Dinosaurs and Martians and Earthquakes

This week, Brightworks High School took all of our varying interests and combined them to facilitate massive amounts of science (which just so happened to be aligned with my interests).On Tuesday morning, we skyped with the American Museum of Natural History. Paleontologist Zac Calamari connected with us from back in the research catacombs - discussing everything from dinosaurs to prehistoric life to his research on horns and skulls to evolution to energy. It was a question-answer period, and we shared our time with the Indigo band. Questions like, "how real is the science in Jurassic Park?" to "can we clone wooly mammoths?" to "what is your favorite dinosaur?" - Zac was wonderful. We ended up skyping for close to two hours - with the kids leading the discussion and hanging on every word.

On Tuesday night, we went to see The Martian. The BWX upper school met at the theatre for our Mars adventure; about half of the kids have read the book. The other half were equally as blown-away.

We came back to the school for a space night - chatting about the science behind the story and the human ethics in saving a man stranded on Mars while deliberately making and eating freeze-dried astronaut food.

In the morning, the BWX High Schoolers woke up and made breakfast for the school. As the other bands woke up and trickled in, they helped chop the vegetables or make the pancakes. We listened to a space playlist that you can find here.

In the morning, we were all sleepy. We all watched 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Here are morning photos of us making breakfast:

Yesterday, we went to UC Berkeley to visit their seismological lab. They talked to us about early-warning earthquake programs they're designing (a smartphone sensor that can triangulate the epicenter of an earthquake to warn neighboring communities) and demonstrated the different types of shifts and waves in our tectonic movement.

After the seismo lab, we ate lunch and got a private tour of parts of the campus. The kids left with some Berkeley swag, and we ventured through their paleontology museum. We even saw Zac's favorite dinosaur!

Next week, they're off to the Mendocino Woodlands.

See you later.