Science sweet and rocky

scidaycamp052: Science Day Camp
Designs on a prehistoric Moroccan snail, held by the Kern County Mineral Society’s Ismael Sanchez, grab the attention of “Cool Science” student Savannah Trino and classmates (l to r) Danielle Evans, Mick Finch and Gary Johnson.

Ever stop to think about the apple you are eating? How about what happens to what dinosaurs leave behind? Attendees of the Kern County Museum's, Aug. 8-12, "Cool Science" day camps know the answers. And the 5-12 year-olds learned much more, too.

Let us start with the apple. In volunteer docent Dale Hopwood's "Kitchen Science" class, each of the 5-8 year-olds was given a ripe, delicious red apple. Their task? While eating the apple, they had to write. Eating an apple, it seems, is a science.

"It is a scientific experiment, when you think about it," Hopwood said. "Eating an apple involves our five senses -- seeing, tasting, feeling, hearing and smelling. And I asked the students to think about how those senses were working as they ate their apples. They didn't realize how important the sense of smell is to the experience of eating. Each was asked to write their observations in a diary."

Selected excerpts from those diaries were interesting.

"Pears feel rough and hard like my apple." -- Phillip

"I hear crunch. I taste sweetness. It smells sweet." -- Kayla

"It feels smooth like a dolphin." -- Brenna M.

Kitchen Science centered on the food children eat and in some cases how preparing it becomes an experiment, too. Popcorn, for instance, was an excellent illustration for Hopwood to pose the question, "What makes it pop?" Along the way, the children realized that the popping would not be an experience without being able to observe it visually and aurally.

Across the hall, children in the 9-12 age group were learning about the science of geology. Ismael Sanchez from the Kern County Mineral Society's Mineral Mites Club brought dozens of samples of rocks, minerals and fossils from his collection to share. There were prehistoric specimens such as claws from an alasaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex, an eight-inch petrified shark's tooth and fossils of a prehistoric insect known as a trilobite and an ancient snail.

One student mentioned that he had seen, "A centipede on the Discovery Channel that was about six feet long."

Sanchez also displayed beautiful examples of onyx from the Panamint Mountains, rhyolite, Brazilian agate, jade and rose quartz that he had collected, cut, ground and polished. As he talked, Sanchez had a small stone tumbling in a rock polisher, and the inevitable question arose from one of the children, "How long does it take to polish one of those?"

"It takes about a week to cut the stone and then a week to grind it, before it is ready to be polished," Sanchez explained. "But if it has scratches, you have to go back and start all over again."

And then, Sanchez held up something you don't come across but about every million years -- what appeared to be a large brownish stone with an interesting pattern and something unique from the other specimens in his collection.

"This is called coprolite," Sanchez told the class. "Did any of you pick it up and notice that you can detect it has a smell to it, too?"

"Yes," the class admitted it had.

"That is because it is fossilized dinosaur feces, that I discovered while exploring in Utah," Sanchez revealed.

"Wait till I tell Mom I just touched dinosaur poop," came the excited reply from one young man.

Science continues for one more week at the Kern County Museum -- from Aug. 15-19 children ages 5-12 will move on to the "Science of Lewis and Clark." For more information on what the museum has to offer check its Web site, http://www.kcmuseum.org.


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