Science in the Library

On Thursday, February 27, we had a special astronomy festival for the whole family! People of all ages got to learn something new and inspiring about the way our understanding of the universe has grown, and also the ways that you can help scientists track changes in night sky visibility. Globe At Night Neighborhood Science Kit When Los Angeles Public Library got a grant for bringing Neighborhood Science to other libraries, Pasadena was chosen as one of the first libraries to get their Neighborhood Science kits. There are currently five Neighborhood Science kits  at Pasadena that you can check out and use to conduct observations and collect data that will help scientists understand more about the way our climate is changing, our air and water quality is changing, etc. The Globe At Night kit  includes a Sky Quality Meter for measuring the darkness in your area, and other tools and information. You can use a Sky Quality Meter to get a reading of the sky's level of darkness, ...

On Nov. 18, 2016, to celebrate Young Readers League and its 2016 selection of Circus Mirandus by Cassie Beasley, we had a science program called "Be a Light Bender!" We had a jam-packed hour of activities exploring the physics of light and color. We did demonstrations of various phenomena, like the phosphors in a highlighter pen's ink getting excited by the ultraviolet light from a black light, and a demonstration of why the sunset looks red (the light has to travel farther through the atmosphere). We experimented with color filters and then used our knowledge to create secret messages for others to decode. We used CD spectroscopes to analyze various different light bulbs. We examined the way shadows change color when you shine colored lights on an object. The resource I used the most for this program was Exploratorium's "Science Snacks" on the website http://exploratorium.edu/snacks . It's a great site! Tons of experiments and activities with...

I'm doing a craft project for Batman's 75th Anniversary where the kids are going to make Bat Signals out of Pringles cans. I had two different kinds of Pringles cans: a short one and a long one. I wanted to see, which can produced a clearer bat signal when an LED keychain flashlight was placed inside? Well, the first thing I had to do was construct a "stand" for the flashlight so that it would shine directly upwards. It kept falling down, ruining the effect! I cut out two circles (using the Pringles lid as a guide) of cardstock, glued them together so that they would be sturdy, and folded them into a semicircle shape. With the fold I cut some slits going outward in a kind of star formation so that the flashlight could poke through. Then I taped all around and underneath. Finally, I cut a few more slits around the outer circumference of my circle and bent the sides down like a hexagon to make it into a "stand." Worked quite well and I don't fors...