Highlights of our adventures included a sneak peak at "To the Arctic," a new IMAX film that will be premiering in April. We saw a special "Science on a Sphere" display about the poles.
The kids made polar animal bookmarks, they visited with Coast Guard members who work in the Arctic - and tried on some made-for-the Arctic gear. They learned how the NOAA uses sonar to map images of the oceans' depths.
At a booth sponsored by the Washington NASA Space Grant Consortium, the kids had a chance to drive a Martian rover.
They also had to size-up a scaled photo of a real Martian rover.
At the "Fishy Fluctuations" booth, they learned what it's like to be a big fish in a big ocean and about all of the challenges little fishies face as they hope to survive to become big fish. At "Air Flow in Polar Snow," they saw how airflow affects snowfall, and how that snow can turn into ice in glaciers.
They learned about different types of penguins and how they live, they got to touch and examine an ice core from Greenland, and they got to meet expeditionary artist Maria Coryell-Martin. They had fun with a big flow of silly putty representing a glacier's flow, and learned how infrared light is used to measure temperatures on Earth.
They also learned about how NASA measures sea ice thickness from space via a special satellite. They learned about where Arctic ocean water comes from, and participated in a hands-on activity about microbial life forms which live under ice.
One of the most memorable booths was a salinity taste test station. There, they sipped salt-infused water, concocted to represent various oceans around the word, and compared the samples' salinity.
They made some pretty puckered faces at this booth!
They visited a mock of an arctic ice camp and learned all about the intriguing narwhal (as seen in the photo at the top of the blog). At the "Ocean Watchdogs" booth, they learned how scientists retrieve a 13,000 foot long string of scientific instruments anchored to the Arctic Ocean floor.
They also learned about how the density of the snow or ice affects water flow through it.
All in all, it was absolutely fascinating.
This morning, CJ and Annabelle wrote about their experience.
Polar Science by Annabelle
The Arctic and Antarctic are the Earth's poles. They are very important to some animals, like polar bears, penguins, seals and many, many more. We are studying the poles to see what we do to them and how we can stop global warming. Global warming is when we burn fossil fuels and it depletes the ozone layers, so the world gets hotter!
We need to learn about the poles to save the animals that live there, and get smarter. When you grow up, you may want to be a polar scientist. And help the animals that live there.
There was a polar science weekend where we discovered you could measure ice thickness from space, make a Silly Putty glacier, and learn how narwhals migrate! There was also a 3-minute clip of footage from the new movie "To the Arctic!"
The Arctic by CJ
GOING UP: While Saturday had dawned a very gray day, by the time we got out of the science center, the sun was making a rare appearance. That made playing around the fountains lots more fun.The Arctic is a very dangerous place to study. But it can also be a great place to study. One reason being you can learn about the life on there.
If you want to try and live in the arctic, you'll want to bring some warm cloths and weapons. The male polar bear is 2x larger than its female counterpart. A mother molar bear is willing to die to save her cubs.
Since a male polar is stronger than a female, it is extremely hard for the female. It is most likely that a mother polar bear will have two cubs. It is rare that a mother polar bear will give up her cubs.
We learned a lot at the Polar Science Weekend. For example, how much ice the Arctic had from 1972-2009.
Since the sky was blue, we decided to use our soon-expiring annual passes to the Space Needle.
On the way up, we got a good look at the under-construction Dale Chihuly glass spectacle going up on the grounds at the foot of the Needle.
Since it was a sunny Saturday afternoon, the Space Needle was pretty packed, but we managed to spend a pleasant, leisurely hour or so on the Observation Deck. We had lovely views of Lake Union ...
A nice look at downtown ...
of course, Elliott Bay was beautiful ...
and our neighborhood, Magnolia, was glistening.
BACK TO THE BOOKS: Annabelle was a little non-plussed with our 'normal' school day today. I told her every day can't be a Polar Science + Space Needle field trip, unfortunately.
We did math, some writing and some drawing. The kids used a simple tutorial picked up at the polar event to try their hands at drawing penguins and walruses. Here are CJ's creatures. He was having some proportion-related issues today, especially with the penguin. This head below is about 3x the size of the first head he drew, and he could have/should have gone bigger. He was aware of it, but not too terribly bothered by it and was happy to leave his second head as is..
Annabelle combined her creatures into one drawing and added an environment.
I complimented her on her shading on the walrus.
BACK TO THE BUILD: With news that SpaceX's Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket are assembled and upright on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral, I figured we better get back on our model rocket building project.
Last week, SpaceX reportedly completed a successful "wet dress" rehearsal, which is a full launch simulation with a planned abort at T-minus 5 seconds. As of now, it sounds like late April is the soonest the rocket might actually be launched. Which means we have plenty o' time to finish our model.
Today, Christian helped the kids with some parachute-related work.
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