Human Body!

I had a blast with this meeting! It was one of those nights where the kids were (relatively) well behaved, I had more parent volunteers than I hoped for AND all the experiments worked!  Plus, they're super easy.

We had 4 stations: Taste, Heart, Eyes and Reflex (aka Nerves and Muscles).  With groups of about 5 kids, we were able to rotate stations every 7 or so minutes, with Heart taking the longest.  We did finish early (only took about 45 minutes total), but honestly, I think I needed a short meeting anyway.

Levers of Destruction! Trebuchets, Catapults and Jaws!

This "lesson" was specifically targeting the Nova Engineering Module. As an engineer, I'm a little disappointed they focused solely on levers, so I tried to make it as interesting as possible.  When you're dealing with kids age 6-11, destruction makes things interesting!  We were able to review the three types of lever, while having a snack and shooting paper balls and ping pong balls.

Oil and Water DO Mix!

I started down this path because one of my scouts, H, was extremely interested in chemistry.  H was a 3rd grader Bear Scout who was asking me very insightful questions about how chemicals come together.  I had that in mind when I found a recipe for "Bubble Dough".  Just making Bubble Dough wouldn't cut it as a STEM Den meeting, so I combined it with an intro to polar and non-polar molecules, as well as the Color Changing Milk from Steve Spangler.

STEM Den Year 2

Well, as you can see, I was busy last year, since I haven't posted in a very long while.  My quick summary of STEM Den is this: a dozen kids showed up for the first meeting in my not-nearly-big-enough living room.  The boys were a wee bit distracted by the degus running around their cage, but enjoyed the color separation from the leaf color chromatography experiment. 

The Colors Inside - Photosynthesis and Paper Chromatography

My education has spanned a larger than average corner of the STEM world.  I have a BS in Biology (from an Engineering School), a MA in Environmental Biology and Ecology (from a Liberal Arts School) and an ME in Biological and Chemical Engineering (from a Science School).  So when I saw this experiment combine plant biology and separations, I got a little excited.  I tried to do the extraction version, where you place torn up leaves in acetone or rubbing alcohol, but it takes 30 minutes to extract plus another 30-90 to separate, and with an hour meeting, that wasn't going to cut it.  Then, I tried rubbing some of the color onto a filter with a coin.  That transfer worked well, but the rubbing alcohol is a horrible solvent!  The acetone (regular nail polish remover concentrations) worked very well.  The Japanese Red Maple was my best leaf, with a red, green and yellow/orange band noticeable even on an unbleached coffee filter.

Welcome!

I'm mainly starting this blog as part of my second year as a STEM mentor in my sons' cub scout pack.  Last year, my oldest was the first boy in our council to receive both the Nova and Supernova awards. [Unconfirmed tidbit from my cubmaster: he was the first scout to receive the Luis Alvarez Supernova Award in the state!]  He was my only scout, so the lesson plans we very organically made.  For example, we were making ice marbles one day, and he asked how long were they going to take to freeze.  When I responded "I don't know, why don't you figure it out", the experiment "Do ice marbles freeze faster on dirt or cement" was born!

This year, there's a lot more boys interested, about 9, in fact! So I need to be a bit more proactive in making my lesson plans, getting my materials together, that kind of thing.  My plan is compile a "mentor manual" with all the information needed to run an hour meeting (experiment directions, worksheets for the kids, discussion points, etc).  I'll post the lessons here, as well as a post-meeting breakdown.  Hopefully, it'll be how all the boys were all smiles!

A few side notes, while I'm working within the requirements of the Cub Scout Nova, Alvarez Supernova and Townes Supernova, the activities here are in no way restricted to kids in those programs.  Please feel free to use anything towards Girl Scouts/Brownies badges, for Science Fair entries, as part of a Family Science Night at school, or even just for fun! (yes, I do Science for fun!).

Hopefully, you'll find something here that will help you want to raise the next generation of geeks!