iron + magnets
The Rubber Band sat with our geologist friend Jug this afternoon for an exploration of the earth that started with tectonic plates and ended with burning iron filings from ordinary beach sand to see the colors it produced and experiment with the Curie point.
Shifting sand on pieces of paper to mimic the shifting of the tectonic plates led to a conversation about the earth’s shape and its layers…
Which led to a discussion about how the center of our planet is made of iron and then leading into magnets and compasses and the North and South Poles. They took a look at ordinary sand and extracted the iron out of it using magnets.
And what kind of Brightworks discussion would be complete without donning safety equipment and heading into the workshop to explore the Curie point, when a magnet becomes so hot that it demagnetizes, and then as it cools seeing when it becomes a magnet again?
community friday!
Painting, artist-in-residence, drawing, comics, reading, drama, park, breakfast for lunch, bug-hunting…
…hooray for Community Friday!
angel island
The Coyotes and the Phantoms took advantage of this gorgeous day to take a trip to Angel Island by ferry to explore the geology of the island and its history as an immigration station for San Francisco. They were out the whole day, so I don’t have any of their stories to tell, but I’m sure they’ll be full of them when they get to school in the morning.
mapping local food
Using materials they purchased at the Ferry Building Farmers’ Market yesterday, the Sand Leopards cooked their own completely local (local meaning produced within 70 miles of Brightworks or no more than an hour’s drive away) meal for their lunch! Everything local – including the sugar and the salt! They looked at maps of California after they ate to chart where each ingredient had come from.
topography
Today:
More lego topography maps with the Rubber Band and the Coyotes…
… and debunking myths about pirate treasure maps with adults from the neighborhood.
mathy maps
Maps is such a great arc for exploring math!
The Rubber Band has taken the concepts of longitude and latitude literally and have been adventuring into the world to find the measurement of a minute of longitude. They spent all of last Thursday converting a coordinate from degrees, minutes, and seconds to decimal degrees after learning that the measurement changes depending on where you are located on the earth.
The Coyotes and the Phantoms worked together today exploring arrays and how they help illuminate the concept of area.
They are also exploring topography using legos. The Coyotes created their own topographical maps indicating level by which color they were using.
