Science Day

I must admit that if any of you are thinking about moving to a smaller town...pick one that has a university. The resources available to a university town are several orders of magnitude greater (in my opinion) than a similarly populated town without such an institution. Fairbanks is a city of about 80,000 (greater area including towns of North Pole and Ester) but due to the University of Alaska - Fairbanks (UAF) that is situated here, we have great activities for kids, classes that high school students can attend, and some amazing visits by some metropolitan bigwigs. We also have decent college hockey and this year the national cross country skiing champ (Go Scott!)!

Our kiddies got to avail themselves of one of these opportunities a couple of weeks ago when UAF hosted it's annual Science Potpourri. All three kids went and had a great time. They got to slice through several rocks with a diamond saw, felt wool, simulate earthquakes, be a human gyroscope (hold a spinning bicycle wheel while on a rotating platform), and see man made lava poured over plastic dolls. They also got to make crystal structures out of toothpicks and gumdrops which I thought was a fabulous idea that you can do pretty easily at home. You get toothpicks and gumdrops and then look up crystalline structures on the web and try to make them. Beth, Isabel and even Owen made a crystal. Owen's only lasted a few minutes as he couldn't resist the gumdrops. Beth's lasted a little longer and is pictured above, but it also succumbed to Owen's sweet tooth.

Here is a quote which was typed by Beth:

"Hi I'm Beth, the science potpourri was fun! My favorite thing was sculptiring.''Ok maybe i'm not done talking. if i like it then maybe i should go their again. Dad says that we can go their again next summer. it will be so fun! I can't wait!''

We'll definitely be back next year!