July 2012 Archives

It takes a lot of talent, determination, conditioning, training, and dedication to make it to the Olympics. But every sport also involves points at which angles, trajectories, momentum, and laws of physics intersect with raw talent and the thrill of performance. Learn more about what goes into Olympic-caliber success by investigating the sports science involved in your favorite Olympic events.

Excitement around the world is building as the Olympic torch is carried on the final legs of its journey. The 2012 Olympic Games begin this weekend, and millions will be watching the opening ceremonies as the Games kick off with a tribute to all athletes and participating countries. This year's Games include thirty-six large categories of sporting competition, many of which contain a number of separate events. Summer Olympic sports range from gymnastics, cycling, swimming, and track and field to beach volleyball, archery, table tennis, and Judo.

While thousands of spectators will file in to watch events in London, many of us will watch from home, including many young athletes for whom the 30th anniversary games may inspire the spark of a dream.

Watching the Games

Those who qualify to compete at the Olympics have amazing ability in their sport. In coming weeks, fans will hear and read many stories about these athletes, stories of their dedication, their rigorous training and demanding schedules, and, often, of their perseverance. These athletes are among the best, the fastest, the most flexible, and the strongest, in the world.

As you watch the games—and observe the differences in times, routines, and results—you might wonder what factors make a difference in performance. While there is no discounting talent, the more an athlete knows about the science of her sport, the more chance she has of standing on the podium and receiving a medal. From your spectator spot at home, you and your family can talk about some of the elements of sports science that relate to the sporting events you will be watching on television during this year's Olympics Games or to other favorite sports and athletic activities.

Winning Gold

The Olympics offer an exciting opportunity to think about what makes a difference between those who medal and those who don't. There may be exceptions. There may be displays of record-breaking talent in unexpected places, but there is plenty of science that underlies each sport. You and your family might have fun, in between favorite events, exploring some of these sports science questions and even putting some of them to the test at home.

Here are a few Science Buddies Project Ideas that can help you uncover kid-friendly science to talk about during the games or at dinner. While each of these projects can be conducted as a science fair entry, using the background information and general steps of the Experimental Procedure, you can turn these into family science explorations. If a casual family science experiment is the goal, you may find testing these concepts a lot of fun, and there's no need for multiple trials. Leave the multiple heats for the track and field participants!

• "Balancing Act: Finding Your Center of Gravity": Exceptional balance on the beam is important for gymnasts during their routines, but many sports require good balance. Walk through the steps of this project to learn more about your own center of gravity.
• "Drag Racing in the Water": Speed in a swimming race has a lot to do with how smoothly a swimmer's body passes through the water. This project helps you understand the importance of reducing drag in the water. You won't see swimmers wearing street clothes in the pool, but you might look at swimmer's gear with fresh understanding after experimenting at your local pool!
• "Speed Quest": Many Olympic sports are feats of speed. The fastest runners, swimmers, and cyclists will take home medals in the next two weeks, and you will see and hear plenty of speed measurements—world records, speeds for certain races, and speeds needed to qualify for final heats. Learn more about how to calculate and understand speed, and then put your own speed to the test! You'll also learn to compare speeds in races of different distances.
• "Jumping Distance": Do events that take place in the center arena of track and field keep you on the edge of your seat? If you have tried standing and running long jumps before, you know how amazing the distances Olympic track and field athletes jump can be. This project helps you investigate the importance of the "running" start in the running long jump and will give you a better understanding of the relationship between the starting distance, the speed, momentum, and the ultimate jump.
• "Jack and Jill Went Up a Hill and Came Biking Down After": Choosing the Best Gear Ratio for Speed": Learn more about how bicycle gears work, and what range of gears generate the most speed as a cyclist comes around a curve and into a straightaway.
• "Nothing But Net: The Science of Shooting Hoops": Grab a ball and experiment with your basketball shooting technique. If you are watching the Olympic Games, see if you can tell how the most successful players get off their shots!

The Olympic Spirit

Have fun watching the Games and making your own real-world connections at home as you uncover some of the science at work beneath the medal-winning performances. You might even find that the seed of a science project for the coming school year gets planted by your family exploration!

In an essay he wrote as part of an application for a science scholarship offered by Bio-Rad Laboratories, this high school senior highlights the importance of hands-on science. Walk into his lab, through his words, and see the shine of his drive, determination, and passion for science.

When it came to finding a way to actively explore science, Jacob Saldinger took matters—and part of the family garage—into his own hands. Jacob, who has a makeshift science lab in his garage, is the recipient of the 2012 Ron Mardigan Memorial Scholarship, an award Bio-Rad Laboratories gives annually to a graduating senior.

In his essay application for the scholarship, Jacob draws readers into his lab and talks about the need for hands-on science exploration to support student interest in science and science literacy. Jacob speaks from experience, the experience of an aspiring scientist who wants more. Unfortunately, Jacob says that hands-on science was not a primary focus at his high school, although he notes that his teachers incorporated some "excellent labs" to reinforce course materials. "I remember particularly [that] the labs we did while we were learning about acids and bases (titrations and such) were particularly helpful to me in [visualizing] what we had learned in the classroom," he says. His last science fair project was in the fifth grade, but he remembers it well. "Back then I had a really cool project where I grew bacteria cultures of my teachers' desks."

As Jacob's essay explains, a thirst for more hands-on science led him to the garage, a move his parents supported. "My parents trust that I will be safe in my experiments and encourage me to develop myself scientifically. My dad, a doctor, has particularly helped my scientific studies. Even from a young age, some of my earliest memories with him are of the ever-famous vinegar and baking soda volcano and throwing dry ice in the toilet to watch the CO2 bubbles. Even today, we still listen to NPR's 'Science Friday' together, and he emails me articles he thinks I'll find interesting."

Jacob's success, determination, and zest for scientific inquiry are inspiring. When asked what advice he would offer other students who are interested in pursuing science careers and applying for science-focused awards, Jacob says it boils down to doing what you love—not just what you can put on an application. "I found the things which I did because I truly enjoyed them (and often had no intention of putting on an application), such as my homemade lab, were the things which I ended up emphasizing to define myself." Numerous other activities he was involved in ended up being left off the application, he says. "Whether it's college or awards like this, there are going to be some happy outcomes where you'll be far happier if you do what you enjoy—and disappointing ones where you'll be far more upset if you spent high school trying to make yourself look good on paper."

Here is the text of Jacob's award-winning essay:

Jacob says he is particularly interested in chemistry, but he adds that the biology internship during the summer before his senior year whetted his interest in life sciences. He currently plans to explore biochemistry as he begins his undergraduate research at Rice University in Houston, TX.

Science Buddies thanks Jacob for allowing us to share his essay on the Science Buddies website. We extend our congratulations to him, and we look forward to hearing about the scientific path he takes.

Get the kids together, build a simple vision protractor, and play a fun game of "now you see it, now you don't" while exploring the world of peripheral vision.

By Kim Mullin

It's a Side Issue

You are reading an exciting mystery in your favorite chair and suddenly spy one of your kids sneaking into the room to scare you. You and your kids are throwing baseball in the backyard, and as you catch the ball, you notice a friend waving at you over the fence. What do these two activities have in common? Peripheral vision!

One Set of Eyes, Two Kinds of Vision

We are almost always using both central vision and peripheral vision. Central vision is what we use to focus our eyes on one particular thing, such as a few words in a sentence or a particular tree in the yard. At the same time, our peripheral vision fills in the surrounding information. For example, if you focus your eyes on a tree in the yard, your peripheral vision fills in the grass, fence, bushes, and sky that are around the tree. What you see with peripheral vision is less sharply focused.

Our peripheral vision is controlled by the rods and cones in our retinas. Cones are sensitive to color, whereas rods are sensitive to motion. Rod cells are also better at sensing objects in dim light than cone cells are and are responsible for detecting things moving toward you before you can focus on them. The placement of the rods and cones on our retinas controls our peripheral vision.

Test Your Peripheral Vision

Just as people have different running abilities, people also have differing peripheral vision abilities. Using foam board, string, and a few other simple materials, you and your kids can build a vision protractor to compare each other's peripheral vision. The "Now You See It, Now You Don't" project guides you through the process. Once complete, the vision protractor is a fun tool for exploring what we really can and can't see. Test each other by moving small objects in and out of your range of vision. But don't cheat! Always keep your eyes focused on a fixed object directly in front of you.

Other questions you might explore using the vision protractor include: Is it easier to see some colors than others? Are larger objects easier to see than smaller ones? What role does ambient lighting play in peripheral vision? What if the objects are moving? What if you didn't have peripheral vision? How would your life be different?

Build the protractor, test your vision, and see how fun family summer science can be!

A new Project Idea from Science Buddies challenges student engineers to design an articulated hand—from ordinary drinking straws. Proving that diving into the robotics scene for a science fair project doesn't require expensive hi-tech equipment, the project invites students to go DIY with the engineering design process. What can a robotic hand do? You decide!

When you think of robotics, you might envision some form of metal-bodied being that resembles a square- or barrel-shaped walking trash can. Or maybe that is what your parents would think of, even if they don't realize the image sounds a lot like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz! Depending on your own interest in science fiction, science, technology, and engineering, you might have very different ideas about what robots can do, what a robot looks like, and what might be fun to "try" in terms of designing a robot. While R2-D2 and C-3PO might be two of the most well-known big-screen robot stars, other popular movies have given us a look at all kinds and shapes and sizes of robots. Just think of the many different robots in Pixar's Robots (2005) and WALL-E (2008). Compare those images to the robots in The Iron Giant (1988), Short Circuit (1986), or even Real Steel (2011).

When you look beyond questions about the "brain" (or intelligence) of a robot and think instead of the functionality of a robot's "parts," the hand becomes a critical element in a robot's anatomy. In order to accomplish specific tasks, a robot will probably need a well-designed hand, one that can move, bend, articulate, gesture, and grasp efficiently. Without a good hand, a robot might not be worth its weight in materials, regardless of how sophisticated its artificial intelligence programming. For example, while the intelligence that allows Ruby to solve the Rubik's Cube in just under 11 seconds (still a few seconds slower than the fastest human) involves some impressive optical scanning and puzzle-solving algorithms, without the pair of robotic hands, Ruby couldn't show off her skills with the cube! That the hands are able to manipulate the cube so quickly and efficiently is a tribute to the engineering design. (See Ruby in action.)

A First Finger

For students interested in robotics and engineering, creating a robotic hand can be an exciting venture that blends physiology and design as part of the process of building a hand that can perform certain functions. A robot's anatomy doesn't have to mirror human anatomy, however, which is where things get even more creative and interesting. But by better understanding the way a human hand works, how the fingers bend, and how the "wiring" goes, you will have a better sense of how you might modify or improve upon hand design with a robotic model. A lot depends on what you want your robotic hand to do. What tasks do you want your hand to manage? What kind of hand will enable the completion of those tasks successfully? How many fingers would the hand need? How big should the hand be? How would the fingers be sized in relation to each other?

The "Grasping with Straws: Make a Robot Hand Using Drinking Straws" project, part of a new Science Buddies Robotics area that will be launched this fall, lets student engineers tackle the challenge of designing a robotic hand. This project isn't mechanized or electronic, and there are no fancy or expensive materials required. Instead, the project guides students in using the anatomy of the human hand as a starting point for building a robotic hand using straws, the kind you find in fast food restaurants!

Following steps of the Engineering Design Process, students will need to first determine what kind of robotic hand they want to make and why. What will the hand do? In order to do those tasks, what requirements are there for the hand? Answering these questions will help students develop a blueprint for the project that will help guide them through development, testing, and refining the robotic model they make. The "Grasping with Straws" project walks students through one approach to creating a single "finger" with a straw, thread, and some form of "washer" that can be used to manipulate the finger, similar to the way a marionette works. In a robotic hand with multiple joints, the string-based tendons allow bending and refined articulation and movement. This kind of precision and attention to detail—specifically to detail that supports the ultimate goal and function of the robotic part—is key in working on robotics projects.

After creating a finger, you can repeat the process to make multiple fingers—and group them as a "hand." Once you've created a "hand," you can experiment with pinching, grasping, lifting, and other movements in which multiple fingers work together. As you think about your design goals and what kind of hand you might create, think about all the different hand styles shown in the movies. Check out a copy of Robots or another popular robot film and make notes about the different kinds of hands you see. What kinds of features might be especially cool? If you've ever used a toy robot "claw" to grab things, you might have some immediate ideas about what kind of hand you might build—and ways to improve the design!

Rising sixth-grade student weighs in on the first week of Gamestar Mechanic's summer video game design camp. The first week was all about platformers. Do you know what it takes to make a top-notch platformer like Super Mario or Donkey Kong?

Gamestar Mechanic's online summer video game design program is underway! Geared specifically for students ages 10-14, the virtual summer "camp" gives students who love video games, or who have already begun exploring video game design, a chance to level up their knowledge of video game history, major game styles, and core design elements. As they work through four weekly units and tackle various activities, assignments, and challenges, participants will get plenty of fun and focused hands-on game design practice. Budding game designers will also benefit from feedback from other student designers, their instructor, and, in the end, an industry pro.

On paper, a camp that involves four weeks of making and playingvideo games sounds like a great opportunity for the student video game enthusiast. Not only does the student get to spend a month playing games and tackling video game design challenges, but the course is flexible in timing and can be worked in and around other summer activities and programs. What's it like from the student perspective?

One Designer's Experience

Science Buddies is taking a hands-on, behind-the-scenes look at the Gamestar Mechanic Summer Program by peeking over the shoulder of Matthew, a student designer taking the course. Soon to be a middle school student, Matthew particularly enjoys math and science, reads manga, plays soccer, is a visual artist, and has a deep affinity for video games, especially one for iOS, Nintendo DS, Wii, and Facebook. Before he could read, he was telling people he wanted to be a video game designer.

In past summer experiences, Matthew has used Stagecast Creator and Multimedia Fusion. After learning about Gamestar Mechanic from Science Buddies, he worked through the quests there. He also recently explored Yoyo's GameMaker. This summer's Gamestar Mechanic program is a next step in the exploration of video game design for Matthew. He's already a fan of the Gamestar Mechanic platform, so at the outset of Week 1, he was excited about the course and hoping to both learn more, encounter some new challenges. In short, he's looking at this summer camp experience as a way to level up!

Unit 1: The Platformer

The first week of the course focuses on platformer games. Whether they know the terminology or not, most gamers are probably familiar with games in this genre. Classic games like Donkey Kong, Mario, and even early Sonic all exemplify the platformer format.

The first week's course materials kick off with an excellent and engaging video in which a headset-wearing guide walks users through the key elements of a platformer game. From perspective to gravity, students get a video-based crash course in what really "matters" in this genre—and a look at plenty of examples of games that demonstrate these key elements. Did you know that being able to "jump" is particularly important in a platformer? Couple that fact with the importance of perspective, and you've got the foundation for a game. "Jumping is what makes a platformer a platformer," says Matthew. "If your character can't jump, you'd have a top-down," he explains.

Being a veteran at Gamestar Mechanic, Matthew was familiar with much of the material for week one, but the videos, game samples, and challenges helped review and reinforce key concepts. Differentiating between the platformer and another core style, he continues, "In a top-down game, bird's-eye view, you can't jump, and you don't change gravity. But in a platformer, you can control gravity." Gravity makes a huge difference in game play, says Matthew. "Set it to six, and you feel like you have a 1,000 pound boulder on your back."

In addition to perspective and gravity, students learned about various jumps that can be used to navigate the spatial elements of a platformer. "I learned what all the jumps are called—hook, horizontal, and vertical—and how to use them to their highest potential inside of my games." He says that the examples helped him think about the importance of using the various jumps effectively.

After completing his first game assignment, a platformer, he moved on to one of the extra-credit challenges for the first week—design a re-make of a retro classic platformer. "That was really cool," says Matthew, who admits to searching for his old copy of Super Mario for the Gameboy to relive the fun after watching the Super Mario video in the course. "That assignment was cool because you were able to see you can make games like Sonic using Gamestar Mechanic," he says. "Sometimes, you can even make them better!"

When asked about the importance of a young designer going back and looking at a timeline of video games, Matthew notes that he hadn't heard of all the games he learned about in the first week of camp. Games that are familiar and nostalgic for older gamers are sometimes games younger games don't know at all. The course's careful attention to the history of design and gaming upon which tomorrow's games will build is a cool stepping stone for the participants and helps connect what they are learning to the video gaming industry at large.

Moving Ahead

Matthew is now working on Unit 2—the Action Game. Stay tuned as we check in with him next week to see how it's going.

Sign-ups are now open for the next sessions of the Gamestar Mechanic Online Learning Program, with six-week sessions beginning September 10, 2012.

A new app and site from Elmer's® Products can help you capture and organize all the sticky, amazing, robotic, solar-powered, glue-filled, and otherwise amazing and inspired moments of summer science camp. Help your kids preserve the excitement of summer science by snapping photos that record their hands-on camp experiences!

Are your students at science camp this summer? With camps catering to so many interests, areas of science, and hands-on activities, summer camps offer exciting and engaging experiences and exploration for your kids—and the ability to try something new almost weekly.

It is always great to hear, "Look what I made today!" But recording moments from summer camp can be a challenge for parents. You don't want to miss the moment or not pay enough attention to the examples of hands-on learning scattered on tables and shelves, but walking in at the end of the day for "pickup" can be a whirlwind. There are logistics to take care of to sign your child out and check in with the camp leader. Your child may be overflowing with stories and news from the day, and you also need to make sure you gather all of your camper's belongings. And then, as you navigate the routine of camp pickup and prepare to weave your way to the car, your student may drag you to one room or another to show off projects and creations from the day.

Snap a Photo

Taking photos throughout the days of camp helps you chronicle your child's experience, but with dozens of parents milling around and the general "time to go home" vibe at the end of the day, dragging in your regular camera for a perfect photo opp isn't always practical. Using your cell phone to take pictures is convenient and makes sharing photos with friends and family via social media networks or email a breeze. ("Look what she made today!")

Keep in mind that some things made at camp don't "come home" at the end of the day—or even at the end of the week! Depending on the subject and materials, many camp experiences are about the process and the hands-on learning, even if there is no tangible take-away. For instance, LEGO® camp participants often build new creations each day, tearing apart what was created the previous day to salvage and reuse the pieces. Don't be in too big of a hurry to get back to the car. Snapping photos at the end of each day as your child shows off what she built helps validate the science camp experience for your student! Plus, as your student shows off the project, you will get to hear her explain how it works or what it demonstrates while the science or subject is still most fresh in her mind.

Family-friendly Photo App

After a week of camp, you accumulate a number of photos on your phone. With each passing week, the collection grows. But what happens to those photos? Are you good about uploading them to your computer and cataloguing them for later user? Do you print your cell photos the same way you do photos from your other family camera?

A new service from Elmer's Products makes it even easier to organize, track, and put your phone photo captures to use. The 1st Day site is designed specifically with back-to-school in mind, but parents may find that the online photo site makes memory keeping easier—all year long. From the first day of school to the science fair to summer science camp, 1st Day gives you a new and convenient way to better manage your cell photos—and school and camp memories.

The next time you walk into robotics or LEGO camp, pick up a paint-splattered child who has been exploring the art of Jackson Pollock, or watch your child show off the roller coaster he built from foam tubes, snap a cell phone pic with the 1st Day app and upload it to your 1st Day account. At the end of summer, you'll have a collection of summer photos that showcase your child's unique summer experiences this year.

When it comes time for the proverbial "What I Did Over My Summer Break" report, your child will be all set!

Families and young engineers can get hands on exploring the ins and outs of tower building using LEGO®, spaghetti, or even newspaper. Have fun seeing who can build the tallest tower, but be prepared for some structural collapses along the way as they explore what works—and what doesn't.

When you think of a city's skyline, or of notable landmarks in an area, you probably immediately think of structures that stand out either because of their architectural design, like the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, or because of their height. A building that rises above everything around it is certain to attract attention, and vertical living and working solutions offer a different approach for civil engineers tackling questions related to limited space and growing population. Reflecting the quest to build higher, listings of tallest structures and towers often seem like something from a global engineering competition, with new buildings reaching up to adopt the title of "tallest" only to, later, be replaced by something even taller.

The Tallest of Tall

A timeline of tallest towers, buildings, and structures chronicles a history of taller and taller structures as engineers conquer structural challenges and develop new ways to make materials like steel and concrete reach even higher. Today, the Tokyo Skytree, standing 2,080 feet tall, is listed as the tallest non-habitable tower in the world. The Burj Khalifa, a skyscraper in Dubai, holds the title of tallest man-made structure (of any kind) and rises more than 2,700 feet. Just last week, The Shard, a 95-story building in London, was named the tallest structure in Western Europe at 1,016 feet, but its regional claim to fame may be short lived. Already another tower is underway that is projected to out-climb it by year's end. That the Washington Monument stands just a bit more than 555 feet puts the sheer climb of these record-holding structures in vertical perspective. By comparison, Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) in Chicago is the tallest building in the United States. Willis Tower stands 1,451 feet and held the "tallest in the world" title in 1973 and for almost a quarter century after. It lost the title to the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur.

Putting civil engineering to the side, another tower completed this year in South Korea also set a record—the record for the tallest tower built from LEGO blocks. Rising skyward 105 feet, and built by 4,000 children using more than 500,000 bricks, the celebratory tower topped the previous record-holding LEGO tower by inches.

Scaled to Size

Whether real-world towers or LEGO creations, looking at the history of tall structures and at current towers offers important clues about fundamental engineering and materials sciences concepts that go into tower construction. Even toddlers building towers with chunky plastic bricks run into predictable structural problems. Stack too many Duplo® blocks one on top of another, and the tower, ultimately, will begin to lean and fall. Similar issues arise with smaller LEGO bricks, but the greater variety of brick sizes lets kids experiment with more sophisticated structural design as they search for various ways to increase stability to support greater height. The "Building the Tallest Tower" project lets students explore tower construction and the relationship between height and stability—especially in the context of shaking.

Other questions your tower builders might ask and investigate with their tower creations include: Does a tower require a certain shape? Are certain shapes more stable at greater heights? What's the mathematical relationship between the size of the base and a stable height? How do you keep a tower from bending? Why might it bend and at what height? What forces, like wind, does a tower have to withstand?

Beyond Bricks

While brick-based building materials like LEGO offer widespread ground for exploration and innovation, young engineers can also pursue tower construction using other household or toy-based materials and supplies. Building a tower from newspaper, alone, poses a fun challenge in problem solving and creative thinking. Add a bit of tape or glue in the process, and see how much taller the structure can rise.

For something completely different, bring out the pasta and challenge your builders to see what kind of tower they can construct using uncooked spaghetti noodles and Emer's® glue. The "The Leaning Tower of Pasta" project can help you get started. While the project offers a procedure older students can use for a school assignment or science fair, parents can use the general information as a guideline for a fun family science activity. Bring out the glue and pasta! Make sure you have plenty of pasta on hand, and encourage an exploration of noodle length as part of the investigation. Other building materials you and your students might try include toothpicks, popsicle sticks, straws, or even sugar cubes.

How high can you go?

Creating a display of a science collection can be a wonderful exercise in observation and classification. Plus, your student will end up with a tactile visual reminder and keepsake.

Some students collect postage stamps, coins, or baseball cards. Some prefer to nurture, seek, and expand collections of natural specimens. Leaves, feathers, rocks, and bugs are all common childhood collections as students explore the world around them with an eye to the ground, to the nearest bushes, to the garden, to the beach, or to what might be crawling around beneath a large rock. Creating display board collections of leaves or insects is a common school assignment, but for some young scientists, the desire to quantify and catalog the natural world is a drive that extends beyond the classroom walls and may continue into adulthood.

These kinds of collections inspire an appreciation for just how many species, in any domain, there really are. That there are more than 70,000 known species of flowering plants is a simple reminder that the natural world is much bigger than what you see in your own backyard. Visual displays of groups of natural objects, or of items related to a scientific theme, help viewers understand the scope and potential of certain areas, but they also make for interesting viewing. Harold Feinstein's photo collections, like One Hundred Butterflies and One Hundred Seashells, showcase difference, beauty, and variation in nature. As Fred Gagnon writes in the forward to One Hundred Butterflies, "butterfly collections and books are just some of the ways to tell people, 'Look what is out there in the world we live in every day. There is so much more than butterflies... yet look how many butterflies there are!'"

For those who appreciate the aesthetics of a grid or love even the hint of tessellation, visual displays can be both informative and artistic. Pheromone: The Insect Artwork of Christopher Marley, for example, shows a fascination with the beauty and diversity of insects, but Marley's work is also mesmerizing in its arrangement.

Cultivating a Collection

Scouring the backyard, local parks, or nearby beaches for items that fit a collection is a great way to encourage observation and increased awareness of local habitats and biospheres. Especially if the collection centers upon something in which the student is interested, this can be an excellent activity for summer months. Frogs? Leaves? Beetles? Collections don't come in a one-subject-fits-all format, but the quest for building, identifying, and showcasing a collection lets a student delve into an area of interest, with tangible and lasting results. You might even find that a collection project helps shape and guide some unexpected summer excursions and may feed a growing passion in a particular area of science!

Getting Started

While a collection of findings from the backyard may not be as elaborate or as nuanced as a collection from a field scientist, this kind of student project can turn into an exciting quest and generate greater awareness of local biodiversity. The "Making Species Maps" and "Finding Phyla" projects offer guidance for getting a better sense of what species are in a specific area or local habitat. While these projects don't focus on a single species, they may help you and your students pinpoint a topic for a collection by first assessing what is around you. Similarly, the "Bug Vacuums: Sucking up Biodiversity" project can help you get started in thinking about how students can build and track an investigation of a nearby space, but you don't have to limit your students to bugs, insects, and worms!

Build a Photo Display

As part of an informal science collection process and project, creating a tangible display encourages students to work systematically on the project over a period of time. Some collections are added to over a period of weeks, months, or even years. Some collectors cultivate lifelong collections. With a visual display and catalog in mind as the "goal" of the collection, you will need to think through strategies for displaying the samples, but you (or your student) may or may not feel comfortable with a collection of once-live specimens. A workaround may be as close as your family camera. A photo-based documentation of findings and sightings can be a good entry point for a young enthusiast—and might eliminate concerns you have about 'pinning' samples. Plus, photographing a collection makes it easier to display a collection of larger or dimension objects, like rocks, shells, or sea glass. With photos, your students can work on cultivating a science collection that can scale with their age, interest, and the time spent scavenging.

Scavenging for All Ages

A photo-based collection lets even the youngest of students observe their surroundings and search for new samples to record. For older students, collecting photo samples can be a building-block opportunity for learning more about photography, but even without an understanding of focal point or aperture, passing out disposable cameras to your kids at the start of a nature walk can yield surprising results. Giving them the keys to independently document and record their findings may or may not generate high-quality photos, but you may find that they are more enthusiastic about the scavenger hunt with their own camera in hand.

Display the Findings

Once your students have amassed a number of photos, or finished their disposable cameras, print or develop the pictures. If you are working with digital photos, you might print the photos in varying sizes. You might also encourage students to crop or trim prints to best showcase the subject at hand. With a pile of printed photos, your students can mount them on foam board. Using reference books or field guides, encourage (or help) them to look up and identify samples captured in the photos and then label the photos on the board. (Tip: check out a few field guides from the library at the start of the project so they have a sense of what they may find, how specimens may differ, and how to make initial steps in identification or classification. They might also create a "most wanted" bucket list of samples they'd like to find.)

Start Small

Be realistic about what your student might manage to collect or locate. Your student might enjoy the challenge of trying to find a certain number of samples a week, a month, or over the total summer. But emphasize that a good collection grows over time. You don't have to have "every" sample in hand to start gluing things onto a display board. The board can be added to as the collection grows! Even a budding collection display can be pretty cool propped on a bookshelf or ledge, a visual reminder of a natural interest and of time spent exploring.

What will you find next for your display board collection? You might be surprised! Happy collecting!

Do you have a science collection? If you or your students have a science collection, we would love to see! Share photos (and your science collection stories) by emailing them to amy@sciencebuddies.org.

Multiplication tables? Fibonacci sequence? First 23 numbers of Pi? Algebra problems? Solid shapes? Bucky balls? Zany stories about rabbits that multiply exponentially? School may be out for the summer, but studies suggest that sending math skills on vacation might be a bad idea!

When it comes to math, the adage, "you snooze you lose" may ring alarmingly true. Studies show that math is the academic subject most at risk during the summer months, with students losing, on average, two months of grade-level knowledge.^* Reading is a great way to help keep brain cells fired up over the summer, and tackling high-interest summer science projects lets students exercise a range of skills and hands-on problem-solving strategies. But with the loss of math skills adding up to possible academic setback, boosting opportunities for summer math can be exponentially important for your students. While some parents may shy away from putting more math on the summer schedule, it can be easier than you think to infuse summer days with hands-on and real-world math. No abacus required!

Adding Up Opportunities for Math

So what can you do to get them talking about numbers, adding things up, keeping division skills oiled, and encouraging them to see the geometry that appears in the spaces and objects around them? The following list offers some suggestions to help you ease math into your days. Keep in mind that you may have the best success if you focus on fun math activities, and be sure to pick and choose approaches and titles that are appropriate for your student's age and comfort level with math.

Guided math explorations. Step-by-step hands-on math explorations can be fun as a family activity family—or good for older, independent student investigation. The following Science Buddies Project Ideas can be turned into engaging activities:

• "Juice Box Geometry": Not all juice boxes look the same, and they don't all hold the same amount! By exploring the dimensions of various rectangular juice boxes, students can see the relationship between volume, the dimensions of a three-dimensional box, and the packaging required to cover the surface area of the container. If your student is drinking something from a "box," grab a ruler, and see what you can learn from a few simple measurements. Does the formula-based calculation match up to the amount the package says the container holds? Do your students prefer ice cream to juice? You can adapt this math-based exploration to compare ice cream containers, too!
• "M&M Math": What's your favorite color of M&M? What are the odds that you'll pull that color from the bag when you reach in? This tasty activity introduces students to statistics and probability. (Another colored candy could be used instead of M&Ms. Or, if your student enjoys sorting the candies and tallying the totals of each color, encourage an informal comparison of two different kinds of candy. Do they have the same amounts of different colors? Do they seem to have similar amounts of each color? Is your chance of getting a red one the same for each candy?)
• "Dice Probabilities": Some games value certain numbers (or dice totals) more than others. What are the chances that you'll roll the number you need? Is it just luck? Or are there mathematical rules that come into play and help explain why you roll certain numbers? Put it to the test! This project compares combined values rolled using two different kinds of dice. Increase the odds for fun by having another friend or family member do the same test and compare the results!

Prime books. There are many engaging math-themed books available for students, especially for the elementary school crowd. Younger readers may enjoy titles like Sir Cumference: And the First Round Table, Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi, Sir Cumference and the Great Knight of Angleland, , all part of a series of medieval math adventures. Other innovative math-themed storybooks for the elementary school crowd include Multiplying Menace: The Revenge Of Rumpelstiltskin and Pythagoras and the Ratios: A Math Adventure. For books with less story and more puzzle, consider titles like Math-terpieces: The Art of Problem-Solving, The Grapes Of Math, and others by Gregory Tang. Similarly, The Adventures of Penrose the Mathematical Cat and Further Adventures of Penrose the Mathematical Cat may captivate young math students.

Even younger readers may enjoy puzzling through fictitious problems that can be solved with math in titles like Spaghetti And Meatballs For All!, or learning about important mathematicians in titles like Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci. And for those with an eye to shape and form, The Greedy Triangle is an engaging introduction to geometry, and Can You Count to a Googol? helps kids understand the vastness of numbers. Then there is Math Curse (and the sequel, Science Verse), a clever romp through the math that appears in everyday situations. The tone is playful, and the visual treatment is engaging and fits the fast pace and high energy of the story. This duo makes a fun read-aloud pair for all ages and brings up everyday math and science in a playful way.

Titles factorial. For older elementary readers and math enthusiasts, titles like Math Trek and Math Trek 2: A Mathematical Space Odyssey encourage and continue math learning and problem solving at home. Math Trek 2 takes students on a fictitious space journey that begins with a launch pad countdown (using the Fibonacci series) before rocketing readers into a math-based journey that is both fun—and accessible. Activities are offered along the way for DIY exploration, but the story alone can be enjoyed as a family or for solo reading. Curious about the Golden Ratio or what a "golden rectangle" is and what that has to do with the spirals you see in nature? Math Trek 2 explains it all as part of the story. Another summer reading title that is more story and less workbook than some middle-school math books, The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure, tells the story of a boy who falls asleep and has a series of math-oriented dreams.

Play a game. Playing number-oriented games is a wonderful way to keep kids practicing their basic computation skills while having fun. If your family is already game-oriented, time spent playing tried-and-true favorites like Yahtzee and Farkle can help boost your family's summer math. There's something to be said for adding up the value of your dice each round! With a bit of research, you can find directions for many other DIY dice-oriented games for math fun, or, for off-the-shelf ease, there are "Math Dice" versions for both younger and older students. In recent years, Set has become a household favorite for many with its pattern-based game play and Sleeping Queens has an unexpected but delightful element of math built into its play strategy, perfect for younger students. (Keep in mind that you can often "level up" your favorite family games to make them more challenging for your family as your students grow and acquire more math skills. Many families make up their own household rules for added fun.)

Tracking money. Tracking allowance, spending, goals, and percentages of savings that are earmarked for special purchases or long-term savings encourages students to use math skills, without them thinking of the task as school-oriented. Based on your child's savings or earnings, ask questions that encourage them to divide, multiple, add, and subtract. Create fictitious story problems that let them think through how much they might have if they buy this or that. Or query how many nickels, for example, a week's allowance is worth.

Counting collections. Whether your student collects baseball cards, comic books, state quarters, or natural objects like leaves, rocks, sea glass, or shells, number opportunities abound. How many do you have? How many of each kind? What percentage of your collection falls into a certain category? Look for the ways in which numbers tie into what your students are already doing. They'll talk about the underlying math as part of their own assessment and tracking of their collection!

Make it a puzzle. A book like Mathemagic!: Number Tricks can be a fun summer selection for students of all ages. The "magic" examples are fascinating and fun to memorize and use with friends and family. The "tricks" also require a good bit of computation to work through the samples and see how and if they work. Multiplication by nines by glancing at your fingers? Nifty!

Watch a video. Downtime screen time can do double duty with math-based videos like those created by Vi Hart. From hands-on exploration and analysis of fruit roll-ups to an analysis of the spirals in pineapples (and SpongeBob!), Hart's videos are eye-opening, mind-boggling, fast-paced, and thought-provoking.

Fun with Numbers
The above suggestions are just a few ways to integrate math-focused activities and number-based thinking into your summer. Keep in mind that your challenge isn't, necessarily, to teach your kids new curriculum. Instead, focus on keeping the wheels turning and keeping them engaged with the "fun" of numbers related to everyday activities and objects. You might just inspire new admiration for all things numeric!