In our continuing Life Science exploration, and as a segue to our unit on Endangered Species, we did a little experiment about keeping warm with fatty insulation!

First up: Pack a 5-gallon container with snow. Estimate how much water it will now hold (in addition to the snow). Then add water till it is 3/4 full with icy/snowy water. Our estimates ranged from 6-50 cups of water. The average was about 35 cups to an already packed bucket! Snow holds a lot of air!

Next we put one hand into a nitrile glove and immersed it in vegetable shortening (in a gallon zip-lock bag). We placed both hands, one bare and one immersed in a fatty later, into the ice water and reported how it felt three times: initially, after 30 seconds, and after one minute. There was much grimacing but no frostbite and the bare hands got very cold, red, tingly, burning, and stiff. The blubbery hands were cozy warm and comfortable.

That’s how polar bears, whales, seals, manatees, snow leopards, tigers, and many other animals keep warm!

Our Ancient Cultures Fair was a huge success! We had over a hundred student visitors and scores of adults come visit our celebration of Incan, Mayan, and Aztec cultures. There were games to play, number systems to learn, foods to sample, art to create and view. There was information about mountains, temples, calendars, gods, astronomy, hunting, record keeping, money, trade, cities, food, drink, religion, fishing, markets, gold, writing, gambling, warriors, empire, cities, and more!

Thanks to all our visitors who arrived with curiosity and open minds!

Hats off to the Fifth and Sixth Grade classes who hosted this amazing event! The Cultural Fair was the culmination of six weeks of hard work: reading, searching web sites, note taking, writing, preparations at home and in school, and then an enormous effort welcoming, entertaining, feeding, and informing visitors on the day of the event!  In preparation, each student wrote a written report, selected or created visual aids to accompany it, and then presented their findings formally to the other 5th/6th Grade classes.  The next day, we hosted the Cultural Fair for all the students in Grades Pre-K to 4 plus parents, staff, and the community! According to the knots tied on the quipu of our record keeper in the Incan Empire, we had 107 visitors to that site alone!

Bravo!

 

Inca

        

 

 

 

Aztec

            

 

 

Maya