Introducing our guest blogger

Hope everyone had a great summer.  As the school is starting, we are getting back into the groove.  apart from writing experiments and sharing science news, we will start having some guest bloggers writing mainly for kids.  I would like to introduce our first guest blogger, Akhil Surapaneni.

I know Akhil since he was 4 yrs old.  He has always been a very advanced and avid reader (he is the youngest kid I know who read Harry Potter).  He is versatile and multi-talented.  He is very self driven and most hardworking student. He is a senior in high school this year and will be contributing articles to this blog.  I love his writing style.  It's like telling a story and perfect to capture kids attention.

Here's what he said when asked about his interests etc.:

 Interests: science, running, basketball, speech and debate. 

 Hobbies: pretty much my school activities. 

 Aspirations: I want to be a doctor. I want to do lab research in college. I want to run a marathon someday.

Welcome to the blog Akhil.  Proud to have you as a guest blogger.

just change the air pressure...

Here's a simple experiment we did today.  Very few simple ingredients needed but the effect is dramatic.

Materials needed:

• Plate
• glass of water
• food color
• candle
• matches
• glass to cover

(a) Mix a few drops of  food coloring to water
(b) Pour the color water into the plate
(c) put the candle in the middle of the plate and light it
(d) put a glass upside down on top of the candle
(e) watch what happens

Balloon kebabs anyone?

Last week we had a few kids most of the week doing hands-on experiments with us.  We had a theme for each day.  The first day was all about balloons....This is one of Sharko's favorite experiments.  Instead of writing the experiment, we decided to write and post a small video of it.

We all love balloons right.  If you have a balloon and a stick (say bbq stick), what can you do to have fun?  Try this at the next birthday party you go to.


Take the balloon and blow it up.  Then tie it so the air doesn't escape.  Tell everyone that you are going to put a stick through the balloon without making it pop.  Then poke the stick from one end to another!!!  Presto!  You have a balloon kebab!.

 If someone says, can you poke a stick on the side of the balloon and not at the ends?  You say, Why Ofcourse I can!.  Then ask someone to give you some tape (clear tape is even better).  Take two pieces of tape and put it on the side of the balloon in the shape of + on both sides.  Then poke the stick from the middle of the two tapes on both sides.  Here's a video to watch how that works.

calories or Calories?

We all talk about calories (Calories) at some point or other...Mostly when it comes to food.  But what is a calorie?  Is there a difference between calorie and a Calorie?  How much energy does it take to lift a 8600lb (3900kg) 6ft into the air?  The answer will surprise you!!

Yes, there are two types of calories which are ofcourse related to each other.  There's 'calories' and then there's 'Calories'.  A calorie is the amount of energy needed to warm 1gm of water by 1degree Celcius (The official definition uses only Metric system). 

A Calorie (with a capital C) is the amount of energy needed to warm 1kg of water by 1 degree Celcius.  So, a Calorie is 1000 times bigger than a calorie.  The term we use for food is always Calorie.  So, if an apple has 80 Calories (even if they write a small 'c'). 

A device thats used to calculate how many Calories any particular food has is called a calorimeter.   A basic calorimeter consists of a thermometer attached to a metal container full of water suspended above a combustion chamber.  To calculate calories for a particular food, they just put the fixed amount of food in the combustion chamber and measure the heat it produces when it burns. Ofcourse there's a bit more to it than just burn the sample of food....eg:  to determine Calories in a chocolate, they have to first determine how much fat is in it and how many carbs are in it etc. 




I was reading an article online that said you need 26 Calories to lift a 8600lb (3900kg) SUV more than 6ft in air!!!  26 Calories is what you get from eating one Hershey's kisses!!!  that's a bit mind-boggling isn't it.  That doesnt mean you should eat a Hershey's kisses and go try to lift a car.

If calories and Calories are not enough, there is yet another term used in measuring energy.  its called a 'joule'.  It is equal to the energy expended (or work done) in applying a force of one newton through a distance of one meter.  While calories and Calories are used for food, joules is usually used to measure amount of effort requred to do a certain job like lifting a SUV.  1 calories = 4.18 joules.

So, next time you look at the food and see the number of calories (Calories), imagine what all you can do with that much energy if you dont need it to spend on our body functions etc.

Fun with erasable pen, freezer and secrets...

When Sharko found the erasable gel pens in the science box today , we realized we haven't blogged it although we have been doing it for a couple of years now so here it is...

  The erasable pens we used here are 'Pilot Frixion erasable gel pens'. 

•  First take some paper to write
• Then take the erasable gel pen

•  Write whatever you want with the erasable pen on the paper.

• Then erase what you wrote with the eraser on the back of the pen

• Its so easy.  Now you cant see anything you wrote.

 

• Ask your mom or dad if they can get what you wrote back
• When they cant do it, take the paper and put it in the freezer for 10-15 mins
• Bring it out of the freezer 
• Magically whatever you wrote appears!!!  Its that easy...

Experiment done and written by - Sharko


How does this work?

Erasable gel pens are thermo-sensitive meaning their gel ink is heat sensitive.  When you 'erase' with the tip of the pen, the motion of erasing causes friction (maybe thats why they named those pens frixion) which produces heat and 'erase' the color.  The color doesn't get erased as much as it "disappears".  Since opposite of heat is cold, when we put the paper in the freezer, the 'cold' gets back the color.  You can erase it again and again and again:)



To test this theory, I took the paper which came out of the freezer with the drawing and text showing up again and applied heat to it.  I held it against water heater with hot water inside.  And presto! the color disappeared.  Then I put it in the freezer again and it came back to life again...












Happy experimenting...

Abalone..

Abalone is the common name used for a group of edible sea snails (gastropods).  They cling to the walls and wait patiently for a piece of kelp to come to them.  Abalone shells are fascinating.  They are like layers of bricks with protein binding them (like a brick and mortar house).  So, if something heavy falls on the shell, instead of shattering into tiny bits, the bricks slide and the protein in between takes the blunt of the hit.  Pretty cool body armour right!!!!




The shell of an Abalone has a flat spiral and usually oval shaped.  Both the meat and the shell of Abalones are desired albeit for different reasons.  Abalone shell interiors can have very bright colors and are used in jewelry making  as a source of 'mother-of-pearl'.  Like other shell creatures, there is possibility of pearls forming in the Abalone shells as well.

Like most animals, male species of Abalone are more attractive with stripes on the outer edges. 

The one on the left is a male while the one below is a female.

 The Abalones are available in different parts of the world and their meat is considered to be a delicacy (and/or a luxury) in different countries including Chile, South east Asia etc.




White Abalones are already highly endangered and illegal to fish.  Red Abalones might not be that far.  

In US, fishing Red Abalones need both a permit and a card that shows how many Abalones have been caught in a year.  Seems like the limit is set to 3 Abalones per day with a max limit of 24 per year.  Also there is a size limit for fishing them.  Abalones that are picked have to be atleast 7 inches in size.


When we visited the glass beach in Fort Bragg, there was a Abalone Watch group set up to check every diver coming out of the beach who went to pick Abalones.    So the Abalone watch measures every Abalone that is picked and make sure they all fall under the legal limits.  Here's to hoping they dont get to the state of extinction with over hunting.

Sea glass, Ocean, Fire glass....

Do you know what Sea Glass is?

Sea glass is glass that has been thrown into the sea years ago (at Fort Bragg, about 40 years ago).  The pieces of glass got smoothened out by the sea and got polished by the sand.  It eventually comes to the shore and allows people to pick it up. 

-Sharko

We were at Fort Bragg and its known for its beautiful glass beaches.  There are atleast 3 beaches where you find sea glass.  There is one "original" beach that is in MacKerricher state park where its illegal to collect any seaglass.  Just outside the state park, there is another site where there is abundant sea glass.  These pictures are from that second site.  Apparantly there is a third location which is accessible by only kayaks where you can find sea glass.  

The story of Sea glass is quite fascinating.  It also shows how Mother Nature can turn something ugly and unwanted into something we go searching for and consider it precious!

About 40 years ago or so, the ocean and beach in Fort Bragg was used as a dump site to discard, glass, appliances and apparently even cars!.   Sometimes they used to set the garbage on fires to reduce the size of it.  In the later years, there were lot of clean up programs to remove most of the debris but glass pieces stayed.  Nature already started its charm even on the thrown away glass.  The waves and sand together polished and smoothened the glass pieces and now they became nature's treasure again.  There's a tiny clip of water washing over the sea glass at the end of this blog.  Watch it and imagine that happening for 40 years constantly and you will appreciate what Nature can do!!

Sea glass is found almost everywhere there is an ocean (and the glass pieces you find near rivers is called 'beach glass').  In general, red, blue, lavender, purple or pink colored sea glass are rare as there aren't many containers with those colors.  White, Brown and some of the greens are common (sources being beer bottles etc).

And when they had fires (on purpose) like in Fort Bragg, the glass melts and sometimes have inclusions in them before becoming smooth pebbles and they are called 'Fire glass' and is even rarer to find them.





We dont know what affects the dump had on the marine life all those years ago but right now, the Glass beach in Fort Bragg is teeming with life.  We saw lot of tide pools with marine creatures like crabs, purple snails, small fishes and lot more. 

In Sharko's words "A tide pool is a pool that's filled with water caused by tides!  The tides fill the puddle.  Things live there like crabs, fishes and white worms."









Next time you are visiting a beach (ocean or river) that you know was used as a dump site, take a walk and see what shiny treasures you can find....

There's a talk going on in Fort Bragg about replenishing the glass by throwing discarded glass into the ocean.

Here's a small video of how it all happens...