Science at the Library

Many of the recent storytimes at the library have been science-based. We love science, so that made us happy.

The summer reading program is "A Universe of Stories," and it has a very scientific/science fictional bent. As part of the program kick-off, the library has been showing off moon rocks borrowed from NASA. The rocks were disappointingly small and not for touching--they were imbedded in acrylic! They were still fun to look at.

Hard to get a good shot with everyone crowding in

They also had a moon globe that shows all the landing spots of the Apollo missions. I want one!

Moon globe

I didn't know they landed practically on the equator!

Another program was "Sink or Swim?" After some stories and songs, we got to the science experiments.

The first experiment we tried was floating an egg. In regular water, an egg does not have enough buoyancy to float. But if the water is salty enough, it will. We never got the egg more than a fraction of a millimeter off the bottom of the glass. We had fun trying.

Float an egg?

Our next experiment was with a ball of clay. At first, the ball-shaped lump sank straight to the bottom.

The light reflection blocks the ball a bit

We took the clay back out and reshaped it into a wide boat. With the added displacement of water, the clay was able to float.

Our boat

The boat was buoyant enough to carry paperclips!

Trying to weigh it down

The final station had a set of objects with a checklist. We had to guess whether things like coins, keys, corks, Legos, pencils, and other items would float. After making our predictions, my son put the various objects into the water. We didn't guess right about the Lego (we were thinking more about its brickness than its plasticity) and we made a middle vote on the plastic spoon. Both items floated.

Testing the cork

We hope for more science over the summer (even if it isn't at the library)!