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, ...

I'm trying to catch up on my blogging... Back in summer, as part of our STEAM 2018 year of STEAM programming, we did a fun engineering project making roller coaster ski jumps out of pipe insulators for marbles to "ski" down! I've been meaning to share the photos and videos and finally had time today. Here are the supplies I got: Pipe insulators Marbles Masking Tape I had to cut the pipe insulators in half, and did that from home. So you also need a strong knife, like for cutting meat but maybe sturdier than that. Then you have the kids get in groups of 3 or 4 and give each group of kids some insulator tubes and tape and some props and have them go to town! Each group will need a large space to work in, and one pitfall was kids trying to build their roller coasters around the other groups. That got hard sometimes, and they're kids, so they had difficulty navigating that in a polite way sometimes. I really wish I had provided more simple pr...

Recently one of my colleagues in the Youth Services department, Marie Plug, and one of our pages from Support Services, Luz Mejia-Ramos, put together an amazing science program for kids--an archaeological dig! I'm sharing Marie's blog post about it and reprinting it with her permission. It was such a cool program, giving kids a chance to dig in sand to find "artifacts" like broken pieces of a clay pot, bones from a replica human skeleton, and a replica of a papyrus from Ancient Egypt. But without further ado, I'll let Marie tell you more... Dig for Ancient Treasures: Archaeology By Marie Plug Twenty seven budding archaeologists participated in Pasadena Central Library's first archaeological dig. Fortunately for them our Library has a "resident" archaeologist on staff - Luz Mejia-Ramos. Luz works for the Support Services Department at Central Library but during her time off she travels the world to participate in archaeological digs. Luz ob...

Have you considered doing a class with Ozobots, but weren't sure where to begin? You can do an Hour of Code activity with Ozoblockly, starting out with a Square Walk and working up to a robot dance competition. But be sure to have a backup plan in case calibration fails. Check out the Pasadena Public Library Kids Blog and our latest post on our experiences with Ozobots...and the importance of having a Plan B!! http://pasadena-library.net/kids/2018/coding-with-ozobots-kids-coding-club/

Last week kids came to Pasadena Library to learn about elastic energy and the Law of Conservation of Energy , and then build a helicopter that would rise up in the air at least briefly before coming down. We attached helium balloons to a homemade helicopter that runs on the elastic energy of a twisted-up rubber band, and since the apparatus itself is heavy enough, the whole thing generally floats gently down. (OK, some kids did have to add a weight in order to counteract the extreme lift of the helium.) Kids had a blast making their helicopters, even though it was not an easy project, and required a lot of tinkering and troubleshooting! I did this program before at Pasadena Public Library, and shared it on my blog a few years ago . I'm sharing this year's experience because I think I learned some things that might have improved the project back then. I first found the project in 2014 on curiositymachine.org . You may have to subscribe to get access to all their projec...

Last week I visited the Hastings Branch of Pasadena Public Library to present a program to their "STEAM Team," a monthly club they have for kids 9-12 years old. We did a program about electricity called "Make Your Own Electric Quiz." It was so much fun exploring the mathematical principles involved in electrical circuits, such as the inverse ratio relationship between voltage, resistance and current explored by Georg Ohm in the early 19th century. I LOVE anything to do with scientific laws, and we got deep into Ohm's law (I = V/R). Then kids wrote down math questions and answers on post-it notes, placing the post-its next to some brass paper fasteners I had prepped for them on a sheet of cardstock. On the other side, they wound a copper wire from the brass fastener for each question to the brass fastener for its correct answer. To reinforce the things we learned about Ohm's law, I deliberately used a battery source not intended for 5mm LED diodes--...