New Horizons: Here and Now

On January 19^th 2006, a rocket lifted the New Horizons probe from the surface of the Earth, never again to return. At the time of this writing, the early afternoon of July 14^th 2015, the probe has completed its flyby of Pluto. For some NASA scientists, today is the most important day out of the three-thousand, four-hundred and sixty-three that have passed since launch. Those few thousand days include others with their own special importance, however. Through my office door I can hear the low, joyful roar of children playing here at the museum. Save for a handful of older kids, each of those girls and boys marks one of those days since January 19^th of 2006 as their birthday. For their whole lives, this piano-sized, plutonium-powered robot has been speeding through empty space at velocity of over nine miles per second away from the sun. And they are all still going strong, on paths unknown.

I was born in the year 1985 in Huntsville, Alabama. As a child, I made regular visits to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center located there; space exploration fascinated me then as it does now. My interest in rockets and astronauts dominated the design choices of my childhood bedroom, which featured a hanging mobile of the solar system. Pluto, then included as a planet (but what’s in a name?), was represented as a grey, mostly formless rock. That was our best guess at the time as to what it would look like. We now know, though just for the past few weeks have we known, that to have been an error. Pluto, as it turns out, is a ruddy world with varied geographic features. Certainly the original guess could have ended up being accurate, but as it stands this serves as a perfect example of my belief that inquiry and exploration are practices that enrich our world. Learning and understanding are value-adding courses of action. Pluto is a real place and, standing beneath it in the night sky, the only thing between it and you is the distance and a few miles of air. We now know what it looks like. We didn’t before.

The kids I work with on a daily basis as the science educator of this museum are in the business of exploring the universe around them. They are aligned in this sense with the grownups of the world who have gotten jobs as scientists, and certainly some of the voices I hear even now outside my door will one day deliver presentations at important academic conferences or discuss the design of an experiment late into the evening with researcher peers. Regardless of job title, however, it is my personal and professional goal that visitors to our museum, young and old alike, gain some kind of new appreciation for this world and those around us. Science is one of the tools that I have to assist with that, and a wonderful thing about using science is the fact that it can show us how interconnected everything truly is. The gravity on Pluto is not as strong as Earth’s, but it follows the same rules as the gravity on Earth. Understanding how the radio waves we use to send commands and hear from New Horizons work also leads to an understanding of the light that we use to see. The same rules of color-mixing that the probe uses in order to take photographs is taking place with paint and brushes right now a few yards from my office. No matter your starting point, seeking to understand the universe can take you to unexpected places. All roads lead to everywhere.

In just a few short weeks we will temporarily close our doors to undergo a renovation. Upon reopening, there will be a dedicated science area that we are calling Step Up to Science. Another new addition to the museum will be our climbing globe, 14 feet in diameter. If we were to create a scale model of the solar system based upon that as our Earth, the moon would be about 3 feet, 10 inches across and located, on average, 422 feet away. The sun would be 1,530 feet across and a bit over 31 miles away. Pluto, for its part, would be 2 feet, 7 inches across and almost 1000 miles away from our front door. And New Horizons itself would be an invisible mote of dust drifting by, only ever having gotten as close as 14 feet to Pluto’s surface in our scale model, taking five seconds to move an inch. One day in the not-so-distant future, kids sitting at our Science Bar will draw up maps of our scale model solar system. Or they will program a robot. Or they will toddle right past me and to the lunch tables, still waiting for the day or the question or the experiment that piques their interest. We will be here, just as Pluto is there. I look forward to the adventure!

All the Cinderellas

For our last little peek behind the pages of the fairy tales in our current exhibit, Once Upon a Time, we’d like to celebrate one of the best-known of them: Cinderella! The beauty with the special slipper has a very, very long lineage. Stories about her, or women very much like her, have been traced back hundreds of years, to China, Greece, and Egypt.

The Greek-Egyptian version of Cinderella is most likely the earliest, although it lacks many of the elements that are more familiar to us from the European-derived stories of the 1700s. In this tale, the heroine is named Rhodopis, and she was one of many servants of a Greek businessman and politician named Xanthes. He had taken a party to Egypt for business, and Rhodopis, bathing in a spring, had one of her slippers snatched up by an eagle, who then dropped it in the lap of the King of Egypt. The king took this as a sign from the heavens and searched everywhere for the slipper’s owner. Rhodopis, also known as Rhodope and as Doricha, was most likely a real woman, a courtesan (or “hetaera”) who lived about 2600 years ago, but the story about the shoe was probably a tall tale, and we can thank her contemporary, Aesop, for that.

More than a thousand years later, the popular tale had made its way to China. Tuan Ch’êng-shih wrote of a heroine named Yeh-Shen, and her story is closer to the version that we know. Yeh-Shen longs for happiness and marriage since her stepmother is so cruel, and she has some supernatural help from a magical fish who grants her wishes. Yeh-Shen attends a ball wearing a beautiful dress and slippers made of gold, and leaves one behind, in the hands of a charming king, when her allotted time expires.

Yeh-Shen and Rhodopis stories continued to be told, with different names, as the centuries passed, with dozens more iterations than we have room to discuss here. In 1697, Charles Perrault’s version, “Cendrillon,” was published, and it’s pretty much the final form that we know it today. Earlier European versions had replaced the magical benefactor with a kind godmother, but Perrault made her a fairy godmother for the first time. She transforms a pumpkin into a carriage, makes the slippers from glass, turns mice into horses, and so on. Basically all the elements of Cinderella that we all recognize are present in Perrault’s version, which has as strong a claim as any to being the most popular of all fairy tales.

Perrault’s was not the final version, of course, because as we’ve discussed, fairy tales are always changing and evolving. In recent years, Hollywood movies like Snow White and the Huntsman and Maleficent have given classic fairy tales a darker edge, but the Cinderella story was taking on heavier overtones quite early on. In 1812, the Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm, published their seminal collection of European tales, and the Cinderella version that they included, entitled “Aschenputtel,” is much darker than Perrault’s and all the variants that followed it.

What interests me about Cinderella, though, is that the bleak overtones that some writers and folklorists have added to the story don’t actually seem to stick. As we noted in the first of these features, about Jack and the Beanstalk, many fairy tales actually thrive with a little color and backstory and discussion of motivations, even if it’s sometimes darker. Cinderella, however, shrugs off anybody’s attempts to darken it. Perhaps because the core of the story is so bright and happy, and its tale of wish-fulfillment is so encouraging and promising, that darkness just doesn’t belong to it. Cinderella is arguably the most popular fairy tale in the world, and the happiest.

Further reading: Lit Reactor | readyed.com.au | popsugar.com

Professor Labcoat celebrates National Maker Week!

Hello everyone! Professor Labcoat here. It’s National Maker Week, and today I’d like to show you how to learn about electrical circuits using play dough!

We use electricity to power all kinds of things every day. Electricity is what we call it when charged particles are pushed around, and we can make, or “generate”, electricity in many different ways. The power plants that generate electricity for entire cities use huge magnets to push electricity through the big wires that we see along the side of the road, solar panels use light energy from the sun to push electricity around, and batteries use chemical reactions.

The materials needed for this experiment are 4 AA batteries, a light emitting diode (LED), and some play dough that’s made with salt. There are many recipes online for play dough; I made some by combining 2 cups of flour and ½ cup of salt with roughly 1 cup of water added slowly. Food coloring can make for a fun color addition. You can also add a couple of teaspoons of oil and a teaspoon of cream of tartar to help with the texture, or just use some of the store bought variety!

Finding a light emitting diode (LED) might be a little tricky. I took apart a small finger-mounted flashlight to get mine. These parts are also available at many electronics stores or online for less than a dollar apiece.

The first thing we need for our circuit is something to generate the electricity. The chemical reactions inside the batteries will do this for us by pushing charged particles from one side of the battery to the other. We want all the push to go in the same direction, so we need to line up our batteries end-to-end and pointing in the same way. A little ball of dough acts as a conductor between our batteries. We need these batteries to push the electricity hard enough to make our LED light up. We measure the push of electricity in units called “volts”. Each battery gives 1.5 volts worth of push to the electricity, so four in a row give 6 volts of push total. This should be strong enough to move electricity through both the dough and the LED.

The play dough is our conductor. Instead of electrons moving through metal, our electricity will take the form of tiny pieces of the salt (called “ions”) moving through the water in the dough. It takes more energy to move ions through dough than to move electrons through metal, so dough wouldn’t make a very good extension cord. It is safe to use with the batteries, however, because it won’t heat up as a metal wire would. Plus, it’s fun to squish!

Electricity can only move through LEDs in one direction, so you might need to switch yours around a little bit before it works. Once you’ve got a circuit together, you can try out different things! What happens if your dough rolls are fat and short? Skinny and long? Does it change the brightness of your bulb?

There are many people who have created many great lessons to go along with this kind of circuitry. Check out the wonderful work of the University of St. Thomas and their “Squishy Circuit” homepage!

I hope you enjoy making your play dough circuit and learning about electricity! There are many wonderful things that we can use science to build and understand, and Makers the world over have created many fantastic resources for Young Makers!

Take care!

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Giving children time to explore

Earlier this week, in The New York Times, David Kohn wrote about children and learning, and although he didn’t use the exact phrase that we do here, “The power of play,” it still resonates throughout his story. Children learn through hands-on exploration. They need to set their own pace, and they need to be given constant opportunities to use their imagination, create rules and boundaries, and interact with other children.

From Kohn’s story, “Play is often perceived as immature behavior that doesn’t achieve anything,” says David Whitebread, a psychologist at Cambridge University who has studied the topic for decades. “But it’s essential to their development. They need to learn to persevere, to control attention, to control emotions. Kids learn these things through playing.” You can’t teach these things, and you certainly can’t test them. Children will observe and respond and learn at different levels, but even the silliest-looking play has so much more going on than can be quantified, objectified, and compartmentalized.

Kristin Tillotson, writing in The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, uses an analogy familiar to anybody who’s read the Sunday funnies: when kids explore, it looks like one of the characters in Bil Keane’s The Family Circus, taking off on their meandering, “serpentine” paths, connecting points A and B by way of every other possible letter. We see this a lot with our regular guests. Sometimes, they arrive and the child has a very specific idea about which area of our Museum they’d like to explore and go straight there, but just as often, we’ll see a child absolutely determined to climb in our treehouse, but only after winding around through every other place they can find and writing their name on our paint wall first.

It’s pretty amusing watching children do this, but it’s also perfectly natural behavior. Tillotson calls this “informal meandering” an organic way to learn, and Marjorie Bequette, director of evaluation and research at the Science Museum of Minnesota, agrees, pointing out that children respond to being in charge of the adventure.

Even looking around and observing things in a space, whether it’s one you are familiar with or one that’s brand new, has so much value. In her story, Tillotson mentions that some New York police officers receive training in observation at the Museum of Modern Art. I read some more about that in a 2009 story at Smithsonian, and learned that there is a program where veteran officers get an early morning class in observation. It’s evidence for Tillotson’s theory that museums really are mind-expanding, and that, whether you’re an adult or a child, the experience at any museum is one where the observer is continually learning.

When you next visit us, once you catch up with your child after their “serpentine” tour of the place, try spending a few minutes asking questions about what they have explored and observed. What does the Moon Sand feel like? How many lights do they see? What do they notice about colors and shapes? Perhaps they’ll have some questions about what you have seen and explored as well, so keep your eyes and ears open as you play with your children… you may just learn a thing or two yourself!

http://www.startribune.com/museums-are-literally-mind-expanding-researchers-say/301738001/?stfeature=S
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/teaching-cops-to-see-138500635/?no-ist

Gearing Up for Changes

Last week, we announced that The Children’s Museum of Atlanta will temporarily close our doors on August 1 in order to begin an extensive and transformative renovation project (check out the story in the AJC).

I sat down with Karen Kelly, Director of Exhibits and Education, and Rachel Towns, Manager of Exhibits, to get a little more information about what Atlanta will be able to expect when the Museum reopens in late 2015.

How do you start a project like this, and turn it from a daydream into something concrete? What is the procedure like?

Karen Kelly: What you really do is, you look back and you think about what’s working and what’s not working, and what works for people and what doesn’t work for people, because it isn’t really about what our wishlist is, it’s about what the guests and their kids, the families and teachers would like to see. We started out by researching and watching people on the Museum floor, and having teachers and educators come in and do evaluations. We did surveys of over 3,000 people. And then we took all that data, and added our wishlist in, which included “Can we reach a broader age range than we do now?” because we’re really supposed to go to age eight, but our floor doesn’t.

So help me understand the timeline. When did this procedure really start?

KK: We started in 2007. We were having conversations and the Museum had been open for about four years, and we were thinking that it was time for the next step.  So we took all of that and then we also visited other children’s museums, to find out what was working for them, what they had done right, what they had done wrong. Sometimes it’s more about what they did wrong, and what didn’t work. We wanted to know what worked for them, and their communities. We went to the Minnesota Children’s Museum, we went to Indianapolis, EdVenture in Columbia, and Creative Discovery Museum in Chattanooga… we went to a lot of different places. We pulled all that in to see what worked, looking at the immersive environments. Then we looked at how other folks had done their campaigns and changed their museums over, and again people were very generous, and gave us their secret, behind-the-scenes ideas on how they put together their grand exhibit master plans. Actually, using a lot of those templates, that’s how I created an exhibit master plan based on all the information we had collected.

Rachel, what were some of the children’s museums that you enjoyed looking at?

Rachel Towns: Oh, I really enjoyed the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. I think that especially they have the whole “0-99” age range down, they have something for everyone and I feel like we took a lot from that. I also enjoyed EdVenture in South Carolina, those are two of the main ones!

As we shifted from looking at what our needs were into a funding situation. did it later come down to what we could afford and what we can envision…

KK: Actually, we kind of did it the other way around. The first step came to take all those ideas and put them into an exhibit master plan, and at that point, we invited different exhibit design firms to bid on helping us make this a reality. We went through what I called “Speed Dating,” so we saw seven exhibit firms in two days. This was with senior staff and our advisory committees. They pitched ideas to us based on what we had sent them.

So I know that one of things we’re going to have is a climbing structure. When you put the call out to the design companies, do you say something like “Bring us your ideas for a climbing structure?”

KK: No, we said we wanted an exhibit that made people stop and say “Wow!,” in the center of the Museum, and it should reflect Atlanta and its position as a gateway to the region and the world.  We said it would be nice to have a climbing structure, but we didn’t limit them, and one of the firms did not come up with a climbing structure. This one we’re using – Jack Rouse and Associates – did, but they each came back with different ideas and it was very fun to see. But Jack Rouse got the job, and Rachel can guess why…

Why’d they get it?

RT: They are awesome! They’re very inventive, and they listened to our ideas, and somehow they bring it all to life. They’re taking our concepts and making it all real, in the best way possible. They’re not leaving anything out.

KK: They’re really not, and the thing that I liked about them is first off was their enthusiasm for the job, but also the fact that although they’re a huge, huge company, they work with very small museums, with budgets much less than ours, all the way up to very large ones, enormous ones, so they have a wide range of experience. You can take some of the cool things you can do for lots of money for somebody else, and adapt them for much less money for smaller museum.

With that in mind, one of the things that I’ve heard about is that one of the new continent tables is going to have shifting topography…

RT: Yes, we’ll have a shake table on South America to demonstrate earthquakes!

So when you want a shake table to show earthquakes, does a firm like Rouse say “We know exactly how to do that,” or do they go figure it out…

RT: They came up with it.

KK: It’s a mix, and if they know what to do, they’ll tell you, and if not, they’ll come up with a concept like with the glacier interactive on the Europe table, where they’re going to try and drag stuff through ball bearings or other materials to see what happens to the land when a glacier pushes through, then they ask the fabricator as a partner to see if they can figure out how to make it work.

I’m excited about the rockets. Tell me about those!

RT: Well, on the back side of the climber, there are going to be two rocket stations where children can use an air compression pump to power a rocket up and hit different planets. These will be stretch fabric over a frame, so it will make a tight little drum sound when the rockets hit the planet. They can learn all about trajectory and angles and thrust. We’re hoping to make them out of a Nerf-like material.

Rather than an actual exhibit that you’re looking forward to, is there something about the process that’s coming up, the construction, that excites you?

RT: Absolutely. Having an architectural background, I’m really eager to see the general contractors come in and demolish everything and then build everything, from the mezzanine, and then the exhibits coming in, and seeing everything erected is just a dream to me, just seeing the whole process come to life. It’s something I really look forward to, and even then after that, further in the future, seeing the kids come in and get that “Wow,” it just makes me glow. I want to see the diner, and it’s all so exciting.

KK: Yes, I’m looking forward to seeing stuff that we’ve been talking about since 2007, 2008, and finally having it out there. One of my favorite moments has been last week when we were on the phone to the fabricators and they were describing the continent tables and we were all like, “This is so cool! We’re really going to have this!” And THEY were so excited! We’ve got these great fabricators, Heartland, out in Omaha, Nebraska, and they have done work for other children’s museums. They’re great  folks and very calm, but our fabricator was so excited talking about the continent tables, and how they’re going to put the layers together, and make the rivers look like they’re flowing, and it was just real after all the years of planning. And if he’s that excited, just think of how a kid is going to feel, when he pushed the button and the Nile lights up, following the path down to the Mediterranean. It’s going to be so amazing!

Want to keep up with our progress? Visit our website or follow us on social media for up-to-date information and more renderings.

 

Staff Pick: Earth Day Toys

Earth Day is right around the corner and here at the Museum we love to encourage healthy planet habits that take care of Earth! We will be celebrating Earth Day this weekend with Novelis on Saturday and Sunday. This will be the 45th anniversary of the Earth Day movement, meaning 45 years of “broadening the base of support for environmental programs, rekindling public commitment and building community activism around the world through a broad range of events and activities”. All the environmental activities and lessons are very important to pass down to our children.

We currently have some awesome items in our Museum Store that are definitely Earth Day appropriate. Our staff picked out their 3 favorite Earth Day items from the store and shared a little bit about why they liked the particular items.

Kareen Dames, manager of museum sales, recommends:

The Busy Bug Gardens is my favorite thing in the Museum Store because I love butterflies! This awesome little kit allows children to learn about gardening and enjoying the site of Monarch butterflies and hummingbirds, both of which are attracted to the Purple Coneflower that will sprout from the seeds in the kit. I also like that this is an activity that can be done inside or outside.

Debbie Palay. director of development, recommends:

I would recommend spending time with the Solar Print Kit. These kits are an excellent way to teach kids about the power of the sun and the chemical process behind the imaging that takes place on the special paper. This is an activity that is suitable and appealing to both boys and girls and can be a fun way to spend a sunny afternoon.

Cayce Dunn, digital marketing manager, recommends:

I love the Recycled Paper Beads kit! I love doing crafts and the fact that this craft also recycles was definitely a two-for-one plus! Making paper beads always seemed tedious and a little tiring by hand, but this gadget that fits perfectly on a recycled water bottle looks like a super simple and efficient way to make beads. Not to mention, the added bonus of the recycled water bottle being used as a container for the finished beads. I love the idea of showing children how old magazine pages can be used to create fun jewelry and awesome one-of-a-kind handmade gifts. Recycling is definitely a planet-friendly way of using your imagination to figure out how to use the most out of the stuff you have!

If you plan on visiting us to celebrate Earth Day, drop by the Museum store to check out these items. They would make awesome gifts or just a fun activity to take a part of the Museum and the message home with you. Earth Day celebrations at the Museum begin Saturday, April 18th at 12 PM. The fun will continue Sunday, April 19th at 3:00 PM. Check our Programming Schedule for more info of the days happenings!

Source: EarthDay.org

 

Science Around Atlanta: Physics & Roller Coasters

Hello girls and boys! Professor Labcoat here!

In my last blog post, I said, “No matter what you’re interested in or what question you have, there’s probably a scientist somewhere trying to figure it out.” That’s very true, because science is a way to learn about the world around us and everything that’s in it. There are all different kinds of scientists who are interested in all different kinds of things! You can learn more about almost anything that you’re interested in by using science.

The other day, my friend Cayce got to go to Six Flags Over Georgia to try out their Batman: The Ride roller coaster…backwards! She had a lot of fun, and even got a video of her on the ride! I decided that it’d be fun to use her video to talk about the science we can learn from roller coasters.

When I was a kid, I wasn’t a big fan of roller coasters, but I like them more and more these days. Roller coasters do some pretty cool things. They can go very fast, turn upside down, and make you dizzy very quickly. It seems pretty complicated at first, but science can help us to understand complicated things!

To figure out roller coasters, we need to think about things called “forces”. A force is a push or pull on something, and this can happen in a lot of different ways. When something pushes or pulls on something else, we say it’s “applying a force”. For example, if you push someone on a swing, you are applying a pushing force to them. If the wind blows your hair around, that’s a force the wind is applying to your hair. And you’re stuck to the ground because the earth’s gravity is applying a force pulling you downward!

Some kind of force is needed to make something start to move, slow down, or change direction. We might not always realize this is what’s going on, however, because forces can show up in places that we don’t always expect.

For example, if you throw a beanbag, you push on it with your hand to apply the force to get it to start moving. Once the beanbag leaves your hand, it’s not getting any more force from you. There are still forces on the beanbag, though, and these forces work against the force of your throw! One force is a push back from the air the beanbag is moving through. This slows the beanbag down a little bit. Another force is the force of gravity. This pulls the beanbag towards the ground. Finally, when the beanbag hits the ground, the ground applies a force that stops it from moving!

This all seems very normal to us because we deal with these kinds of forces in our everyday lives. It took scientists a long time to figure out all of these forces are happening, because everybody was so used to them! But, if you were an astronaut in space far away from the earth with no air around you, no ground under you, and no gravity to speak of, and you threw a beanbag, it would keep going in a straight line for thousands of years! It wouldn’t have any other forces around to change how it moved.

So, what does this have to do with roller coasters?

A person riding a roller coaster, such as my friend Cayce, moves in a lot of different directions at different speeds. All these changes in speed and direction mean that there are a lot of forces changing the way the person is moving. When we ride a roller coaster, we feel these forces as pushes and pulls from the straps on our seats.

One of the most important forces for roller coasters to work the way they do is the force of gravity. Just like our beanbag example, where the force from your hand gives the beanbag the push to get it started, gravity provides the force that moves you around on a roller coaster. You see, there are no motors or engines on roller coaster cars. What happens at the start of almost every roller coaster is the ride pulls you up a tall hill, and then pushes you off the edge. You can see this in Cayce’s video: at the beginning, she and her sister slowly move up a hill. The moment they start moving after that, the only force that’s making them move faster is the force of gravity pulling them down!

The first hill of a roller coaster is always the tallest part of a roller coaster, because after gravity starts to pull you around, it won’t be able to make you move to a taller place than where you started. In much the same way, if you drop a bouncy ball (without throwing it at the ground!), it will never bounce higher than where you dropped it.

Roller coasters are designed to make sure that the forces they apply to the riders aren’t enough to hurt them; this is a big part of the reason why you have to be a certain height to ride roller coasters! The seats are designed to make sure that they push and pull on the right parts of people. When roller coasters go upside down, the forces applied to the riders make sure that gravity can’t pull them out of their seats. And, sometimes on roller coasters, as the forces are changing around, you don’t feel any forces at all! This is called feeling “zero-g”. The “g” stands for “gravity”, and this means that you feel weightless. A feeling of weightlessness is what astronauts in the International Space Station experience! It’s only during special occasions that we get to have that sensation on the earth, which is one of the reasons roller coasters and other fun amusement park rides are so exciting!

I hope you enjoyed learning about roller coasters with me, and I look forward to talking about all sorts of other things with you in this space. Take care!

Gardening With Kids

Gardening with children is a very important, and fun, activity to experience with your kids! Exposing children to where their food comes from or how flowers and plants grow allows them to understand and experience a natural process that can help them learn patience, problem-solving, science and an overall appreciation of nature’s way. Gardening can give kids a sense of responsibility, empowerment and accomplishment.

Pike Nurseries is a great place to go locally to get all the supplies you need to begin gardening with children. There are so many ways to begin the process. If the weather isn’t cooperating, plant a garden indoors. Pike Nurseries has a free class on container gardening this weekend! It can be as simple as an taking an egg carton, filling each section with dirt and planting little seeds in each so you can watch the little sprouts come up. Once you decide between planting flowers or food, you need to make sure to have the right soil and space available. And don’t forget about garden protection! Birds love to feast on your hard work, so some kind of cover can be necessary for fruits and veggies.

When you begin to till the soil, explain why it’s good to rough up the soil and how the seeds will need water and good soil to grow healthy roots! Tilling can be an easy activity for a toddler as young as 4. Once you plant the seeds, make sure to keep note of what seeds are planted where. Making little identifiers can be a fun craft project. Or draw the garden in a notebook and keep track with fun illustrations. You can explain along the way about how important it is to plan ahead with watering the garden and keeping any weeds out. This will help with teaching children about responsibility.

A garden will definitely keep kids guessing and wondering as the sprout turns into a little plant and the little plant turns into a flower or fruit/veggie. The important thing is to always remember that the time spent teaching children about the colors, shapes, sizes, soils, tools and tips of gardening is definitely a time to cherish and one that will surely impact their lives in a positive way.

Sources: Mom.me – Tips for Toddlers | Mom.me – 10 Reasons to Garden with Kids | Pike Nurseries – Free Classes
Photo Credit: Pike Nurseries

Professor Labcoat & Superhero Scientists!

Hello girls and boys, parents and friends! Professor Labcoat here!

I work at The Children’s Museum of Atlanta as the Science Educator. This means that I get to do all kinds of activities here at the museum as well as in classrooms all across Atlanta and the surrounding area! Whether I’m mixing up a chemical reaction to make foamy bubbles, making my hair stand on end with static electricity, or using invisible ink to show how germs move around, I’m always having fun!

Science is all about trying to figure out how stuff works, from the tiniest pieces of the tiniest speck to the biggest things we can see out in space – as well as everything in-between, including you and me. No matter what you’re interested in or what question you have, there’s probably a scientist somewhere trying to figure it out. And the best part is that, one day, that scientist could be you!

You see, all scientists get their start the same way everyone gets their start: as a kid. I, Professor Labcoat, am no exception. I was a kid who wanted to be all sorts of things when I was growing up. At different times I wanted to be a garbage man, a puppeteer, a veterinarian, an actor, a doctor, a teacher, a scientist, and an architect. It was tricky to choose, but after I finished high school, I decided to go to college at Georgia Tech and study something called Materials Science and Engineering, or MSE for short. People who study MSE learn all about different kinds of metals and plastics and other stuff that things like cars, spaceships, sandwich bags, and comfy chairs are made of. They learn how to make things, measure things, and sometimes even how to break things! I enjoyed figuring things out and working in a laboratory, but as it turns out, my favorite thing to do is to share what I’ve learned with other people and show everyone around me what a cool world we live in.

One of the coolest things about the world is the fact that I know a lot of wonderful people who are working to make the world a better place. These are my Superhero Scientist friends, and I’d like to eventually introduce you to all of them! For this special first blog post of mine, however, I’m going to start with my friend Kathy Silver.

When I was in college learning how to be a scientist, Kathy was in some of my classes with me. She’d started working in the laboratory before I did, and when I came along, she helped to teach me how the different tools and machines worked. Even grownups don’t know everything, and we all have to help each other figure stuff out sometimes. Nowadays, Kathy works at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, or GTRI for short. There, she works with other scientists to try and solve all kinds of problems, and figure all kinds of things out. I decided to pay my friend a visit, so I went down the street to Georgia Tech to visit Kathy and see the buildings where she works. I decided to ask her some questions so that you could learn about her and her job. Girls and boys, allow me to introduce: My friend Kathy Silver, a Superhero Scientist!

Prof. Labcoat: How old were you when you decided you wanted to be a scientist?

Kathy Silver: Probably about 10 or 11.

PL: Was there anything else you wanted to be growing up?

KS: A medical doctor.

PL: I thought about doing that too! What is your favorite thing about your job now?

KS: Learning about new things happening on our campus that help others.  For example, some researchers are looking at less painful methods to deliver vaccines/medicines traditionally delivered via shots.  No more painful shots at the doctor’s office!

PL: I’m sure a lot of my friends would like that! But sometimes things that are no fun are necessary. What is the hardest part of your job?

KS: Deciding when an experiment is not working as expected and knowing when it’s time to move on to another approach

PL: That can certainly be tricky. I once spent six months trying to make one measurement, and after all of that time it didn’t work and I had to start all over! I eventually figured it out, though. What are you working on right now?

KS: Some of the work we are doing in our lab includes materials analysis (determining how and why something broke, for example), lithography (a method of printing) on very small objects (called micro-lithography) and viewing objects at the atomic level with special microscopes.

PL: That sounds cool! What kinds of special tools do you use?

KS: Liquid nitrogen (temperature of about -320 F, more than twice the coldest temperature ever recorded in Antarctica) , optical and atomic microscopes, and lasers.

PL: Wow. That all sounds really interesting! Is there anything you’d like to tell my friends who might want to have a job like yours?

KS: Do well in school, do math and science homework (don’t get discouraged when it seems too difficult – seek out help from your teacher), read for fun and most importantly, be curious.  Curiosity is not only the first step in the scientific process, it is also a scientist’s best trick for keeping their work fun and rewarding!

PL: That’s some great advice! Thank you so much, Kathy!

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I’m so happy that I got to introduce you to my very first Superhero Scientist friend. Keep checking the blog to hear more from me and I promise to show you some cool stuff, answer your questions, and introduce you to even more Superhero Scientists!

Thanks for reading!

-Professor Labcoat

Q & A with Chef Tanisha!

Cooking With Colors has been one of our most popular programs over the last couple of years. Each “season” of ten weeks sees our favorite local chef, Tanisha Mott, explore healthy eating and nutritious ideas for families. Her sessions are hands-on, with lots of fruits and vegetables for her young helpers to chop and cut. With recipes, tips and suggestions for household kitchens, it’s impossible to finish a class without some new-found enthusiasm for enjoying healthy food. We caught up with Chef Tanisha after her class this week, where everybody enjoyed an avocado dip with endives, along with some samples of jicama for the families to taste.

Chef Tanisha, you’re originally from Jamaica, is that right?

It is. I was born and raised in Kingston, in Norman Gardens.

What were some of your favorite meals growing up?

I loved stewed peas, made with oxtail, stewed beef, and three different kinds of peas, and little dumplings that are called “spinners” in Jamaica. They’re called that because you roll them between your hands in a spinning motion! I also loved callaloo, which is almost a cross between spinach and collards. Once the leaf is all cleaned, you steam it like you would spinach. I love that!

What were some of the first dishes that you remember preparing yourself?

I remember making a mango stewed chicken. I worked for a fashion company, and the CEO offered to pay me if I cooked for one of his events. I was actually eating a mango when he asked me! I loved food and I loved fashion, so my career today is one of my two dream jobs!

What inspired you to become a chef?

My grandmother was always cooking, and she made everybody so happy. I wanted to do that as well, make people happy. I design plates just like I might have designed fashions! My grandmother would work at a counter and I would sit in a little cubbyhole and just watch her as she told me what she was doing. No measurements! She would say, in her Jamaican voice, “’bout so,” or “about so much.” She would always make banana fritters, and they were so ripe! She’d add a little brown sugar, vanilla, and flour.

Of all the classes that you’ve taught with families, what have been some of the kids’ favorites to make and eat?

Believe it or not, the rutabaga stew was the most popular with Cooking With Colors!

(the interviewer raises a skeptical eyebrow)

It’s true! They loved rutabagas! One student actually licked the bowl! Guacamole is always a favorite whenever I have a class, because it’s green and slimy and kids always want to play with it. Number three is my lemongrass steak. You take any kind of beef, and make a marinade with scallions, onion, ginger, olive oil, salt and pepper. Sear it or grill it; I like to grill it. Those are the top three.

If you could change any one thing about our country’s food culture, what would it be?

The way foods are being processed. There’s such a huge variety of food available, but the companies are taking all the good out to make it last longer with preservatives. If only we could go back to eating more natural!

Finally, what suggestions do you have for parents who want to teach their kids about nutrition and cooking?

Definitely have the kids be part of the process! It’s so fun for them, and it’s also easier to get them to eat things when they feel that they’ve contributed!

Thanks so much, Chef Tanisha! There are three more classes in this season of Cooking With Colors, and reservations are required. We recommend calling no later than 72 hours before the class date and time to purchase tickets. You can call our Reservations line at 404-527-3693.