BLUFFING: If you believe the weatherman, tomorrow our sun is going to leave us (well, at least go into hiding). So tonight after dinner, we took a nice long walk along "The Bluff," which borders the southwest and west side of our neighborhood, Magnolia.
There are several small parks along the boulevard, with room to roam.
And room under towering trees to just stand still and contemplate.
The park bench below offers up a fabulous view. The city's to the east and Elliott Bay is to the south and west.
Speaking of contemplating, just tonight, for the first time, I asked, "Why is it named Elliott Bay?" No one in the household knew, so onto the Internet we hopped. Turns out there's not a definitive answer. The body of water has been officially named Elliott Bay since the U.S. Board on Geographic Names officially settled on that moniker in 1895 (it had also been called Seattle Harbor and Duwamish Bay in years prior).
But who is Elliott? Apparently the bay was named in 1841 by the Wilkes Expedition (more formally known as the United States Exploring Expedition). The exploring and surveying expedition was conducted in the Pacific Ocean from 1838 to 1842. There were at least three or four Elliotts associated with the expedition, including the ship's chaplain (Jared Elliott) and midshipman (Samuel Elliott). So we have some ideas about the bay's namesake, but we still aren't sure.
Our expedition was delightful until Annabelle caught her scooter wheel in a large crack and did one of those protracted falls before going SPLAT! on the pavement.
It was a spectacular enough fall that a passing motorist stopped to make sure she was OK.
The good news is, she's young and heals quickly. By tomorrow, it should just be a bad memory.
SHROOMS!: Several days ago, we finally got to experimenting with a mushroom growing kit we got for Christmas (thanks, Nonnie!).
Per directions, we took the bag out of the box, soaked its innards, and the kids cut a hole it in.
We've been misting the thing faithfully for about two weeks and finally tonight we saw the fruits, er, fungi, of our labor!
I should have included something for scale in the photos. Our mini mushrooms are about the size of a small fingertip. We're counting on them getting a little bigger!
We printed the brain pattern out on cardstock, and the kids colored it with oil pastels. Then, they carefully cut them out. You wouldn't want to nick your sensory cortex - or any other lobe!
Then, it was time for a bunch of darts, tape and glue. After that dried, the kids contemplated the hemispheres and hoped their brains could become whole.
Fortunately, with a little packing tape from the post office, we got their brain halves together. Annabelle's fit better than CJ's. The boy has a rather huge-ish dome, no doubt to accommodate his enormous brain. :)
ALL UPHILL: Still sunny today, so that meant we HAD to get out in it. We decided to run errands today by walking.
Tis the season of fern fronds. We saw lots today.
And we spotted the delicate little flower below growing out of a sewer grate. Somehow, 'life finds a way,' as they said in "Jurassic Park."
We stopped for a photo opp at one of my favorite trees in the 'hood. Its owners have pruned it so the archway in it provides a great view of the Space Needle, the waterfront and the stadiums - when CJ and Annabelle aren't standing in the way. ;)
Once we got up and over the steep hill to the Village, we mailed our former physics professor a couple of thank yous, and CJ and Annabelle got down to their Number One reason for happily making the trek. FroYo!
Thanks to a Groupon I had, our tab there came to 73 cents. Nice!
FOLLOWING FOOTSTEPS: As we made our way back toward the west side of Magnolia, I spied a Lutheran church. I told the kids I suspected my paternal grandmother had visited the church in the past, as she was a Lutheran, very involved in her church, and lived on Queen Anne, not far away.
I pointed out the windows, and told the kids I bet they were stunning from the inside with the sun shining through. Annabelle asked if we could go inside, so we tried the front door and found it ajar.
We were the only souls around. We peeked at the chapel. It was gorgeous, with amazing wood arches in a reverse ark like shape. (Sorry no photo - it was very dark in there and my point and shoot camera didn't respond well.)
The stained glass windows were, indeed, lovely. Here's one example.
PARADOX: On our way home, we stopped at a park along the way. The kids played with some other kids. At one point I heard CJ repeatedly trying to get a girl a bit younger than Annabelle interested in hearing about the Fermi paradox. He was giving it a hard sell, but she wasn't buying.
GARDENING: We spent the morning with professor Larry of Stanford, listening to a series of three lectures about waves, for our "Understanding Einstein: The Special Theory of Relativity" course through Coursera.
By 11, were itching to get out into the sunlight. We hit a store and then a nearby park - in this case, Golden Gardens, along lovely Puget Sound.
It was fitting we went to the waterfront, as the lectures we absorbed today had to do with waves. We learned that the speed of waves depends on the medium, and that if waves' peaks and troughs match, they're "in phase," and when in phase waves combine, the peaks and troughs double. Professor Langerstrom also started explaining what would happen if waves have 'destructive interference.' That is, their troughs and peaks are exactly opposite. At that Annabelle declared, "He's going to make a flat line - I just KNOW it!!!!" She was right, of course. :) Completely out of phase waves cancel each other out.
The waves at Golden Gardens park today weren't entirely in or out of phase. There was constructive interference, I think it's fair to say. However you classify it, it was beautiful.
The park, after many months of construction, finally has its playground open, so the kids enjoyed their recess there. Super fun!
We also got to check out some wildlife loving a pond at the north end of the park.
As we approached and I saw the water bird's green head, I was sure it was a mallard - until I got a profile view!
My, what big nose you have, Mr. 'Mallard.' I might have thought him a mutant until I saw his girlfriend. She had quite the honker, too.
Before we even knew what they were, I asked the kids, "Why do you suppose they would have evolved to have such long beaks?" That led to some good discussions.
Turns out they're Northern Shovelers. Those long, spoon shaped bills are good for sifting shallow water. They filter it at the bill tip and jet it out the base.
Sharing the pond were some hard shelled critters.
They were LOVING the sun, sitting still as statues.
THERE OUGHTA BE A LAW: Before 7 a.m., CJ was noodling over constitutional amendments and crafting laws as part of the game LawCraft.It's on the wonderful iCivics, which was founded in 2009 by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to help boost Americans' civic knowledge and participation.
In LawCraft, players pretend they're a member of Congress from the state of their choice. You pick an issue that's important to you and your constituents, and take it through the law-making process. If a player is successful, they'll wind up with a bill, signed by "The Prez," they can print out and show off. Naturally, the game involves making some compromises. The trick is to try to emerge with a bill you're still proud of. This morning CJ was working on women's and childrens' rights. Go CeeJ!
CJ and Annabelle teamed on Immigration Nation, where they learned about how people become citizens of the U.S., and worked to guide newcomers along their path to citizenship.
DINING AL FRESCO: We decided to go out to dinner last night, but not in the typical sense. Rather than heading to a restaurant, we went up the hill a handful of blocks to Ella Bailey Park, which offers one of the greatest views Seattle has to offer.
We enjoyed some ribs and potato salad, with toasted marshmallows for dessert. How 'bout that view?
STACK UP IN SCIENCE? When I saw a Facebook post with a headline reading, "Do you know more about science than the average American?" you had to know it was going to be part of today's curriculum here at MPA.
The 13-question Science and Technology Knowledge Quiz was from the Pew Research Center, and in taking it we were able to compare our knowledge to 1,006 randomly sampled adults asked the same questions in a national poll by Pew and Smithsonian magazine.
The test was a good experience for CJ and Annabelle, because it gave us a chance to go over the correct answers to the questions they missed and ID some holes in our science curriculum.
I was able to answer all the questions correctly, and was surprised to learn only 7 percent of Americans polled did likewise. It was interesting looking at the data breakdown of which questions are missed how often, with gender and age.
All in all, "America should know a lot more about science," Annabelle declared after reviewing the test result data.
IN THE STUDIO: Yesterday afternoon, we started our three years of involvement with the Pacific Science Center's "Studio Visitor Project."
A couple months back PSC put a call out for applications for people willing to be a part of a long term study. Over 300 applications were received, and we were happy to learn we were among the 50 individuals or teams who were accepted. So, we'll be making regular visits to PSC and giving feedback about the rotating exhibits in the studio portion of their new Wellbody Academy exhibit.
Currently, the studio's exhibit is Next Generation Genetics. It features lots of interactive displays with a wealth of information about genetics. In the photo above, Annabelle tries her hand at gene sequencing. Many of the studio's displays feature images and video of local scientists and laboratories, which is cool. For example, we learned about Deborah Nickerson, professor of genome sciences at the University of Washington (there's even a lab on campus named after her!). Per her faculty page, Nickerson and her group are working to identify and type common sequence variations in the human genome, known as single nucleotide polymorphisms "in an effort to gain an understanding of the patterns of sequence variation in human genome and to improve approaches for association mapping of common human diseases." Fascinating stuff!
They also explored careers potentially related to genetics, and Annabelle got excited about the potential of being an epidemiologist, as it reminded her of a game we love to play, Pandemic.
After we toured the studio, we spent a few minutes giving feedback to a PSC staffer. I hope our insights and experience were helpful, and we're looking forward to our next visit.
ON THE WATERFRONT: Sunshine and lots of it - that's the very welcome forecast for Seattle this week.
We're taking advantage of it. Yesterday, we visited a tiny, Elliott Bay front beach in the early afternoon. We had the place to ourselves.
Well, mostly to ourselves. There were some birds, including these creatures who would dive entirely underwater for nearly a minute, it seemed, presumably looking for food.
There were also some seagulls about. CJ made this one's day. ...
See its beak? That's CJ's apple core it's holding. When he was done with his snack, he asked what he should do with the core. I told him to toss it into the water, predicting something would be very happy to feed on it. About 15 minutes later, we spotted this seagull on the beach. He must have plucked it from the bay, lucky bird.
Though the sun shone brightly, it wasn't super warm. As you can see, we are still encircled by snow-capped peaks. The Olympics were to our west ...
and majestic Mt. Rainier was our lovely view to the south.
Definitely not a bad way to spend recess. :)
FUN & GAMES: In between Einstein lectures (we started in on the two postulates presented in his June 1905 paper today), the kids checked out some new-to-them games online.
From a Facebook post by BrainPOP, I learned about Monster School Bus, a fun addition game (with a thrashing rock soundtrack!). The addition problems were definitely below the kids' current level, but the monster-themed game was a blast.
BrainPOP's post noted the game was from the New Mexico State University Learning Games Lab, so of course I had to find out more about that. The lab's Web site reports its current projects include "innovative games and animations for science and math, a national initiative on active games, research activities with youth, interactive Web sites and creative video productions.
But Back to BrainPOP. While on the site, the kids also checked out other games. CJ loved Argument Wars, which is all about historic legal cases. He worked with it for hours, arguing cases, making objections and such. Very cool! (Argument Wars and many other related to social studies or civics can also be found on the wonderful iCivics Web site.)
Annabelle played Guts & Bolts. BrainPOP describes it as a means to "learn about the interplay of human body systems." Annabelle described it as "building a Frankensteiny-ish monster." She also played Life Preservers, which involved, "Nothing big, just having to preserve all life on Earth," she reports.
SCIENCE FESTIVAL NEWS: I've been waiting for an announcement from the Seattle Science Festival regarding this year's line up - specifically, who would be appearing at their opening night festivities. Got my answer - and our tickets - today!
On June 6, we'll be attending "Beyond Infinity? The Search for Understanding at the Limits of Space and Time." It will feature presentations by leading physicists Brian Green (!), Sean Carroll and Adam Frank, and we'll get to see the West Coast premiere of Icarus at the Edge of Time, with music by Philip Glass. Should be spectacular!
HOPPING ROCKET: I know, I know, I've posted video about SpaceX's awesome Grasshopper rocket before, but could you ever have too much video of a rocket that launches and lands vertically? Emphatically, I say, "No!"
This new video is more spectacular than the last. It really is so revolutionary, in the same vein that the beloved and dearly departed Space Shuttles were a game changer, taking off like a rocket, landing back on Earth, and being recycled again and again.
EARTH DAY: Monday dawned with lovely sunshine in Seattle (w00t!) How lovely of Mother Nature to do that for Earth Day. Above are a couple of coffee-filters turned Earth art CJ and Annabelle crafted at a pre-Earth Day celebration at the Museum of History, Advertising and Industry on Saturday. April 22 is the official Earth Day, and we started our morning by tuning into a NASA Digital Learning Network special broadcast, "Beautiful Earth," live from Goddard Space Flight Center, at 9 a.m. our time. The program started with an interview with NASA's Dr. Claire Parkinson, who discussed climate change and how NASA is studying our planet. Parkinson is a project scientist of NASA's Aqua satellite mission, which measures Earth's processes including temperatures, clouds, vegetation cover and water vapor.
As you can see below, while we watched, the kids got a little exercise in.
From Dr. Parkinson, we learned that in Antarctica, the ice is 3 or more miles deep in some points. If all of that melted, along with Greenland's ice coverage, world oceans would rise 70 meters. That's a lot. ...Not to mention, when the ice is gone, all that radiation it reflected remains in the Earth's ecosystem. Parkinson also talked about the Aqua mission. The Earth-observing satellite was launched in 2002, before CJ and Annabelle were born. Aqua circles the globe every 98.8 minutes, in south to north circles. It manages to cover the entire Earth each day, said Parkinson. The program also featured director and musician Kenji Williams. He narrated and performed as part of BELLA GAIA®,
or beautiful Earth, a multimedia show. Williams said his inspiration for Bella Gaia was wondering, "If the Earth had a voice, what would it look and sound like?" He discussed his inspiration and
why art and music are important in science. Williams said that artists and scientists "are similar in many ways" and that both groups "have a passion to learn and explore the mysteries of our world." Williams has appeared on NASA DLN broadcasts on Earth Days past. Here's a short video from his 2010 appearance
Williams said that he uses images and video from several NASA sites, and that Science Visual Studio is a favorite. We've visited a lot of NASA sites, but this one's new to us. After the Beautiful Earth! Broadcast, we checked out SVS and learned that the studio works with scientists to create visualization products, systems and processes with a goal of promoting greater understanding of Earth and space science research activities at NASA. SVS has over 4,600 visualizations online. Quite the treasure trove!
The broadcast featured live links with students in three locations: California, Pennsylvania and the Blackrock Castle Observatory in Ireland. Students at each site got to ask questions. One of the students asked about climate change, and how quickly it was happening. Parkinson noted that climate change has been going on for 4.6 billion years, and even if humans were not around, it would still change. That said, she said that humans are having significant impacts on our planet's ecosystem. There were germane questions from the students in the selected classrooms, including multiple ones about bad things going on environmentally, but especially given that it was Earth Day, I was kind of surprised that none of them concerned what humans could do to help make things better-or at least less worse. At the beginning of the broadcast, the host said they'd accept questions from viewers, and an email address was provided. In the first half of the show, just one from-the-Intertubes question was answered. I asked the kids if they wanted to submit a question. They said they did, and so we quickly sent in an inquiry, about the 30 minute mark into the 60 minute program. Imagine our surprise and delight when, with 5 minutes left to go in the show, the hostess said there was time for one last question, and "CJ and Annabelle in Seattle want to know what we can do to help preserve the ice on Earth." Woo hoo! Lil ol' MPA got in! (It was one of two from the masses questions answered during the show.) Those kids in the observatory in Ireland have nothing on us! ;)
Dr. Parkinson spent the next five minutes answering the kids' question. Her suggestions ranged from don't put black particular matter on the ice (ok, hadn't planned on it, but thanks for the tip!), to reducing one's carbon footprint, say by bicycling and walking more (can do!). For more information about the Beautiful Earth program, visit http://beautifulearth.gsfc.nasa.gov. LIVE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE: From 8:30 to 9 a.m., we watched interviews with amazing students who presented projects at today's third annual White House Science Fair. These kids' inventions are absolutely mind blowing in their scope and scale. I would highly encourage you to watch this. You'll feel better about our future and all of humanity. :)
Some of the innovations are remarkably sophisticated - like early, accurate tests for pancreatic and breast cancer. The trio of young men in the White House photo below came up with shoulder pads that help keep athletes cool and safe.
About 90 minutes after the interview-with-inventors program hosted by a White House PR person, Bill Nye the Science Guy and Levar Burton, we watched coverage of President Obama touring the science fair. We enjoyed coverage of him chatting with the kids and checking out displays on the East Lawn, but when the coverage switched to inside, things took a turn for the worse. There was one camera filming the event, and it seemed to be sitting on a table in a far corner of the room. You couldn't see the students, their exhibits or the president. All you could see was the press pool's backs, filming the event. So not cool. I'm not just complaining on our behalf - those young inventors totally DESERVED the live, worldwide audience they could have had if not for the lamesauce camera angle used. Ugh. DOUBLE DIGITS: The Big News this weekend was CJ's 10th birthday on Saturday. He started the day with his dream breakfast - Kickstart (Mountain Dew's 'breakfast' drink) and pizza. I told him that it was basically a college student breakfast. He's looking forward to college. :) For lunch, CJ had his first ever Big Mac. Going to McDonald's is already kind of a big deal for us, because we don't do fast food very often, so going there and getting a Big Mac was a really Big Deal. CJ blew through the burger quickly. After lunch, we headed to the Museum of History, Advertising and Industry (MOHAI) in South Lake Union. There, Caspar Babypants (also known as Chris Ballew of The Presidents of the United States of America) was putting on a concert. The kids dig Caspar, and they shook their booties for a solid hour. You can imagine how thrilled CJ was to get an autographed CD from Caspar as a birthday present. Afterward, we wandered across the street to World Sports Grille, where they have a whole bunch of arcade games. CJ and Annabelle played around a bit and even actually won a stuffed animal from those impossible crane/claw machines. They were stoked! That evening, we went to CJ's favorite dinner spot - The Wing Dome. Afterward, we tore into presents, and enjoyed the cake CJ had requested I make. He wanted it to resemble the cake from a favorite video game, Portal. (One of the memes from that game is "the cake is a lie," as the female narrating the game keeps promising the player cake for their accomplishments - but in the game (spoiler alert) the cake is a lie. Here's a still shot of the cake in the game.
Fortunately, for CJ's birthday, it was the real deal. And it was delicious!!
Instead of singing the standard "Happy Birthday to You," we all sang the song from the end of Portal. Have I mentioned we're geeks? FINALLY SKYWARD: Orbital Science's Antares test flight was supposed to happen on Wednesday, but there was a technical malfunction. On Friday and Saturday, weather didn't allow for a launch. Finally, on Sunday, at 2 p.m. our time, up it went, from the pad at Wallops, a NASA facility in Virginia.
Photo: NASA/Bill Ingalls We enjoyed hearing so many "nominal"s post-lift off. In the photo below, you can see CJ taking some 3D photos of the event with his new Nintendo 3DS, a birthday present.
TWO DOWN: On Sunday, we finished up the last of week 2's lectures for our Einstein course, and then set about tacking the 24 problem homework quiz, and the week's assessment test. It. Was. Hard. I'm not gonna lie. On Monday last week, I read over the week's homework assignment problems and my first and only thought was, "There's no way we'll ever be able to do this." It read like Greek (or any other unfamiliar foreign language) to me. I thought about unenrolling us in the course, but then I thought, "Wait. Let's at least listen to this week's lectures, and see if, somehow, some way, between now and then, we might actually get this stuff." And so we carefully took in each lecture, and took each pre-test and were as ready as we could be come Sunday. We're bound by the course's honor code, so I can't post any of the test questions here, but I think I can safely share a couple of practice test questions, as we get to take those an infinite number of times for practice. One question from the lecture about Galilean Transformation was,
"For the all the questions in this quiz, consider person #1 moving to the right (positive x direction) at a constant velocity v with respect to person #2. Assume that at time t = 0 the two were side by side. Each person measures distances using the same units (such as meters), and each person uses their own location as the origin for their measuring system. In other words, each person measures distances in terms of how far away something is from where they are located. Let the measurements of person #1 be represented by x1 and the measurements of person #2 be represented by x2. Consider an event that happens at some position x1 and time t (after time t = 0), according to person #1. Person #2 measures the location of this event at position x2. Would the value of x2 be greater than or less than x1?"
And then there were lots along these frames of reference lines ...
Consider Bob on Space Station Omega in deep space. At time t = 0, Alice flies by in her spaceship at constant velocity v, heading to the right, while Kris flies by in another spaceship at the same velocity as Alice, but heading left. (Same situation as the first two questions.) Which diagram represents the world lines of Bob and Kris in Alice’s frame of reference?
And then we'd have our choice of diagrams. So that's the kind of stuff we were up against. We were able to work on our homework assignment as a group, per class rules, but the tests were individual, and each of our tests were different. I was THRILLED beyond measure when I got 21/24 on the homework, as it's pass/fail and 70 percent was needed to pass. I think the kids both got a bit higher score than me. And on the Week 2 final, I was stoked to get 11/12 and called it good. Annabelle aced it on her first go round (you can take it up to three times, but you get different questions each time). CJ got 11/12 the first go round, and he was determined to get 12/12. His second time he only scored a 10, but his third time he got the perfect score he was after. So in the end, the kids ended up acing tests I thought maybe we shouldn't even take just a few days prior. Not bad, not bad at all!
