Young scientists were back in action at The Gan this week.  

We were biologists, physicists, and astronomers once more!

Morah Katie:  How can you tell a koala is a mammal?
Levi: It has fur.
Tori: It takes care of its babies.
Levi: It has a pouch.
Morah Katie: Does every mammal have a pouch to carry it's baby?
Levi: No.
Morah Katie: Koalas are a special group of mammal called marsupials.  Marsupial have pouches.
Do mammals do anything that other vertebrates do not?
Tori: They take care of their babies.
Levi: Sometimes for a long time.

The ark has birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals, with fish swimming in the water.
Now it is time to take a look at the science of a rainbow!

Morah Katie: Please stand up, and begin jumping.
Kids jump and giggle.
Morah Katie: You are all using energy right now as you jump, you can feel it and see it.
The sun sends light to earth, that light has different energies which we see as colors.
It is quite a big idea.  All the colors are in the white light, different things, objects, soak up different colors and rejects other colors. For example, the ocean, what color is it?
Tori: Blue.
Morah Katie; We see blue when we look at the ocean because it is the color that doesn't get soaked up, or absorbed, by the water. The blue light reflects - like looking at your reflection in a mirror- and that is what our eyes see. The physics of light is a very big idea.
What do you need to make a rainbow?
Tori: Red orange yellow green blue indigo violet
Morah Katie: Those are all colors that appear in rainbows.  What makes a rainbow?
Ben: Rain
Levi: Sun
Morah Katie: There are 3 key things to seeing a rainbow. The sun, a person and the rain. The person needs to be  between the sunshine and the rain in order to see the light hit the round water drops causing the light bend and spread.

Rainbow Experiment 1:
1 shallow pan with water
1 mirror
Sun
white paper
We filled a pan with water, placed the mirror in  the water and directed it at the sun.
We held a piece of white paper a few feet from the water and mirror.
After a few attempts at proper angle and depth of water we were able to create a

RAINBOW!

Rainbow experiment 2:

1 shallow pan with water

1 mirror

Flashlight

White paper

We prepared the  pan as in experiment 1,  only for this experiment we used a flashlight as the light source.  

The flashlight experiment was more challenging because the light was not as powerful as the sun, however we were able to create a faint rainbow.

We recreated Experiment 1 to every ones great delight.

On Tuesday June 5,  we became very excited about a rare event in our solar system.

Morah Katie: Something exciting is happening, today Venus' orbit will cause it to cross our path in front of the sun! It will not happen again until 2117!! What year are we in?

Dena: 2012! 

Levi: None of us will be alive then.

Morah Katie: Probably not, but maybe our grand or great grand children will get to see the TRANSIT OF VENUS in 105 years in 2117. WE get to see it now!  If you do not have special solar glasses, you can go to NASA's website and watch it on a computer with your family.  I'll bring in a video tomorrow for us to all look at.

Ben: You could probably get those special glasses at a space museum.  

Morah Katie: True, however if you are unable to get to a space museum today, perhaps a computer will be a good option.

June 6:

Morah Katie: What do you think that big orange thing is?

Shalom: It's the sun.

Morah Katie: Do you see how active the sun is? It looks like flames leaping up.

Where is Venus?

Levi: There it is, it's the black circle.

Morah Katie: When will this happen again?

Levi: 2117 in like 100 years!

Dena: A hundred is a long time.

Morah Katie: It is, let's count. (We counted on the hundred board 1-100)

Dena: Yeah that will be a LONG time.