June 2012 Archives

Planes, trains, and automobiles... all great ways to get around. But when it comes to exploring cool travel, the hovercraft shines with its ability to effortlessly glide across land or water. Make one at home to explore the aerodynamics at work!

Remember Luke's land speeder in the original Star Wars trilogy? Remember the way it skimmed across Tatooine's surface of sand as he went in search of R2-D2 and found Obi-Wan? While not necessarily a textbook example of hovercraft technology, the story set in a "galaxy far, far away" did a memorable job in 1977 of showing the potential—and alluring 'glide'—of an air-cushion vehicle (ACV). While the big-screen Star Wars version may have lodged the transportation mode in the public imagination, the first hovercraft, invented by Christopher Cockerell, predates the saga by almost twenty years.

Touted as an environmentally friendly design—it travels mostly above the surface—hovercraft are often associated with water, in part because they have become linked with rescue vehicles. While they are amphibious, hovercraft are not limited to water. Instead, hovercraft are multi-terrain vehicles. The DiscoverHover website describes them as "boat-like vehicles, but they are much more than just a boat, because they can travel over not only water, but grass, ice, mud, sand, snow and swamp as well." The craft's ability to ride on a self-generated and self-maintained cushion of air as it transitions between different terrain is at the heart of the vehicle's innovative aerodynamic design. When hovering, the hull of the craft, which can also float, is lifted off the surface and propelled by a cushion of air that is trapped under the vehicle by a structural "skirt" element.

DIY Hovercraft

Exploring aeronautics principles and design issues related to hovercraft doesn't require a factory, heavy machinery, power tools, or a sophisticated motor. You don't even need wheels! Using materials you probably have around the house, your students can park the die-cast cars for the day and embark on an afternoon's worth of hovercraft racing with their own balloon-powered vehicles.

The simplest hovercraft model can be constructed from a paper plate and a balloon. This model offers a hands-on look at how the craft moves, but repeated travels will probably put a dent in the design. Using foam board instead of a paper plate may increase the longevity of the model. Though thicker than a paper plate, foam board is sturdier and yet still lightweight, an important factor in DIY hovercraft success. If you have a sheet of Elmer's foam board tucked away in a craft closet, your young engineers can experiment with the shape of the craft. Does a circular hovercraft fly farther than a rectangular one? What diameter of circle works best? What is the relationship between the size of the circle and the size of the balloon? Does a foam board hovercraft fly as far as one made from a paper plate? What kinds of modifications can you make to the center where the balloon is stationed?

Recycled compact discs can also be used to make hovercrafts. Pass over a few old CDs, an equal number of drinking bottle valves, some glue, and a pile of balloons in varying sizes, and let your young engineers loose! If you're ready for the races to begin, the "How Does a Hovercraft Work?" project has the blueprint for designing your own miniature hovercraft. You can find additional family-friendly guidance in the CD Hovercraft cartoon from Howtoons. Figuring out what makes the craft hover longer or cover more ground is part of the fun—and part of the science exploration! Make sure to have the video camera ready for some short film footage, just in case there's a finish that's too close to call!

Going Bigger

While building and testing miniature hovercrafts is a great summer activity, especially for elementary (and younger) students, more industrious models are certainly possible and can be excellent under-cover summer projects, perfect for tinkering in the garage. The "Riding on Air—Build a Real Hovercraft" project outlines one approach to creating a leaf-blower powered hovercraft. As part of your background reading, tune in to the DragonFly episode in which Rachel and Sara build their own hovercraft—and troubleshoot problems they encounter on grass. To see another life-size example, check out this video from Howtoons' Saul Griffith.

How well will your hovercraft glide? Put it to the test!

A new online video game design program from the makers of Gamestar Mechanic offers video game enthusiasts the chance to move from player to designer—with the help of industry pros.

Are your students enrolled in camps this summer? From camps that triangulate art, science, and physical play to create a multi-faceted day-to-day experience to specialized camps that offer the ability to focus on a particular subject, hobby, or skill over an extended set of days, summer camps invite exploration through hands-on projects and activities. While lanyard-making still makes an appearance at some camps, the "meat" of many camps lies in their ability to enable an immersive subject- or theme-oriented experience that lets students explore new fields or dive further into areas of high interest.

Offering an à la carte approach to summer, camps have cropped up en masse in recent years to intersect with a wide range of student interests, including LEGO, robotics, science, art, music, cooking, and even skateboarding. In short, if your student has a particular interest or passion, there is likely a camp—even for video game design and programming.


Virtual Summer Camp

E-Line Media, the company behind Gamestar Mechanic, a popular online video game design environment, is giving summer camp a virtual boost with the introduction of a new four-week, online video game design program. Created for students ages 10-14, the flexible program combines the appeal of the Gamestar Mechanic interface as a fun, engaging, and easy-to-learn entry point for kids interested in gaming or game design with the expertise of professional video game designers who will work with and mentor the young game makers. Through a series of exercises and challenges, students will, over the course of the four-week program, further their own design portfolio as they explore and create platform games, adventure games, and action games. The program culminates with each student's creation of a final project, a game that showcases the student's growing skills as a video game designer.


The Story Behind the Virtual Summer Program

Science Buddies caught up with Brian Alspach, Executive Vice President and General Manager for E-Line, to find out more about the summer program.

Q: Gamestar Mechanic does a great job, year-round, of introducing students to fundamental video game design concepts—and hooking them on making their own games. What was the inspiration behind creating a more "class-like" virtual summer program extension and experience?

A: We see lots of young people with an interest in making games. For some, that interest is just beginning, and we think Gamestar Mechanic and the self-moderated learning experience you can have there can help a student with a burgeoning interest get started on a learning pathway in game design. But we do see it as only the start of a pathway, and for kids who want explore that interest more deeply, we want to build out the entire ecosystem around game design. That includes deeper learning experiences like the online summer program.

Q: The summer course is designed with students ages 10-14 in mind. How flexible, or extensible, is the learning opportunity in terms of skill level? Will the course scale and provide both challenge and room to grow for someone who has been building games for a while using Gamestar Mechanic? Or is the course primarily for the beginning game designer?

A: Whether you're a beginning game designer or have some prior experience, the key way to 'level up' is to keep making games and getting feedback on your work. One of the unique things that the summer program offers is an opportunity to do this in a highly scaffolded environment with instructors and game industry pros who are dedicated to working with the young designers and giving them that kind of feedback. It creates a unique opportunity for growth and self-expression around the areas that the aspiring young designer is interested in.

Q: Does the course use Gamestar Mechanic as the sole development environment?

A: It does. At this stage of the online learning, we're trying to keep the focus on game design, both because it's the area where we have the most experience but also because the skills that make someone a good designer tend to be underrepresented in approaches that, say, have kids jump into the technical side of game creation right away. Over time, we'll be expanding our online learning program to include courses that focus on other topics and disciplines within game design—programming, art creation, other game genres, etc..—so this course will serve as a nice entry point to set kids up for those future experiences, too.

Q: By approaching video game design as a 'game,' Gamestar Mechanic makes it easy—and fun—for 'players' to get started with game design. To what degree do you feel the environment prepares students to jump to the next level in game design (e.g., more object-oriented design and programming)?

A: I think approaching it as a game is a great way to build motivation, keep kids engaged, and create opportunities to learn from examples, especially at an early stage. But it really is an entry point to a learning pathway of increasing flexibility in game making, more technical skill being required. If you don't have a solid grounding in design concepts and skills, it's easy to lose your way. These online courses are one way we're approach building out that pathway, and I think this first one in the summer program provides a good starting point.

Q: Based on how the course is structured, what will a typical student exit with in terms of a portfolio of games she has designed?

A: There is a mixture of optional and required game making projects in the course, so students can exit with a portfolio of something like a dozen games by the time they complete the course, with a combination of instructor, pro-designer and peer feedback on all of them.

Q: Pairing aspiring game designers with industry experts is an exciting aspect of the program. How will this component work? Who will the students be working with, and what kinds of interaction can they expect?

A: We think it's a really transformational thing. The kids will have personal instructors, who are educators and students of game design, who will provide coaching and feedback throughout the course. In addition, a subset of their game design assignments will be reviewed by 'game pros'—real folks working in the game industry as designers, producers, artists, etc.... We've got a really neat format where the pros playtest the students' games and video capture their play along with a PIP window with them giving their feedback. The kids get to see a pro react to their game in real time and get suggestions on how to improve it.

Q: What is most exciting to you about this new summer program?

A: For me, the opportunity to connect kids with mentorship and coaching from the instructors and pros is really compelling. If you're a kid with an interest in, say, sports or music, there are tons of support structures you can draw on to help you along the way. That doesn't exist for the most part if your interest is in making games, so we're excited to be taking our first steps to help create some of them.

In a series of fun and accessible family science projects, Science Buddies and Scientific American make it easy to add family science to your together-time activities.

Through activities posted in Scientific American's Bring Science Home area, Science Buddies and Scientific American are helping encourage family science. Activities posted at Bring Science Home are written with parents of elementary school-age children in mind and are designed to make it easy for parents to choose to do science with their children, just as they might do an art project. Encompassing a wide range of topics, interests, areas of science, and "questions," these sciences activities use readily-available materials and can be great for summer, weekend, or rainy day exploration. Even more important, these hands-on science projects get families talking about science. For parents who may be uncertain how to approach science with their children, or may not think about science as something they should be doing with their kids, the weekly activities at Bring Science Home reinforce the value of family science and show parents how easy and fun family science can be!

Asking Questions; Finding Answers

Kids are naturally curious, and the best way to find out the answer to a question is often to put it to the test. The guided explorations available at Bring Science Home, many of which are family-friendly adaptations of Science Buddies Project Ideas, help parents investigate everyday science questions with their kids. Recent activities include:

• Shoreline Science: Exploring the Erosive Energy of Waves: investigate how beaches are formed and how different parts of a beach respond to the movement of waves. (full Science Buddies Project Idea)
• Spurting Science: Erupting Diet Coke with Mentos: explore the physical reaction that takes place when you drop a Mentos® candy into Diet Coke. (full Science Buddies Project Idea)
• Salty Science: How to Separate Soluble Solutions: mix sand and salt together and try to separate them again. Sound hopeless? A solvent can help! (full Science Buddies Project Idea)
• Skipping Science: An Experiment in Jump-Rope Lengths: figure out the relationship between the length of the rope and how quickly you can jump. (full Science Buddies Project Idea)
• Squirmy Science: Which Soil Types Do Earthworms Like Best?: earthworms do important tasks in helping to keep soil rich in nutrients. Find out what kind of soil they prefer. (full Science Buddies Project Idea)
• Dirty Science: What Makes Soil Become Dense?: soil that is too compacted can make it difficult for bugs, worms, plants, and other organisms to thrive. What factors contribute to how compacted an area of soil becomes? (full Science Buddies Project Idea)
• Hairy Science: Measuring Humidity with a Hair Hygrometer: a tool made from strands of hair can help you measure the amount of humidity in the air. (full Science Buddies Project Idea)
• Buoyant Science: How Metal "Boats" Float: steel boats might seem too heavy to float in water. Learn how the water pushes back to keep the boat afloat! (full Science Buddies Project Idea)
• Snappy Science: Stretched Rubber Bands Are Loaded with Potential Energy!: shoot some rubber bands to explore what the pullback stretch has to do with the "energy" in the rubber band—and how far the rubber band flies. (full Science Buddies Project Idea)
• Probability and the Birthday Paradox: as you learn more about mathematical probability, chances are that you will uncover two people who share a birthday, even out of a seemingly small group of people! (full Science Buddies Project Idea)
• Juice Box Geometry: how much juice does a juice box hold? The answer is in the geometry of the packaging and design. (full Science Buddies Project Idea)
• Rock Solid? How Particles Affect Porosity: when it comes to rocks, size can be deceptive. Investigate how different sized rocks can fit together to better understand how rocks have different porosities. (full Science Buddies Project Idea)
• Swinging with a Pendulum: a pendulum's swing is a result of gravity, but the time it takes a pendulum to swing from one side to the other and back has something to do with the length of the pendulum. What's the relationship? (full Science Buddies Project Idea)

For more information and a list of additional Science Buddies contributions to Bring Science Home, see: "Science Buddies Helps Scientific American Bring Science Home" (February, 2012).

Sixth-grader explores the ancient Egyptian science of mummification and learns that history and science make a winning pair!

By Kim Mullin

Mind Your Mummy

Last September, Emily Aguilar was a sixth-grade history enthusiast in search of a science fair project. On the advice of her teacher, she visited the Science Buddies web site and used the Topic Selection Wizard to narrow down her choices. Enticed by the idea of learning more about ancient Egypt, she selected the "Minding Your Mummies: The Science of Mummification" project.

Luckily, this unique human biology project didn't require a trip to the Pyramids of Giza. Instead, Emily created her own modern-day mummy using a hot dog! She weighed and measured the hot dog at the beginning of the experiment, carefully recording the information in her lab notebook. Then, taking on the role of embalmer, she prepared the hot dog using baking soda to simulate the process of mummification. On days seven and ten of the process, she weighed and measured the hot dog again to see what changes had taken place. Through her project, Emily saw firsthand how mummification dessicates, or dries, a body, a step Egyptians took, using Natron salt, before wrapping and placing a dead body in a sarcophagus. "I also learned that mummified hot dogs smell pretty bad!" exclaims Emily.

When Emily was ready to make her display board, she returned to Science Buddies for ideas and guidance. A final step in the science project process, a student's project display board lets the student share the entire experience with an audience. "The Project Display Board page helped me plan the layout of my board," she says. "My board turned out so organized and neat." With her mummified hot dogs on display alongside the board, Emily's project generated a lot of interest!

Emily won second place at her school science fair and enjoyed the experience so much that she volunteered to go to the Ventura County Science Fair. At that fair, she also took second place in the "Product Science - Biological" division, which qualified her for the California State Science Fair. Of her trip to the state science fair, Emily says, "I had a lot of fun explaining my project to the public and joking around with the other kids. The judges thought my project was fun and original, but I was really surprised when the announcer called my name for an Honorable Mention the night of the award ceremony."

Now that her mummification project is all wrapped up, what does Emily have to say? "I can't wait to do it again next year!"

Top science students join the Science Buddies team in year two of the Summer Science Fellows program. Bringing science expertise, enthusiasm, and fresh perspective, these recent graduates will assist Science Buddies in various tasks, including testing K-12 projects and resources.

After meeting with students at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) last month, Science Buddies recently selected and announced its group of 2012 Summer Science Fellows. Launched last year, the Science Buddies Summer Science Fellows program offers recent high school graduates a meaningful, paid summer internship doing science-related work during the transitional summer break before they begin their undergraduate studies. These Fellows each demonstrated their science acumen by presenting science projects at the Intel ISEF, a mark of achievement that Science Buddies' Founder Kenneth Hess views as a strong indicator of academic commitment and excellence, good time management skills, and a dedication to the scientific process.

The following students will be working with Science Buddies as 2012 Science Fellows:

• Ashley Bianco is a graduate of River Springs Charter School and will attend Emory University in the fall. Her Intel ISEF Plant Sciences project was "Novel Genes and Mutations in Arabidopsis Thaliana." Ashley was also a semifinalist in this year's Intel Science and Talent Search (ISTS) and has been named the 2012 David Schwartz Summer Science Fellow, an honorary title established this year in memory of the Bio-Rad Laboratories co-founder.

• Sophie Kim is a graduate of Palos Verdes Peninsula High School and will attend Stanford in the fall. Her Intel ISEF Computer Science project was "Mathematical Modeling of Cancer Cell Proliferation After Radiotherapy."

• Rose Leopold is a graduate of Pacific Collegiate School and will attend Northeastern in the fall. Her Intel ISEF Earth & Planetary Science project was "Morphological Disparity During the Ammonoid Recovery after the Permian Mass Extinction."

• Manita Singh is a graduate of Canyon Crest and will attend MIT in the fall. Her Intel ISEF Materials & Bioengineering Project was "Effects of Polycaprolactone and UV Treated Poly (Methyl Methacrylate) Electrospun Fibers on Osteogenic Differentiation of Dental Pulp Stem Cells."

• Damon Kawamoto, a 2011 Intel ISEF competitor, is returning for a second summer as a Science Buddies Fellow. She attends Brown University. Her Intel ISEF project was "Population Modeling of the Sacramento Salmon: Combining Compositional Data with Traditional Abundance Estimates."

• Danielle Nguyen, a 2011 Intel ISEF competitor, is also returning for a second summer as a Science Fellow. She attends McGill University. Her Intel ISEF Behavioral & Social Sciences project was "Sonification: A Novel Approach to Data Representation, Differentiation of Multiple Streams of Data."
  

Science Fellows to Participate in Hands-On Science Projects

As Fellows, these young scientists and innovators will assist Science Buddies in a variety of roles, including testing Project Ideas and Science Buddies kits. Real-world testing by young people for young people complements the vetting of resources and materials by Science Buddies' in-house scientists. The Fellows will also work on the production of student-centered videos both supporting specific Project Ideas and demonstrating individual and high-interest science techniques for Science Buddies' YouTube channel.

Science Buddies looks forward to a productive and fun-filled summer with these new Science Fellows. The 2011 Summer Fellows paved the way last summer and set a high bar for the contributions Fellows can make during a few short summer months. Science Buddies feels confident this year's Fellows will demonstrate a similarly high caliber of work—with or without the flaming rubber chicken that debuted in videos created by last year's Fellows!

Creating a batch of homemade putty puts polymers in the palm of your hand. This family science activity may inspire nostalgia, but your kids will have a blast exploring the tactile medium.

When you think of the comics from the Sunday paper, as they were during your childhood, what comes to mind? (If you are under 30, ask your parents or a teacher!) First, they were in color, a novel weekend change from the daily black and white. Even if newspaper comics are really targeted for the adult, sit-with-the-paper-and-a-cup-of-coffee crowd, there is a certain allure to them for kids, especially in the slightly washed tones that were once the colors de jour of the Sunday edition. If memories of a stretchy, slightly hard but malleable wad of flesh-colored putty piggybacks on your childhood memories of the Sunday paper, don't feel bad. I'm right there with you. For some reason, when I think of Silly Putty®, I think of the Sunday comics, and vice versa. The Silly Putty timeline puts things in a bit of historical perspective, with Crayola acquiring the rights to Silly Putty during my childhood, followed by a resurgence of interest in the stretchy, bouncy medium and its egg-shaped containers in the 80s. What I didn't know back then was that the stretchy putty is actually a great example of science and what can happen when molecules link together in long repeating chains.

What Came First

The story of Silly Putty is one with a take-to-heart moral for scientists and engineers of all ages: invention sometimes is the result of an accident or a failed experiment. Or, in science project terms, what you discover when your hypothesis is disproven might be even more exciting than what you were hoping to discover! The second-level moral surely has something to do with having one's eyes open to unexpected possibilities.

Silly Putty was first created during World War II by researchers who were trying to develop synthetic alternatives to rubber, an important commodity that was rationed during the war. While more than one researcher claims the initial discovery, Crayola lists James Wright, who worked for General Electric, as the inventor. What Wright (at GE) and another team (at Dow Corning) had separately discovered in their labs was that a combination of boric acid and silicone oil yielded a stretchy substance that bounced when dropped. Despite its unusual (and entertaining) properties, the putty wasn't a viable alternative to rubber. No good use for the putty was found, in fact, until a toy store owner saw it and realized its tactile potential—as a toy. The familiar egg-shaped container came later, along with more than a quarter million units sold in three days, and the rest, as they say, is history, although the putty's path from the lab into popular culture didn't happen overnight. Though Silly Putty didn't enjoy simple rocket-to-the-top success, it did shuttle to the moon with the crew of Apollo 8 in 1968. Today, the putty even has a spot at the Smithsonian Institute.

Making Connections

While Silly Putty, from the store, can be a fun and inexpensive diversion for the kids, putty is one of many DIY mediums you can mix at home for a quirky, crafty, scientific experience that's perfect for the family, spans a range of ages, and gives everyone something to play with afterwards. Other interesting tactile substances you can concoct at home include Ooblek and Gak. While different in nature, the three together make a powerful trio for summer fun and hands-on kid science. Be forewarned, however, that differences in printing and ink technologies may make it hard to replicate your childhood Sunday comics memories. The nostalgia you may have when working with the Elmer's® school glue, on the other hand, may more than make up for it. For your kids, you'll be highlighting some important science concepts that help explain how many materials we use every day are created. Plus, the outcome of the project is a wad of goo with a small amount of slime-factor that can stretch, bounce, and squoosh. For certain age groups, it doesn't get much better than that!

Silly Science

Substances like Silly Putty are part of a class of materials called polymers. Like other molecules, polymers are compounds, but they are large and may contain tens of thousands of atoms. Compare this, for example, to water, a compound of hydrogen and oxygen that contains three atoms. A good way to visual the difference between small molecules (like water) and polymers (also called macromolecules) is to think of the size difference between a crystal of salt (small) and a strand of spaghetti (larger and longer).* Like the strand of spaghetti, polymers are long chains of molecules strung together. These strands can also be tangled up to create a giant mess of polymer chains. Are you still envisioning a bowl of spaghetti?

Part of what makes polymers interesting is that each polymer has unique properties and behaviors defined by its molecules. Some polymers are stretchy. Some are sticky. Some are hard. Many familiar and commonly used polymers are synthetic, but there are also naturally occurring polymers, including cellulose, starch, proteins, silk, chitin, and rubber. What you want your putty-mixers to understand is that Silly Putty has its characteristic stretch and bounce because of the molecules from which it is made.

Bring on the Polymers

Using a combination of Elmer's white school glue, borax (a cleaner made from sodium tetraborate), and water, you can create a substance similar to Silly Putty. The polymer in DIY putty is not the same as in a commercially sold egg-container of Silly Putty, but glue and borax react to form a similar polymer structure. One of the ingredients in Elmer's glue is polyvinyl acetate—a polymer. When you combine Elmer's glue with borax, a chemical reaction occurs, and borax molecules create links between molecules of polyvinyl acetate in the glue. As more and more cross-linked molecules form, the polymer begins to take on new properties—and new substance. Since you wouldn't pick up and play with a handful of glue, you know that something has happened in the mixing because your putty isn't sticky like glue.

Figuring out the optimal ratio of glue to borax is a great science exploration for students. As you mix up separate batches with varying amounts of the two main ingredients, you can compare the differences in the resulting substances. If you want to focus on a single batch until you determine a formula that feels and works well, start with a single recipe from one of the sources below and add small amounts of the borax solution until you reach the desired consistency. Just be sure and work the borax into the glue solution well each time so that it mixes thoroughly before you add more! (Tip: have your students take the putty from the bag, feel it, stretch it, and manipulate it with their hands to evaluate the consistency. Is it too sticky? Is it too hard to squish? Does it break too easily?)

The following resources can help guide your exploration. The full Science Buddies Project Idea can be used during science fair season, but the general procedure gives you a blueprint for turning the project into an exciting family activity:

• Bouncy Polymer Chemistry
• Playing with Polymers (this adaptation of the Science Buddies Project Idea appears in Scientific American's Bring Home Science)

Squishy Fun

Be prepared for some experimental zaniness after the putty is mixed. Once students get past the initial sensation of how the putty "feels" in their hands, seeing what happens when you do "this" or "that" with the putty is part of the fun and part of the science-based observation the activity inspires. All you have to do to turn up the volume as they squish the putty around in their hands is ask: does it bounce?



Note: Dispose of your glue and borax waste in a trash bag, not down the sink.

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^* Spaghetti analogy appears in Carnegie Mellon's Introduction to Polymers.

If your readers are fans of one comic format or another, you may find that science-themed manga titles are a welcome addition to your younger and middle students' summer reading lists.

In my house, manga and the graphic novel format rule. For years, my students have been devouring manga titles, a reality that made me even more thankful for the library early on when I realized they were zipping through titles in under an hour—and ready for more. With some favorite series containing 40-50 volumes, we've put our library account to sizzling use through the years. Although there's no Da Vinci-esque script involved, my students read backwards with the same ease as they do forwards.

While there are themes they prefer, I've discovered that their affinity for the genre—and the comic format—crosses all boundaries. We've read through the graphic novel shelves at the library and broadened our appreciation of traditional-style comics with healthy doses of classic and unforgettable strips like Calvin and Hobbes. Their willingness to read virtually anything presented in panels opens up exciting terrain when it comes to science content.

Cartoon-style Science

Many students, even students who are excellent readers, enjoy the comic genre (at large), which makes it wonderful that there are increasing numbers of titles available, including a wide range of science-themed graphic novels. There are cartoon-style collections of project ideas, comic book stories of science clubs and science-studded plots, biographies presented in graphic novel format, and illustrated guides devoted to major areas of science.

Earlier this week, we posted a super-sized list of great summer reading selections for older students and adults from the popular science shelves. That list included Feynman, a graphic novel biography of Richard Feynman, co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 and known for his eccentric personality, spotlighted both in famous classroom lectures and in a series of autobiographical titles. For readers with an interest in physics, quantum mechanics, subatomic particles, and nanotechnology, Feynman may be an interesting launching point. As a follow-up—or a starting point in a different area of science—these titles from the "Manga Guide" series are ones your middle-to-upper-grade students might enjoy over the summer as a supplement to some hands-on exploration.

• The Manga Guide to Physics
• The Manga Guide to Electricity
• The Manga Guide to Molecular Biology
• The Manga Guide to Relativity
• The Manga Guide to the Universe
• The Manga Guide to Biochemistry

Loose Science
When it comes to full-color graphic novels aimed at the younger audience and with few illusions of being truly educational, there are a range of titles for students to latch onto. From the Amulet series to Jellaby and Zita the Spacegirl, the genre is brimming with books to entice young and middle readers. Because many of these stories are quasi-science fiction in nature, science often lurks within, even if it isn't center stage. Reading about characters who are scientists, explorers, and inventors is a fun alternative to other character archetypes and might help engage students in their own science exploration—and in the possibilities offered by science-related career paths. Even Babymouse did a stint as a scientist before the team behind the series introduced Squish, the school-aged, Twinkie-eating amoeba who stars in a series dubbed "a tale of microscopic proportions" (see Super Amoeba, Brave New Pond, and The Power of the Parasite).

When science is presented as cool, fun, and often-accompanied by a bang, a bit of time travel, or a world-changing discovery, there's fertile ground for the imagination—and for growing awareness of science. For fun downtime reads for your middle readers, books that offer less textbook science and more story, you might consider graphic novels like The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook, Knights of the Lunch Table: The Dodgeball Chronicles (there's a science teacher in the mix), and The Knights of the Lunch Table #2: The Dragon Players (building robots takes center stage). Similarly, the titles in the Daniel Boom AKA Loud Boy series also have science, engineering, and invention as underlying themes. The kids who are part of this group each have a questionable super ability, but you'll find that there's something scientific afoot in each adventure. Or, for a greener spin on the graphic novel, Luz Sees the Light explores the importance of sustainability and reducing one's reliance on fossil fuels.

A Taste for More Traditional Books?

While the graphic novel format seems to have gone viral for many school-age readers, the format isn't for everyone. We'll be posting a list of summer choices for chapter books and novels for elementary and middle readers. Here are a few non-comic titles to get you and your students started:

• The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (fictional story of a young naturalist)
• Doyle and Fossey, Science Detectives (see our review)
• Who Was Thomas Alva Edison? (or Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Ben Franklin, etc.)
• The Hive Detectives: Chronicle of a Honey Bee Catastrophe
• The Case of the Vanishing Golden Frogs: A Scientific Mystery
• The Magic School Bus series (Who can resist Ms. Frizzle and her science-traveling school bus? Look for chapter book versions for your elementary school readers.)
• Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci
• Kakapo Rescue: Saving the World's Strangest Parrot or other titles from the Scientists in the Field Series
• Science Fair (a Dave Barry tale that puts a science fair project in the middle of an international espionage plot)

We would love to hear about science-themed titles you and your students enjoy!

Building paths for marbles to race, climb, and loop brings physics to heart-pounding life—minus the admission fee, height requirement, and endless wait in line. A willingness to uncover principles of energy and laws of motion is required; cotton candy is optional.

One of my family's favorite stopping spots at the Exploratorium, our local science museum, is the "Tinkering Studio" where a pegboard wall, bins of low-tech building materials, and rolls of masking tape are available for impromptu marble-run construction. The build-at-will lab is nestled in the far back corner of the museum, but it's a beeline destination for many. The perpetual hands-on exhibit invites kids of all ages to position ramps and tubes so that a marble will roll down one length, drop to another, and continue, hopefully, until it lands in some form of cup at the bottom. Some kids build small-scale runs, content to see the marble make it through one or two connections and into the cup. Others create more sophisticated runs, testing and re-testing to correct angles and positioning as they work on perfecting their layouts. Always, the energy in the air is exciting, and when a kid stands up, holds a marble over the starting point for a final run, and sees the construction succeed, the marble rattling to its final stop in a plastic bin at the bottom, the reward is clear: I made it work.

Having seeing how immersive this kind of building can be, I have often thought it would be amazing to line a hallway or bedroom wall with pegboard for this purpose at home. There are many ways to transform a household wall into a space for creativity, invention, and hands-on, perpetual discovery. At various points, I considered both magnetic and chalkboard walls, but marble runs may have more longevity in terms of kid interest. With their quirky and wide-ranging assortment of parts and components and anything-goes aplomb, run building , captivates and challenges both tape-happy younger students and older students with a developing thirst for structural finesse. Whether you take a DIY approach and put together your own wall-based, standalone, or travel-ready kit, or whether you invest in a ready-made marble run or rollercoaster building kit, these kinds of activities, an extension, maybe, of early fascination with brick and block building, are great for letting kids explore principles of physics and engineering.

The Roller Coaster Connection

While angles and trajectories are critical to a marble run's success, the path usually moves in one direction, top to bottom, and any quasi-lateral rolls probably still involve a bit of a decline. Roller coasters, on the other hand, often climb, drop, and climb again, which requires different energy and momentum. What makes a ride thrilling in person is often a combination of speed and stomach-lurching looping, a combination that relies upon and illustrates Newton's laws of motion and conservation of energy. Students who love to ride roller coasters can turn summer amusement park thrills into an informal physics exploration with a homemade vertical accelerometer using "The Chills and Thrills of Roller-Coaster Hills" project. Take the tool along for the ride and measure the g-force at different locations during the ride. Be prepared to ride several times in a row to gather data!

Using the DIY accelerometer to collect g-force measurements gives validity to riding "just one more time" at the amusement park, but once home again, there's plenty of thrilling science to recreate with a DIY roller coaster made from foam tubing. The "Roller Coaster Marbles: Converting Potential Energy to Kinetic Energy" physics project guides students through construction and the tracking of potential energy as it is converted to kinetic energy during a marble's path from start to finish. The same tubing can be used to investigate the math upon which coaster loops depend. The "Roller Coaster Marbles: How Much Height to Loop the Loop?" project explores the ratio between height and loop size. It wouldn't be much fun if you got halfway up the loop only to slip back to the base and stall, right?

Making Connections

Perfect for at-home exploration, marble runs and roller coaster experiments fall in line with bridge building, tower construction, and even exploration of simple machines. What will your students construct this summer?

Your students need to keep reading—all summer long. Reading helps fight summer brain drain, but if you encourage your students to read books with a science theme, the pages read do double duty. And you? If a popular science title isn't what you would typically grab for a vacation read, it might be time to shake up your summer reading. Science Buddies staff offers suggestions for engaging science-themed reads for tweens and up.

As our elementary school principal wrapped up his "morning circle" announcements a few weeks ago on the last day of school, he closed with: "And students, don't forget to read this summer. Every day." There were a few token groans around the circle, but I couldn't help but smile, happy to have had the critical importance of summer reading highlighted in that way—as a reminder to parents as well as to students. Statistics are clear that reading and math are two areas of learning at the most risk over the summer. I'm sure it's no coincidence that public libraries around the country offer prize-laden summer reading programs as incentive to keep kids reading. I remember a "bookworm" club years and years ago. When it comes to reading, not much has changed. What has changed is the availability of so many other things to do, to schedule, and to flip on, all of which can put time spent with a nose in a book on the back burner, for students and adults alike.

No matter what activities, vacations, camps, or schedules you keep during the swathe of summer days, make sure there is plenty of reading going on. As you help your students choose books and encourage them to read a few more chapters, be on the lookout for great science picks. Mix daily reading with science-themed books, and what do you get? The combination can be a recipe for exciting, immersive, eye-opening, mind-expanding summer reading. We encourage plenty of hands-on science exploration over the summer, both small ones and longer-term ones that bridge the days and develop throughout the break. But reading about science can also broaden a student's frame of reference and open up new paths of potential interest—for everyone in the family! Set a great example, and stock your own to-read shelf with some of today's most exciting popular science titles.

"Checking Out" Science

After reading Science Fair Season: Twelve Kids, a Robot Named Scorch... and What It Takes to Win last month and finding myself really caught up in the stories of the students profiled, I started pulling a wide range of science-themed books from the library shelves. In recent weeks, I have been surrounded by piles of science and math titles, stacks of books brimming with information on nests, spirals, chemistry, physics, poisons, biology, and more. With each one I picked up, I found myself hooked in different ways.

Nests: Fifty Nests and the Birds that Built Them has been open next to me for a number of days. The book is a beautiful collection of photos of birds nests—and their eggs. If you think all nests are woven baskets of twigs, you will find Nests an eye-opening and wonderful exploration of the amazing diversity, artistry, innovation, resourcefulness, adaptation, and sheer functionality encapsulated in the nests made by different kinds of birds. Twigs, man-made debris, saliva and spider webs only tap the surface of the range of materials used in nest construction, and each species builds nests that tell a story, in part, of the local habitat. Accompanying Beals' photos are short but thorough profiles of each species covering nest-building, mating, parenting, migration, and other distinguishing characteristics. This is a book birders of all ages, life-list or not, can savor.

Intrigued by the bevvy of kitchen chemistry titles on the market, I cracked open the pages of What Einstein Told His Cook 2, one of a series of books from Robert Wolke. In this volume, Wolke tackles a broad spectrum of questions from readers of his Washington Post column in categories like beverages, dairy and eggs, vegetables, seafood, and grains and carbohydrates. In response to seemingly simple but earnest questions, some of which bring up family kitchen lore handed down through the ages, Wolke explains the science that underlies everyday observations you can make in the kitchen. Wolke's approach targets the casual science reader and kitchen enthusiast. You might find an answer to a question you've wondered about, or an answer to something you've noticed but never thought to question. Ever asked why tea stored in the refrigerator turns cloudy?

What to Read

After scanning titles, reviews, and book blurbs on some favorite science-related and bookseller sites, I had scores of amazing-sounding titles I wanted to look up, check out, thumb through, curl up with, or share with my own students. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks or Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout, with its glow-in-the-dark cover, might be next on my to-read list, but I've also been wanting to read something by Jane Goodall, and my own interests leave me curious to see Field Notes on Science & Nature. Some titles are just tantalizing and intriguing, like Napoleon's Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History and The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements. But then there are titles exposing the dark side of plants, the underbelly of poison, and a beekeeper's efforts to save the bees. With so many popular science titles vying for attention, I asked the Science Buddies staff to share favorite titles they recommend for both high-school readers and adults. Their suggestions, shown below, contain both new and classic titles from popular science, and even a perennial science fiction favorite, that you and your older students may enjoy. We would love to hear your favorite science titles as well!

While you shouldn't always judge a book by its cover, here's our list of suggestions for summer science reading:

We will be posting other lists of some of our favorite middle and K-5 titles, including some graphic novels and manga, and some suggested math titles, so stay tuned!

Student "brain drain" during the summer is more than just media hype. Statistics on academic loss offer a cautionary tale, but taking steps to infuse summer fun with summer science can help keep critical skills in motion. Summer science might be just the synapse boost your student needs to bridge the days between school years!

With the final bell of the school year, summer break begins. The kids may be all cheers, but for parents, the sprawl of long summer days can pose a number of challenges. Part logistical and part practical, you may find yourself wondering, what will they do all summer? Even if your calendar is already studded with family vacation and a smattering of summer camps, there is probably still a stretch of free-form days ahead, more days off than on.

If you feel torn trying to sort out how to balance the need to pay tribute to the "break" of summer and still keep your kids' brains on track, you are not alone. Summer shakes up familiar routines and schedules. Bedtimes may get an extension, and TVs might get more airtime, but even as you give your kids some needed downtime, keep in mind that research shows that school-age children are at risk of losing up to two months of learning over the summer. It's a startling statistic, one that should be a motivator for parents. Letting your students get sucked into a summer daze can have repercussions in the coming school year, so take extra care in making sure that summer activities offer a nice balance of "just for fun" and "fun with an educational twist."

Science That Isn't for an Assignment

Creating opportunities throughout the summer that use important reading and math skills is important, and longer summer days and less structured schedules can add up to perfect opportunities for science exploration and exciting science activities that let your students have fun while putting cognitive and creative skills to use. With no "classroom" assignment to rein them in, summer gives students the chance to explore science questions and topics of their own choosing and without needing to juggle other homework. Summer science is about the science, not the grade, a simple reality that frees students up to explore—just because. With no project display board requirement and no research paper to turn in, students get to dive in and enjoy the fun part—the hands-on investigation.

Kickstart a Summer Science Exploration

During the school year, thousands of students use Science Buddies Project Ideas for class assignments and science fairs. Many of these projects are also great for at-home exploration, either solo or as a family activity. The following suggestions highlight a few summer-friendly science explorations from our library of Project Ideas:

• Shimmy Shimmy Soda Pop: Develop Your Own Soda Pop Recipe: Mix up and sample your own carbonated beverages while you explore the chemical reaction that occurs when you mix baking soda and citric acid. How much of each ingredient do you need to create the perfect drink? What happens to the drink when the amounts of each ingredients change? What does it mean for a soda to be flat? Can your bubbly soda be too bubbly? Have you ever dumped lemonade crystals into a bottle of carbonated water and had it bubble up and overflow the bottle? Have you twisted the lid off of a bottle of homemade seltzer and had the cap fly into the air? What's going on? This food science project is perfect for the aspiring chemist, the kitchen scientist, or even the chef-in-training.




• Build Your Own Crystal Radio: Get hands on in this electronics project and wire your own crystal radio to pick up AM stations without plugs or batteries. What stations can you tap in your neighborhood? This project is a great exploration for the budding electrician or electronics enthusiast. Turn things around, and you can make your own DIY transmitter to learn more about how radio stations are broadcast. Really ambitious? Go full circle and set up your own crystal radio to pick up your own transmissions!




• Rocketology: Baking Soda + Vinegar = Lift Off!: For some students, science fun in the sun is all about things that pop, boom, float, or fly. This chemistry project gives new zest—and combustion—to experiments with baking soda and vinegar. The volcanoes in the sand you remember from your preschool days were fun, but this project kicks things up a notch. What's not to love about blasting empty film canisters into the air? For more explosive fun, try Coke® & Mentos®—Nucleation Goes Nuclear!. What's the difference between a chemical reaction and a physical reaction? This soda geyser can help you find out.




• The Chemistry of Clean: Make Your Own Soap to Study Soap Synthesis: A great choice for the DIY-type, the aspiring chemist, or the soap enthusiast, this chemistry project explores the process of making soap—and how you "purify" soap using salt. If mixing up custom, non-edible concoctions is up your student's alley, you might also encourage making lip balm or exploring the art of making perfume.

  
  

• Veggie Power!: This energy-focused exploration of fruits and vegetables as power sources is excellent for the "green"-minded student and electronics fan. What kinds of foods generate the most power? Head to the produce aisle for an assortment of fruits and vegetables you can put to the test. What can you power with foods from the vegetable bin?




• Do You Have the Willpower to Taste Something Sour?: Mix up batches of lemonade and put your family and friend's sour power to the test. What trends can you spot? Combine this project with Shimmy, Shimmy Soda Pop (above) for added twist, or take it a step further with the "Do You Love the Taste of Food? Find Out if You're a Supertaster!" project. Put an end to dinner-table arguments about what's too salty, too spicy, or too sour by figuring out just how many taste buds you have. Is anyone in your family a supertaster? A bit of blue food coloring can reveal your tongue's papillae truth.




• Got video game?: If spending time playing one video game or another is how you plan to spend a large chunk of your summer, why not shake things up and create your own game? Put what you already know about what makes a game great into developing your own game for friends and family to try. Tools like GameMaker can help get you started, and younger designers can get a fun introduction to video game design basics by completing quests and building games in Gamestar Mechanic. For a more immersive summer video game design experience, check out Gamestar Mechanic's new four-week summer online learning program. Designed especially for students ages 10-14, the online course extends the Gamestar Mechanic experience and gives students the benefit of working with a professional game design mentor.




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  The Chills and Thrills of Roller-Coaster Hills: If you'll be hitting the coasters at an amusement park, this project will guide you in building and using a homemade accelerometer you can take along to learn more about acceleration and gravity on your favorite rides. Which rides are most thrilling—and why? For more hands-on fun exploring the science behind roller coasters, build an at-home marble run. Grab some foam tubing, and create your own monster marble ride! The potential energy is there, ready and waiting, for a super summer investigation!




• How Sweet It Is! Explore the Roles of Color and Sugar Content in Hummingbirds' Food Preferences.: For the backyard birder or budding zoologist, this project lets you turn your window-view into a simple zoology experiment. What happens if you offer different colors of food to hummingbirds? Is the color most important? Or is the amount of sugar what really counts? Set up some testing feeders and see what happens! You can also experiment with bird seed to learn more about the preferences of birds in your area.

Several of the Project Ideas listed above are available in kit format. Ordering a Science Buddies Kit makes it easy to hand over a box of science goodness to an older student. Everything you need (except perishable items) will arrive in the box!

Investigate a Hobby

If your students spend summer days pursuing a favorite pastime or sport, encourage them to explore, question, test, and think about the science at work behind their favorite activities.

From golf swings to baseball bats to RC helicopters, learning more about the underlying science might help improve their skills. For the DIY-minded, making paper, making markers, and dyeing fabric all blend creativity and science—and they will have something they made when they are done! Creating sunprints can also tap an artsy side while letting them more about the colors of light—and an early approach to photography. If your student would rather be behind the camera, nudge her to try some key lens tests or go primitive and experiment with a pinhole camera to get a back-to-basics understanding of exposure—and a crash course in the history of photography!

Summer Reading

As one of the two academic areas most at risk during the summer months, daily reading is a summer must. As you and your students scour the shelves and reading lists for summer choices, be sure and pepper the list with science-themed titles. From fiction with a science twist to accessible, engaging, and potentially mind-boggling non-fiction titles, there are great science choices for students of all ages. Stay tuned for our suggested summer reading list for older readers and for parents!

Science for All Ages

While you may want to encourage your older students to tackle independent summer science investigations, summer is a great time for family science activities that can be fun for all ages. Our list of Project Ideas for Home contains suggestions for easy-to-do projects that don't take a lot of preparation, don't take long to complete, and can be done with basic household materials you might already have on hand. Many of these are perfect for doing with younger students. You will also find family-centered adaptations of Science Buddies projects at Scientific American's Bring Science Home.

Stay Tuned

We will be highlighting other summer science ideas in the coming days and weeks! We would love to know what you try, what projects your family does, what science books you read, and how you and your students keep the science learning going all summer long. Share your stories by sending email to amy@sciencebuddies.org. Have a picture to go along with your summer science fun? We'd love to see!

Families who gather around the table to eat turn off the electronics, put down their books, pass the salt, salad, or main course, and tune in to one another. With busy schedules carving out the hours of the days for both students and parents, the minutes shared over a meal give everyone a moment to slow down, regroup, and refocus. Working a bit of science into your dinner table talk can be easy—and rewarding for everyone involved.

When you think of "family dinner," you probably aren't alone if some larger-than-life image of a perfect, smiling family comes to mind. Many Generation X parents carry a mental image of family dinner that's a sitcom amalgamation of the Cleavers, the Bradys, and the Cosbys, all rolled into one. Depending on the state of your own dining table, that image might seem to be one of mythic and unattainable proportions, or maybe it's the kind of image that keeps you going as you strive to put in place healthy, happy, and meaningful routines for your family.

For years, the media has depicted family mealtime as a mark of a "happy" family, and nutritionist and child education experts alike have chimed in on the importance of the family meal. Proponents of eating together cite studies that show long-term benefits ranging from academic achievement to healthier eating and better social choices among teenagers. In an age where the family dinner could run the risk of seeming old-fashioned, the idea appears to be alive and well, a reality boosted by the fact that President Obama and his family, too, observe a family meal. Despite busy schedules and the ongoing proliferation of fast food places, many families do have a routine of shared meals, expect members of the family to be home and at the table for dinner most nights, and view dinner as a cornerstone of family interaction.

Steering Table Talk

What families discuss over dinner varies table to table. Some families share stories of school, the team, friends, extended family, or the day at the office. Some families talk about headline news. Some families share a "high" and a "low" for the day. Some dinner conversations are simply free-form or free-for-all. Part of what time together at the table offers is a window for family members to talk to each other. But what happens when conversation wanes? If you want your family dinners to succeed, being prepared with ideas for "table talk" can be as important as deciding what to serve.

Luckily, with a bit of forethought, it can be easy to uplevel dinner table talk into something meaningful beyond, "what's the green stuff in my pasta?" While your meals shouldn't turn into a classroom lecture, family dinner can provide a perfect opportunity to spend an extra five minutes talking about science with your kids. It doesn't take much preparation to bring a wholesome nugget of science or engineering to the table. Do it subtly, as moms do, and your kids might not even recognize that you're charted new territory at the dinner table, squeezing a bit of chemistry or engineering trivia in between the school gossip and the talk of weekend plans.

Pass the Science, Please

These tips can help you find easy ways to increase the neurons firing around the table. Go ahead and share "highs" and "lows." It's important to check in with your kids—and yourself. But with just a bit of a stretch, you can turn "pass the salt" into something that might generate an aha moment, might raise a question about how the world works, might inspire further research or experimentation, or might let your student show off something learned this year. You might even find that science talk leads to some very funny and exciting conversations!

• Dish Up a Simple Fact: Often all it takes to kickstart a good conversation is a morsel of knowledge you can toss into the air and see where it falls. Our "Today in Science History" posts (at Facebook) are perfect examples of the kinds of bite-sized trivia you can share with your kids at the table. The fact itself may be finite: "this person was born on this day in x year and is best known for y and z." But the discussion can be much more open ended. Often, I tell my kids something about what I learned about a famous inventor or scientist that I've researched to write the science history tidbit for the day. Sometimes, I tell them simply to highlight an interesting biography so that they hear about all kinds of different careers and about people who made discoveries and inventions even as teens or tweens. Did you know that Mary Anning found her first full skeleton when she was only 12? Did you know that Philo Farnsworth was a teen when he first hypothesized the "television"—and he got his inspiration from looking at a field!

  
  Sometimes, you may find that your students already know a bit about the person or fact you bring to the table. That's great! When I brought up Richter's birthday and asked my boys if they knew what he developed, my fifth grader had his own question. Did you know that Richter got the credit for the Richter scale but someone else actually worked with him? The nice thing about the science history blurbs is that they are short and compact, and yet they highlight a potentially cool person, an area of science, and something of historical significance.




• Make It a Game: Turning science trivia into a table game can be a lot of fun, especially if you are a game-oriented family or your kids respond enthusiastically to friendly competition and the chance to show off what they know. Dust off the box of Trivial Pursuit cards lurking on the top shelf of your closet and put them to use! Or, try a set of science-themed flash or trivia cards like Prof. Noggin's Wonders of Science. These cards can be perfect for dinner, but be careful if you think you'll just do one or two a day. Your kids might enjoy the game of it and zip through a bunch of cards before asking for seconds. (Note: cards like these may not offer any explanatory info—just trivia.)

  Keeping a book of "must know" science facts on hand can also offer a fresh flow of information. Check out books like 101 Things Everyone Should Know About Science (2006) or Scientific American's Ask the Experts: Answers to The Most Puzzling and Mind-Blowing Science Questions (2003). The Instant Physicist: An Illustrated Guide takes a slightly different, non-Q&A approach, but each statement (and accompanying illustration) is sized just right for raising family conversation. Which books will work for your family may depend on the ages of your students and your family interests, but books like these often pose a question or fact—and then offer a detailed answer or explanation. This approach may work better than simple trivia questions for younger students.

  If science, in general, feels too broad to get you started, consider focusing on a theme, like the Periodic Table. Grab a guide like The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe, or the related deck of Periodic Table cards, and start exploring. For kids that like to memorize facts, there are a bunch of angles to master, from the organization of the table to element symbols, numbers, and identifying details. What to do: gather trivia sources, just be careful to look for current sources (or be on the lookout for things that may have changed). For example, a book or game card that still cites Pluto as a planet is worthy of an out-of-this-world dessert discussion. Your kids may even be entertained by hearing about the mnemonic device you learned in school for memorizing the order of the planets—back when there were nine pizzas to serve! Talking about mnemonic devices is a perfect add-on dinner topic! If you have older kids, try having each be responsible for scrounging up an interesting or "new-to-me" science fact on a certain night of the week.




• Headline News: Make room in your own newspaper reading, news watching, or social media following to stay in sync with science news, events, and discoveries. Knowing that the Venus Transit is coming before it happens lets you talk about it and make a plan for safe viewing. (There's some math to figure, too. How old will you be before it comes again?) When news about arsenic levels in brown rice hit the papers, it was a perfect time to talk not only about the science at hand but about the history of arsenic. Filling your kids in on the notable history of arsenic could prove to be an eye-opening meal starter! What to do: add key science media streams to your social media spots, like Facebook or Twitter, including National Geographic, NASA, Discovery, Scientific American, and Science Buddies. Depending on where you live, be sure and add local sources, too, like KQED QUEST in the Bay Area. Still read the paper paper? Clip interesting tidbits and bring them to dinner!




• Read Science Writing: Science writers help open up the world of science in ways that illuminate and explain all the nooks and crannies of science. These writers translate and transform research coming from the labs and science headlines from around the world into stories for the general reader. Whether the subject of the story is frightening, awe inspiring, cautionary, or revolutionary, even sharing an opening passage to a well-crafted and engaging science essay can open up all kinds of discussion (and maybe even a vocabulary lesson or two!). Try essays from NY Times Science writers like Carl Zimmer or Carol Kaesuk Yoon, or blog posts from Scientific American, to get a taste of dazzling prose that brings science to life. What to do: print out a paragraph or two, bring it to the table, and have someone read it. See what conversations evolve.

  
  

• Encourage Inventive Thinking: In addition to talking about experiments and results, mix things up a bit sometimes by posing a hypothetical problem. For example, you might ask, What could we create that would take care of "this" problem? Being able to act on the idea isn't a requirement. Just brainstorm what might work and why. Think about what went into coming up with using PET bottles as a way to disinfect water using the power of the sun. It was an inventive solution—and one that can be used to help improve drinking water around the world. Your family challenge discussions can be smaller-scale. A recent Science Buddies success story highlights a fifth-grade student who wanted to create a video game to share with his grandmother, who is blind. Another story features a student who wondered what kind of reusable water bottle she should use to reduce her exposure to germs. Ryan Patterson, one of the science fair success legends profiled in Science Fair Season,developed a robotic glove to help deaf people have more privacy in conversations. Nutshell stories like these can help inspire creative thinking and problem solving, but try tossing out a new challenge. How can we solve this? How could this be improved? What to do: come up with a stash of challenges that require assimilation of knowledge and creative problem solving.




• Surprise Them: Sometimes the best way to generate discussion is to shock your students with a science fact that seems hard to believe or even impossible. For example, did you know a polar bear's fur is transparent? Or, go really far out: Did you know that a thimbleful of a neutron would weigh as much as a skyscraper? (You might also find this fact written in terms of a number of elephants, which may be more fun to ponder!) What to do: search for fun or odd-but-true science facts you can dole out at dinner. The Library of Congress' Everyday Mysteries section can launch you in the direction of the unexpected when you need to kickstart the science conversation.




• Know Your Family: Putting more science on the menu doesn't mean you have to be limited to classroom facts and trivia. One way to make science engaging for you and your children as a topic of conversation is to talk about the science involved in their areas of interest or hobbies. An Angry Birds obsession can yield an interesting discussion of video games and physics, and news of a camera body made out of LEGO gives both the photographer and the builder something to ponder. Whether they fly RC helicopters, play the piano, veg out with video games, love detective books, or are amazing visual artists, there are science facts and science angles you can talk about—which will help them learn to find and explore the science that underwrites everything they do! What to do: talk about what they already love, but ask questions that encourage thinking about how things work and why.
  

Your Own Recipe

The above suggestions are just a few ideas to get you going. There are many, many more ways you can weave science talk into your meals. In a Washington Post article earlier this year, Casey Seidenberg suggests creating a "jar" of dinner table conversation starters. This would be a great way to stay ahead of your family meals and create your own custom blend of science topics gathered from some of the above sources. After a few science game nights, bring out the jar and pull out a science talk starter. Or make pulling a topic the way you kick off each meal.

Whether you are already a family that eats together or think it's worth a try, we know that with a bit of experimentation, you'll find your own perfect recipe for dinner table science success! We would enjoy hearing about your family discussions, what you try, what books and games you find that help keep your dinner talk educational, science-minded, and entertaining. Send your suggestions and stories to: amy@sciencebuddies.org.

The Venus Transit offers a wonderful opportunity for family summer science and an easy DIY science activity—making a pinhole viewer. From parallax to exoplanets, tomorrow's transit raises plenty of talking points for students and their families, but a safe viewing strategy is a must.

This afternoon, our family science activity will involve cardboard and aluminum foil as we make a pinhole viewer in hopes of catching tomorrow's Venus Transit. Given the sad-but-true tale of our pinhole tube projector attempt last month for the eclipse, we will be making and trying a shoebox pinhole viewer this time—and hoping for much better results. Having briefly viewed the eclipse through a shoebox viewer another group brought to the top of the hill where we were struggling to catch an image through our makeshift tube projector, we have a good sense of how small our viewing of the Venus Transit will be—and with a transit, unlike an eclipse, Venus will appear only as a small dot as it crosses the surface of the Sun. Still, we're hoping for clear skies and a clear view.

Pinhole Planning

In preparation for the coming transit, I spent time talking with Terik Daly, Staff Scientist at Science Buddies and a doctoral student studying planetary science at Brown University. In part, I wanted to know how off-base we had been with our viewer attempt last month.

After reading through my account of our viewer, Daly confirms, much to my relief, that in theory what we tried should have worked. Something went wrong, but the concept was sound—and we were able to cast the Sun during the afternoon, just not later during the actual eclipse. (I still think the heavy winds at the top of the hill didn't help us—or our taped-together cardboard tubes, which seemed even more flimsy when held up into the wind.) Daly did note that aluminum foil, because it is opaque and highly reflective, might have increased our chances of success.

What's the Big Deal?

The Venus Transit is a 243-year cycle, arriving in pairs, eight years apart, separated by first 121.5 years and then by 105.5 years. The last Venus Transit was on June 8, 2004, making tomorrow's transit the second in this transit cycle. The next Venus Transit won't be until 2117. Those numbers alone are important, but as noted in recent Scientific American coverage of the coming transit, this year's transit will be one of a small handful of transits that have been recorded: "Only six transits have been observed in history: in 1639; 1761 and 1769; 1874 and 1882; and 2004."

Beyond the fact that you may only get one or two chances to see a Venus Transit in your lifetime, the coming transit is a big deal for astronomers. Historically, transits helped astronomers gauge the size of our solar system. "Until the 20th century it was the only way to determine the distance from Earth to the Sun," reports Jay Pasachoff. As Summer Ash explains in a post on Scientific American's Budding Scientist blog, astronomers used the principles of parallax to determine the distance of the Sun from the earth. Using measurements from two viewers at different locations, the distance from the sun can be triangulated. With that measurement in hand, the "distances to all the other planets known at the time could be derived." Based on calculations made during the Venus Transit of 1882, Ash notes, astronomers concluded that the Sun is 93 million miles away.

A Model for Exoplanet Research

According to Daly, transits continue to offer astronomers useful information, particularly because transits can reveal exoplanets. "Transiting is one of the major ways that astronomers detect extrasolar planets," says Daly. "NASA's Kepler mission, for example, has identified over 2300 exoplanet candidates (with 61 confirmed exoplanets) using transit techniques."

The Venus Transit, he explains, offers the general viewer a better understanding of how transits work, which in turn helps explain how astronomers are able to use transits to detect exoplanets near other stars. Those watching the Venus Transit will see a decrease in light from the Sun as Venus crosses in front of it. In the same way, astronomers observe and track the light from other stars. "Decreases in the amount of light detected from a star indicate that something is blocking that light, and if those decreases are periodic, it suggests the object doing the blocking is orbiting the star—a planet," says Daly. "Of course, detecting extrasolar planets is more complicated than that," he adds. But "this transit is a fantastic opportunity to conceptually understand 'transit timing,' an important method of exoplanet detection, the method used by NASA's Kepler spacecraft."

Venus Transit as a Benchmark

In addition to helping demystify the search for—and discovery of—exoplanets, Daly notes that the transit offers additional information about Venus, including more data regarding the composition of Venus' atmosphere. "While we have other ways to study Venus' atmosphere, transits are one of the very few sources of information about the composition of exoplanet atmospheres," explains Daly. "The Venus Transit is a chance for scientists to test their methods for using the light from exoplanet transits to understand the atmosphere of the transiting planet." In other words, studying Venus' atmosphere via the Venus Transit—and comparing that information to other known data—helps astronomers corroborate the approach of drawing conclusions about an exoplanet's atmosphere based on its transit.

Making Connections

Students and families who will be observing the Venus Transit can learn more about how the transit helped astronomers understand our solar system by learning more about how parallax works. The "A Puzzling Parallax" project is an introductory project that can help families better understand the relationship between distance and viewing perspective. For an immediate example, close one eye and hold a pencil out in front of you, lining it up with an option in the distance (a light switch, a tree, etc.). Now switch eyes. This distant object is no longer lined up with the pencil; it will appear to have shifted . This shift based on the difference in viewing perspective is central to parallax. Using hula hoops and a ruler, you and your family can explore further! For a more advanced study of parallax, see "Similar Triangles: Using Parallax to Measure Distance." (The project is more difficult, but the introductory material may be perfect for better understanding the concept of parallax and talking about it with your students.)

In addition to studying parallax, building a pinhole viewer gives you and your family a chance to build a simple scientific apparatus. The following Projects Ideas and resources can springboard some fun exploration of pinhole cameras:

• Digital Pinhole Camera
• Point, Click, Shoot! Photography with a Pinhole Camera
• Pinholes, Light and Aperture Size
• Form and Function: A LEGO Camera

Sources Referenced Above for Additional Reading:

• Venus Transit: Last Chance of the Century (Science Buddies Blog)
• Safely Viewing the Upcoming Transit (Sky & Telescope)
• Venus transit may boost hunt for other worlds
• The Transit of Venus: Viewing Tips from an Astronomer
• Crossing the Sun: The Last Transit of Venus until 2117
• How to View an Eclipse
• Make a Pinhole Projector for Eclipse Viewing

Note: A safe viewing method is required for watching the transit. Do not look directly at the Sun.

By Kim Mullin

Did you know that our moon is not the only heavenly body to pass between Earth and the Sun? The orbits of both Mercury and Venus infrequently take them on such a path, and on June 5th, you will have your last opportunity of the century to see Venus make this "transit." The next transit of Venus will not occur until 2117!

We call this phenomenon a "transit" because from Earth we can see the planet moving across the face of the Sun. Unlike a solar eclipse, when the moon blocks a large portion of the Sun from our view, a transit appears as a small black dot crossing in front of the Sun because Mercury and Venus are much further away from the Earth than the moon.

Transit Visible from All of North America

The transit of Venus will be visible from all of North America, but as with last month's solar eclipse, you must not view it directly with your eyes. Ask an adult to help you plan a safe way to witness the transit. Sky and Telescope's article about how to safely view a solar eclipse or transit can get you started.

Transit of Venus Instrumental to Early Understanding of Our Solar System

18th century astronomers understood that the planets orbited the Sun, but they didn't know how big the solar system was. Then, astronomer Edmond Halley realized that the timing of a transit of Venus could help astronomers answer this question. NASA's "James Cook and the Transit of Venus" article can give you all of the details, but what's important to know is that without the transit of Venus in 1769, we might not have understood the size of our solar system until much later in history.

Just in Case...

If you can't see the century's last transit of Venus, then mark May 9, 2016 on your calendar—that's when Mercury will make its next transit.

See Also

• Pinhole Viewer: Trying Again for the Transit


• Family Science: Pinholes and Safe Solar Viewing

Annual Science Buddies award recognizes outstanding student mentor contributions in the Ask an Expert forums. Two high school students from New York receive this year's honors.

Reshma Mir and Grace Kim, both eleventh grade students in New York, have been named this year's top student mentors in the Science Buddies Ask an Expert volunteer program.The Craig Sander Outstanding Mentor Award, established in honor of Science Buddies' advisory board member Craig Sander, recognizes superior student contribution in the Ask an Expert forums. Both Reshma and Grace demonstrated impressive skills in assisting with a range of student science questions at Ask an Expert during the 2011-2012 school year. As first and second-place recipients of the award, Reshma and Grace each received a cash scholarship.

Reshma Mir

Reshma, a junior at Bronx High School of Science, first used Science Buddies to locate Project Ideas in middle school. Her awareness of Science Buddies and the impact the organization has on K-12 science grew when she later spotted Ask an Expert forum threads while reviewing Google search results. "I was drawn in by how students and Experts could interact easily and demystify a project by building on each other's responses," says Reshma. Excited by the prospect of working alongside, and learning from, adult Experts while helping other students with their science questions, she signed up as a student mentor.

Reshma says she takes seriously these words by Steve Jobs: "The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it." For Reshma, volunteering at Ask an Expert has given her an opportunity to do "great work" helping a wide range of students succeed with science projects. "I was really taken by the thrill of helping a student who might have been miles and miles away, or simply right next door," she explains.

"Being an Expert on the forums made me realize my ability to share my knowledge in a way that I could not have imagined before," says Reshma, adding that seeing students suddenly understand what had at first been confusing was both a reward and a motivating factor. Reshma assisted with questions in both the Physical Sciences and Math forums and says, "I was absolutely psyched that I was able to aid other kids by turning a process that may at first have been frustrating or befuddling into something exhilarating and intriguing."

Reshma has presented science projects at her school's yearly science exposition and is currently working on an extended science research project which she hopes to enter in advanced competitions next year. For the last two year, she has participated in the Mathematical Association of America's (MAA's) Greater Metropolitan New York Math Fair, winning a silver medal as a sophomore and a gold medal this year. Reshma also writes poetry and was awarded a Knopf Prize this year.

Grace Kim

Grace, a junior at Jericho High School, first learned about Science Buddies while helping another student research possible science project topics. In addition to being impressed with the wide range of offerings at Science Buddies, Grace notes, "I was fascinated by the Ask an Expert program, which provides online mentoring and thoughtful responses to a variety of questions."

At Ask an Expert, Grace found an opportunity to both share and expand her own science knowledge. "I was grateful for the opportunity to learn and research new topics in order to respond to questions," says Grace. "The variety of research topics the students [asked about] involved many intriguing and innovative aspects. Overall, working with Ask an Expert program gave me the satisfaction of helping and [encouraging] students to grow as successful and bright young scientists." The program is one Grace definitely recommends to other top science students. Volunteering as a student Ask an Expert mentor "is an invaluable experience to help other students to achieve their scientific aspirations, and, in turn, to broaden your own scientific perspective," she says.

Grace has participated in several years of science competition. Her many successes and recognitions include being a semifinalist in the Siemens Competition 2011, a two- year U.S National BioGENEius Competition Finalist, Grand Award winner at New York Science and Engineering Fair 2011, and MIT Think Competition 2011 semifinalist. In addition to conducting her own science research and volunteering with Science Buddies, Grace is co-president of her school's peer tutoring club, an activity that parallels her work with Science Buddies and speaks to her passion for helping other students. "I embrace the virtues of educational outreach," says Grace. "It is important for students to realize that mentoring is one of the truly valuable approaches towards empowering other students and communities."

Grace is also the founder and president of the East African Youth Empowerment Summit (EAYES), an organization inspired by her research on malaria. She also volunteers at a local hospital and works as a camp counselor for autistic children.

A Rewarding Experience

Students who volunteer at Ask an Expert earn official community service credit, but many student mentors find the program—and the help they offer students—a rewarding way to encourage and support science literacy. As mentors, these students become part of the larger science community and have the opportunity to share what they know, interact with professional scientists and engineers, and be part of an award-winning nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting K-12 science education. The Ask an Expert mentor program challenges these high-achieving students to articulate science concepts to K-12 students in ways that are encouraging, supportive, and easy to understand. This hands-on experience making science information accessible to students and parents who may have no previous experience can be important in helping student mentors better articulate, share, and explain their own research and projects.