I've been watching the presidential and vice presidential debates with interest. Granted, I'm not an expert on many of the topics they discussed, but I do know quite a bit about science and climate change. The focus seems to be on the cost of energy when, by far, the more important issue is what are we going to do about carbon dioxide levels that impact atmospheric temperature and the health of our oceans. This has yet to be discussed.
Here is a link to a
description of a couple of kid's classes I'll be running in early November. There will be plenty of interacting and I have lots of fun activities planned. I hope to see you there!
Speaking of classes, I took one myself. It was fascinating stuff that I stumbled upon while doing research for one project I'm working on. The professor and grad students used shrinky dinks (how fun!) to explain how they are doing their work. We poured goop called PVMS (I think that stands for polyvinylmethylsiloxane) on our designs. After shrinking, the design was raised slightly because the ink gets denser when it shrinks. When the plastic hardened, they cut out plastic cubes. (top photo: butterfly shrinky dink covered in hardened plastic with a square cut out of it) After drilling holes they injected dye into the tiny channels of these reverse images. (bottom photo: reverse image glued to glass slide with dye injected into holes) It was a really interesting way to understand the work they are doing.
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