Dirt to Dinner: Food Preservation and plant drawing

October 24, 2009.

Daddy and I went to the class at 10:05 am. We first checked the results of the soil experiment that we did in the last class. The results are:

_________________________________________________            
                With Compost            l        No Compost
Sprouts               6                      l                12
Leaves              6 - 9                  l            2 - 11
Height           0.75 - 3 in             l          0.25 - 3 in
__________________________________________________

In the picture above, I am writing the results of the experiment. Our hypothesis was that compost in the soil will give us bigger leaves and more sprouts. But, I found results to be the opposite of the original hypothesis.


One possible reason could be when we removed the original tomato plant, it shed off some seeds and they sprouted in the side with no compost instead of the peas we planted. I will observe the small sprouts after two weeks and see if they are tomatoes or peas. One possible reason that the compost side had less sprouts was that there was one big lump in that side. Maybe there were sprouts there but the lump prevented them from coming out.

I flattened the lump out expecting peas to sprout before the next class.

Then I went to draw a plant and I selected an interesting leaf for drawing shown in the photo above. I first drew the stem and looked at the hairs of the stem and also drew the first leaves in exact detail. Daddy showed me his quick sketch of the plant. He did not draw the hairs at the tip of the stem and the small bump and the hair there. In his drawing, the stem was nearly rectangular. I colored my stem using pastels. I also colored the leaves I drew. Then, I went to the food preservation exercise.
 
In the food preservation exercise, 12 foods were laid on a table and we needed to say how those foods were preserved. The foods were yogurt (fermentation), tuna, meat, dried fruit (drying), vanilla (?), avakai (pickling), cucumber pickle (?), cheese (fermentation), dried beans (drying), dried strawberry and bananas (drying), cinnamon jam (canning) and others. Devin started an experiment storing garlic in oil, honey, water and air to see which one works and how garlic is spoiled by the others. I think the garlic in air and water will not be preserved because fungi will attack it. I expect oil and honey to preserve the garlic. You can see me doing the food preservation exercise in the photo below.

Chemisty activities in Martin Luther King Jr. Library in downtown San Jose

Daddy and I left home at about 11:40 am, took Capitol Expressway onto CA-87 North onto Santa Clara Street, Almaden Blvd and San Fernando Street and parked on 4th street. We went to Togo's for change to pay for parking. We went into the Martin Luther King Jr. library and attended the Chemistry activities in the Children's room. First, I participated in a penny experiment. I dropped one penny in plain water, one in water with acid, one in ketchup and the last one in Coca Cola. The penny in water with acid became shiny quickly because the acid removed the dirt on the penny. Next I participated in the Chemistry Wheel of Fortune and I was the first winner of a High-Five. Then, I saw the difference between dirt and Oreo cookies. Next, I mixed Poly Vinyl alcohol, water, and borax, creating a substance called slime which was (obviously) slimy. You can see me holding the slime I made in the photo above. Then, I went and asked some questions to the people who gave me the Oreo test. Then, we returned some library books. Then we returned home. This week is the 140th anniversary of the periodic table.

My Presentation: The Manhattan Project and the making of the atom bomb

October 16, 2009.

We left home onto Capitol Expressway onto CA-87 onto US-101 and took the Whipple Road exit to Jefferson Road onto Middlefield Road and parked in the parking lot stall 1174. Mummy paid for parking at the pay machine and went into the Redwood City Library in Redwood City downtown. We went up the elevator because Suraga's seat couldn't go up the stairs and reached the community room.

The first person to present was Shiloh Curtis who talked about the Sculpture Gardens in Washington D.C. She talked about the sculptures in the garden. To improve, I would suggest that she show more excitement the next time. Next, it was my turn.

You can see my presentation in the link below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n3VKVXTSUo

I think that I did a good presentation on a good topic. I talked about the Manhattan Project and the making of the atomic bomb. I covered the history behind the atom bomb, the start of the project, the key sites of the project, the goals, science and the results. I said that my inspiration to do this presentation was the book "The Green Glass Sea" by Ellen Klages and "The Story of Science" by Joy Hakim. Some members in the audience asked me many questions - such as were there any other metals than trinitite in the explosion site and how many atomic bombs does the US have now.  I answered them all and concluded my presentation.

My presentation was followed by other presentations on World War II, Surviving Little Sisters, Kon-Tiki, Perfect Poisons and My Trip on Alvin (a submarine). At the end of the last presentation, My Trip on Alvin, we dispersed for the day.

The next best presentations (the best was mine, of course  :-)) was Ajay's on Perfect Poisons.

Astronomy Lecture: First photos of a planet orbiting another star

October 7, 2009.
Mummy and I left home at about 6:15pm and drove on Capitol Expressway onto CA-87 and took I-280 onto I-237 to El Camino Real and took El Monte Road to Foothill College and drove into the parking lot. But the parking lot was full and we had to park in the additional parking area. We went up a slope into the Robert Smithwick Theater. We got into the theater at 7:01 pm. Andrew Fraknoi was giving an introduction to the lecture. Finally, Prof. Peter Kalas entered the;theater and started his presentation/lecture.


He first said that he bet with NASA on three stars for planets around them. The three stars were Vega, Foamohaut and β Pictorial. With the Hubble Space Telescope, he got a picture of Foamohaut and observed that there was a planet orbiting around it. He called the planet Foamohaut B. The star was Foamohaut A. Some people, in 1984, observed that there was dust around a few stars and came up with a theory that some of the dust might have coalesced into a planet. But in 1988, however, Prof. Kalas' professor disagreed with this theory. Prof. Kalas stopped listening to his own professor's theory and finally proved his professor wrong. The Hubble Telescope was launched in 1990 and after talking with NASA for a long time for using the Hubble to find extra-terrestial planets, he was able to convince them to do so. He finally found a planet from the photographs captured by Hubble. He ended the lecture by saying "I hope you find Foamohaut C, D and E". It was question and answer time and I asked him a question "What were the three stars that you bet with NASA and how did you pick those three stars?". He answered "I picked the stars closest to us and the ones I thought will have planets around them. Their names are Vega, Foamohaut and β Pictorial".

We ran down the slope into the additional parking area, went into the car. Then we returned home.
The most interesting part of the lecture was the extra-terrestrial planet around a star. This planet, Foamohaut B is slightly bigger than Neptune.

Dirt to Dinner: Experiments with plants

Dirt to Dinner: Experiments with Plants

Today, we started our session with circle time. We sang a song from Kenya about a village. We shared what we were thankful for and our favorite vegetable. I said that I was thankful for my Daddy being there with me in the class and my favorite vegetable was broccoli.

My group, Group S, went on a scavenger hunt to find things that were sweet, round, earthly, red, rustly, hard, pungent, etc. You can see me holding up my collection.

After that, we switched from scavenger hunt to doing some experiments with pea plants. The following questions are supposed to be answered by our experiments:

1) Do plants grow better with water?

2) Do plants really don't need soil to grow but the soil helps them grow bigger leaves?

3) Do plants really don't need light but grow better with light?

I participated in the soil experiment (to answer question 2). We planted peas in watered soil with compost and peas in watered soil without compost to see what will happen in two weeks. In the photo, you can see me planting pea seeds with Mackenzie. The water experiment to answer question 1 had a method of five different cups with different water properties (cups with and without holes, cups with different time periods between watering). The light experiment to answer question 3 had a method of putting plants in a closet with a locked door and tin foil over the plant to observe if the plant will grow.

Then Elia's group, Group C, were called into the kitchen to make an upside-down polenta (grounded corn) apple pie. After them, our group was called into the kitchen to make soft polenta. Talya made soft polenta with tomatoes and I helped Juli make soft polenta. In the photo, I am stirring the mix to make soft polenta. Group P made polenta pizza.

Mackenzie brought the food out and we had a polenta lunch. I liked eating the upside-down polenta apple pie. The pie was yummy!!

Ellen Klages:Belmont

On September 30th, 2009 at about 7:05 pm we left to see Ellen Klages (the author of The Green Glass Sea and White Sands, Red Menace) who was in the Belmont Library from 7 pm to 8 pm. The Belmont Library is located on 1100 Alameda de las Pulgas(Directions:Take US-101, Ralston Avenue/Marine Parkway exit, left on Ralston Avenue, left on Alameda de las Pulgas). I wrote a book review (photos 2, 3 and 4) for The Green Glass Sea and gave it to Ms. Klages. Here is my book review (Side 1): Book Review

The Green Glass Sea

This book (containing a mix of fiction and non-fiction) is an interesting book about the the Manhattan Project, the making of the atomic bomb, and how people lived in Los Alamos from 1943 to 1945. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________
                       _
Rating: 99.999 of 100                                                                                      Status: Read

Side 2

Signature:

Ms. Klages gave me a postcard (photos 5 and 6). Ms. Klages showed me her sample of trinitite (the metal that the atomic bomb turns quartz into). The first picture is trinitite. I read about trinitite in "The Story of Science" by Joy Hakim, and then I got to see it for real!