Throughout 2010, we’re doing KSC science outreach workshops for kids in the Los Angeles area. This project is made possible by the American Honda Foundation.

Check out some images from the previous workshops: [...]

L.A. Outreach

L.A. Outreach

L.A. Outreach

L.A. Outreach

Wow! About a week ago Mason and i went on a great adventure at the Smithsonian Marine Station in Ft.Pierce, Fl.  We met up with Sherry Reed. Sherry is a diving safety officer and assistant researcher. After being with her and learning about her job i think that Sherry has one of the best jobs!! (Can you believe how any times i have said that someone i met has one of the best jobs?

  While working with Sherry we were looking at samples in the lab, touched differnet marine animals,  lifted up panels to see how much barnacles and things have gotten on it, and talked a little bit about coral reefs!!

SAMPLES IN THE LAB!!                  In the lab we were looking at differnet samples of sediment in the microscopes such as before and after hurricanes,  also before and after a place has been dredged. It is amazing what a microscope can show you. Especially the microscope we were using!!

MARINE ANIMALS!!                  My favorite was the sea slug. To me it looks like a small black baby planket. Have you ever seen Finding Nemo? Well, do you remember the shrimp that cleaned Nemo when he arrived in the Dentists office? FYI  he is REAL! I got my finger cleaned by him, not eactly him but another one of his family memebers! It tickles….

BARNACLES ON PANELS!!           We also went to the dock to look at panels to see if any barnacles have come onto it. There are differnt amounts of black or silver paint to see which paint from boats attracts barnacles…

So, thats what we did! Thank you for reading and we will update you on some more things soon!!

Caitlyn

About a week ago Caitlyn and I went to the Smithsonian Marine Station down in Fort Pierce, Florida. We met up with a research scientist Sherry Reed. She is also a dive safety officer. She does experiments for people in other states that can’t do the experiments they want to. We had fun with seeing what she does about every day. She is working on a experiment testing what paint that goes on boats has more barnicles on them.

In the lab we got to look at sedament from after a hurrcane. And sedament at a dreged area. What we were looking for was forums. We looked at the sedament under a electronic mycroscope that was so 3D it was amazing! The part that was the best was that we were able to touch many different marine animals. My favorite animal that we touched was a lobster.

Sorry I couldn’t blog sooner, but I was really busy last week.  Here’s what happened: When I got to the University of California research labs in Merced, I met Mr. Viney and we got straight to work.  I showed him a diagram of a maple seed I sketched at home.  We also looked at the flight of actual maple seed.  I had brought a baggie of maple seeds from Delaware because I thought it would be useful to have them because there are not very many in California. 

Mr. Viney drew me a diagram explaining the thrust, drag, lift, and gravity effects on a wing.  If an airplane is taking off, the lift has to be more than gravity, and thrust has to be more than drag, and vice versa for landing.  When the plane is in the air everything is about even, except the thrust is a little higher than drag so it moves forward. On a maple seed, the lift has to be a tiny bit lower than gravity because it still has to drop, but it has to drop very slowly so the seed is not harmed.  A maple seed design would be good for dropping emergency supplies because the design causes it to fall, but slowly so nothing breaks.

Mr Viney showing wing design (Photo by Roger J. Wyan)

Mr. Viney, me, Chancellor Kang, my dad, and Jim from KSC (Photo by Roger J. Wyan)

KIDS, VOTE NOW! Don’t forget to get your vote in BEFORE MAY 31st for your favorite drawing in the Kids’ Choice Awards. We’re sharing a selection of 80 of your wonderful drawings for the Kids’ Choice Awards! Check out the slideshow below and vote for the drawings that YOU like. The Top 10 vote-getters will be announced on May 31st and receive cool prizes from Jakks Toys and InfiniToy (makers of Zoobs)!

On our free day I wanted to go to the Fleet Science Center but my dad wanted to go the Old Town Historic District from when the whole area was part of Mexico.  But, since this was a science trip and not a history trip, I won.  Besides, the science museum was in a park named after Vasco Nunez de Balboa which still makes it a little historic.

My dad and I had lunch and dinner at a Mexican restaurant that was listed as a good “dive” on a TV show we like to watch.  The window at the restaurant was painted with a large message reading “congraduation” which my dad said was for me winning the Science Challenge.  (It wasn’t!)

El Indio Restaurant

Fleet Science Center

Today we went to the San Diego Zoo’s main location and received a personal tour on a golf cart (which was really neat).   I was only about two feet from some tigers from Malaysia that were removed because people moved into their habitat, and apparently there is some sort of issue with villagers being attacked.  Anyway, I also got to feed llamas and camels which tickled.  And, no, the camels did not spit on me.

  
After the tour, we went to the polar bear exhibits where one was thrashing around in the water.  I’m concerned about polar bears in the wild because of the ice melting in their habitats with global warming.  So, I took a polar bear pledge online to reduce electricity usage and be energy wise in Delaware, because if you use more electricity, it contributes to global warming.  Around San Diego there seemed to be more of an issue with being “water wise” and all of the faucets turn off automatically.

Feeding the Camel

There were two hippos but they both didn't fit in the shot.

The Wild Animal Park was awesome.  We had a safari right through the habitats where we got to feed leaves to the giraffes.  For each foot tall they are, their tongues are an inch so they can reach leaves in trees.  And the tongues are dark so they don’t get sunburnt.  (We just put on sunblock because it was so sunny.)  We also got to see 2 types of rhinos up close although they were resting because they sleep in.

They also had a pond with food you could buy for the ducks.  But whenever people tried to feed the ducks, large mouths with whiskers would come out of the water to scoop up the pellets.  Usually with animal adaptation we mean how their bodies have changed but here catfish changed their behavior like humans in order to get food.  It must be working because they were each 2 ft long!  I know people don’t come to San Diego to look at catfish but I found them pretty interesting and we watched them for a long time.

I hadn’t flow across the country since I was little and it was neat to see the small green farms in the east followed by the larger drying looking farms and then desert.  Our first day in California we headed to the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park which is actually way up in the hills and was a nice drive on such a warm day (at least compared to Delaware).

Before we even arrived at the park, the landscape was dominated by eucalyptus trees and emu birds from Australia.  We also drove past a bunch of ostrich ranches.  There were a ton of signs for ostrich eggs, ostrich jerky and emu eggs.  But there were no signs for emu jerky.  My dad thought it was because they didn’t jerk up well but the cabby thought it was because them made them into burgers.  I was sorry I brought it up!