yourself!
• Tie up a piece of string that is about an arms length in length and at each end knot off a loop that's big or small enough for people to put their hands through and wear like bracelets
• Get one person of the pair to put on their "handcuffs" and then attach their partners to one wrist, and loop their handcuffs through their partners so that they are attached! If that makes no sense, then look at this picture!

• Then state some rules!
1. No taking off your handcuffs!
2. No using friction to escape (a lesson I learned from Jillian and Alicen!)
3. Be careful!
• Then tell the kids that they have to escape from their fellow partner! Tell them that they must untangle their handcuffs from each other to escape!

Here's a look at how the Mad Scientists tried to escape!

Now, I remember the first time I played this game, and its crazy fun and crazy frustrating!! You end up just stepping through the string and coming up still tangled! And even just looking at your interlocking handcuffs, I thought "THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE!!!!"

But let me tell you! There is a trick!

Smarties, Miss Jillian and Alicen thought they could get it! They used some science to decode of the mystery! They used the power of friction!!! - which if you refer to the rules! - is illegal! Please refer to Rule 2!

Here's the proof of Jillian and Alicen breaking out of their prison!

Success!

Now, you probably are squirming in your seats in wonder as how to escape the clenches of this masterful trap! Here are two pictures of how to untangle yourself from the Prisoner's Escape!

Voila!

Crazy right? 

I showed Serena and Caleb the way out of there entanglement and they quickly hurrayed and danced in their newfound freedom! 

Then they went on to pass on their wisdom to Alicen and Jillian, who then went on to teach Emily and Kyleen!

After we were all free from our handcuffs, I quickly reviewed what we learnt today about Möbius Strips and then posed a question ... what if you could make an edible Möbius Strip!?!?!?

AWWWW YEAH! FRUIT BY THE FOOT!!! WHEEEEEEEEW!

Goodness me, this was another awesome idea from Vihart on her YouTube videos. The kids had a blast! Caleb made a giant Möbius Strip!

Alicen made a Möbius Strip and then patiently ripped down its middle and it became a larger skinnier loop!

Jillian made a teeny tiny Möbius Strip! Cute!

Here's Serena with her interlocked loops!

Kyleen ended up with some interlocked loops too! 

So that was our last Mad Scientist meeting :( it was so much fun and I'm looking forward to our party!

Happy Reading my friends!!

Week 5 - Water Week! with the Mad Scientists!!

Today's group shot - check out these Mad Scientists! They be cray-ze!

Oho! A whole week late! Here's what we did last week with the Mad Scientists!

We had lots of fun! We watched for the capillary action of water, water bending, and watched the Hank Green video like the Young Professors! We also continued on our Water Week journey by playing with some waterbeads, which I swear, these Mad Scientists would be content playing with these waterbeads hours on end!

Waterbeads! AW YEAH!

Alicen, Haley and Emily playing with some waterbeads!

Sara, (Chloe behind her!), Caleb, Justice and Chase - barely seen! and Kyleen!

Oh! And we were also informed by Miss Emily that Kyleen's birthday was coming up so we sang some impromptu Happy Birthday Songs! :)

I read to them a story from the book: The Kid Who Named Pluto - and the Stories of Other Extraordinary Young People in Science by Marc McCutcheon. What a fantastic book! Its a compilation of stories of young people discovering and creating things to do with science! I had to interlibrary loan it so unfortunately we don't have it here in Beaver Valley, but do look for it elsewhere! Or even come and interlibrary loan it here, like me!

 We read the story about Venetia Burney, who at the age of 11, suggested the name of Pluto to name the newly found Planet X in 1930!

There are many more stories in the book, of which I would have liked to read with the kids, yet alas! time is always of importance and unfortunately the hour we spend together goes by like lightning!

We ended playing some games! And of course by passing out some waterbeads for the kids to take home! Awesome!

Happy Reading!

Week 4 - Science Week! with the Mad Scientists!

Group shot! (From left): Jillian, Serena, Justice, Chase, Alicen, Kyleen and Sara! Our MAD SCIENTISTS! 

Oho! A whole week late, here, finally, is my Mad Scientist post for last week's Summer Reading Club meeting! Our theme you ask? SCIENCE! :D

Last week was loads of fun, fresh off from the Guest Wednesday the previous afternoon, with Allyson, lots of the kids were excited to continue our adventures through the world of science!

We started off with the food colouring, milk and soap experiment (after reading from "Science Verse) that I also did with the Young Professors! It's lots of fun and if you'd like to here more about it check out my post about this activity here: http://beavervalleylibrarykids.blogspot.ca/2012/07/week-4-science-week-with-young.html

I also need to thank my friend Teresa! I asked her at the beginning of summer about any cool science-y activities/experiments for kids and she whipped this right out of her memories from Science World! Awesome! Science World is like the Disneyland of science!

Here's a few links to some websites that talk more about this activity!

http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/milk-color-explosion

http://www.coolscience.org/CoolScience/KidScientists/tiedyemilk.htm

http://www.cometogetherkids.com/2012/02/swirling-colors-milk-science-experiment.html

Here are some pictures of the Mad Scientists enjoying their milk rainbows!

Brothers Justice and Chase!

Misses Kyleen and Serena

A close up on Serena's green milk explosion.

The ladies' table

The boys' table! So spacious! 

Here's my demonstration plates! The left is a beautiful representation of diffusion in water and the left is my milk plate, the colours disrupted by a dab of soap! 

We then moved on to talking about different states of matter: solids, liquids and gases! We talked about the differences between the three states and then I posed a demonstration for the kids! I showed a tank of water and we all were familiar with its movements: how it fills the container its placed in, how it reacts to outside forces, how it bends and flows and its viscosity - a liquid's measured thickness or resistance to flow in a fluid. It is a fine example of a newtonian fluid! Newton proposed that a liquid's viscosity is directly related to temperature, and that is what we can observe in newtonian fluids! For example, honey and ketchup are both thick liquids that flow slowly. But when you heat honey up it flows more easily and therefore cold honey is more viscous than warm honey!

After investigating or tub of water, I brought out my tub of cornstarch mixture! It also goes my the name oobleck and is made of 1.5 parts cornstarch to 1 part water, and mixed up very well!

This cornstarch mixture is a strange and fun way to learn about non-newtonian fluids! These fluids act strange in that they act like a solid at times and a liquid at other times! Where a newtonian fluid, like water, moves and flows away when an outside forces pushes against it, a non-newtonian fluid instead of moving, solidifies and stiffens like a solid! Here the molecules of the mixture react to the outside pressure and move closer together, almost like moving into a crystalline structure! And then almost immediately after the pressure is taken away, the non-newtonian fluid goes back to flowing like a liquid! This is a great example of a non-newtonian fluid, because here the fluid changes its viscosity when stress or a force is applied! - not when heat is applied, as was the case with a newtonian fluid.

For me, the best way to demonstrate this is when you punch a tub full of the oobleck - as I showed the kids! I (gently) punched my tub of water to show the water moves and flows away, while causing a bit of a splash. Then I punched the oobleck and rather than my fist going through the liquid it bounced of a rigid surface!

Before I unleashed the Mad Scientists into the ooze and globs of cornstarch, I asked them to watch a video that explains oobleck very well! One of my all-time favourite authors, John Green, is an avid YouTuber and started a vlogchannel with his brother Hank Green. 

You can check out a couple of John's books out here at the library: "Paper Towns" and a short story in the compilation book "Geektastic". 

Click on this link to be taken to their YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers

Anyways, I love the Green Brothers, they are great people. And John's brother, Hank, is an accomplished environmental science blogger. Nowadays, John and Hank have started a new creation of online education videos that are both entertaining and extremely educational! So for the Mad Scientists we watched one of Hank's videos talking about non-newtonian fluids!

I'll post it here if you'd like to take a look at it!

The kids really liked this video, I think the best thing I heard all week came from Justice who said "That guy is even better than Bill Nye the Science Guy!" ... Now I don't know if Hank is BETTER than good ol' Bill but they are definitely two amazing and awesome people! 

So finally, after a great deal of patience on their side, the Mad Scientists (fully gloved) attacked the oobleck and played around. Some tried to make snowball ooblecks... that generally ended up oozing away in your hands! Some tried punching, others tried mixing ... and some tried ripping their hands out from the depth of the oobleck!

Here's some pictures of the mess we made!

Kyleen, Justice and Alicen!

Kyleen, Justice, Alicen and Chase

Miss Jillian in the zone with her oobleck!

Finally we moved on to our last experiment for the day! We made some "elephant toothpaste" - as its called.

This is a fun experiment that is a great example of the use of a catalyst in chemical reactions! Here we used a catalyst, catalase, which is found in yeast, to decompose hydrogen peroxide into two products: Water (H2O) and Oxygen gas (O2) (don't mind my total disregard for subscripts in my chemical formulas! IT'S SUMMER FOR GOODNESS SAKES! Give me my freedom!!!!)

Whew, anyways, what we did here was combine hydrogen peroxide (you can use the kind that you find at Walmart and use on your cuts and scrapes although the reaction is a little slower and not so dramatic, since that kind of hydrogen peroxide is 3% and diluted, there's also a salon hair care formula that you can get at certain beauty supply stores or salons that is used for bleached or peroxide blond hair, that is 6% hydrogen peroxide. We were fortunate enough to have both types of 3% and 6%, along with 30% hydrogen peroxide given to us by the great Allyson Perrott from our guest wednesday! Thank you!), soap, food colouring and yeast into a container and watch as the hydrogen peroxide began to breakdown.

Now H2O2 - hydrogen peroxide - naturally and slowly breaks down into water and oxygen gas, as seen in the formula: 2H2O2 --> 2H2O + O2

What we did in our experiment was speed up the reaction with the yeast - or catalyst, and since I had added soap into our mixture something crazy occurred! As the H2O2 broke down the resulting water and oxygen gas created bubbles in the soap! And that's how our beakers began to ooze and foam with such colourful bubbles!

You can learn more about how to do this activity and variations of it at home at the following websites:
http://www.cometogetherkids.com/2012/02/elephant-toothpaste-foaming-science.html
http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/hydrogen-peroxide-eruption

Oh! And watch these videos if you'd like to see what you missed this fine Thursday morning! Although this is a much more concentrated and therefore dramatic retelling of our tale!

And now for some pictures!

Tada!

Our hydrogen peroxide mess!

FOAM! Justice is very much so unimpressed!!! >.<

Our Mad Scientists!

Group shot #2!

The library was transformed into a Mad Scientist's Laboratory! Next week we shall have to practise our evil laughs!! MUAAHAHAHAHAHAA ha

Miss Jillian waiting for ride home! I had to snap a quick photo! So sweet!

Our last foamy experiment!

Our beautiful mess!

And that was the last event for our science week! I had a blast - literally... ! And while the messes we made took hours to clean up, the time we had experimenting and learning about science was fun and AWESOME!

Come down to the library and try to find some good science books! Happy Reading!