Posts Tagged ‘science’

Sugar Crystals

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

A few weeks ago Danelle’s preschool did their regular Friday science section on Crystals.  Later that day I asked her if they made crystals, and she said no.  So I decided to try making some with her.  I sort of ended up doing most of the work, but she enjoyed the process regardless, and especially the end result.

To make our crystal, I super saturated some sugar into water, without getting too much on the glass stove top even.  I believe I used a ration of 2:1, sugar to water.  Then I poured this into a clear tumbler so we could watch the crystal grow over time.  To give the crystal something to grow on, I rigged up some string to a popsicle stick.  Danelle helped me get the string wet and then we rolled it into some dry sugar and let that dry for a bit.  We then lowered the string into the tumbler and set the lid over the top.

After a week, this is what the setup looked like.

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The crystal was pretty cool, really showing off the squareness of the sugar.

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One other thing we did at the start of the process was add a bit of orange flavoring to the sugar water.  This resulted in a very tasty crystal that was devoured by two children as quickly as we could get pieces off the string.  Overall a very sticky, tasty and successful science project.

Thea’s new gig

Saturday, February 14th, 2009

Thea was drafted for 2 autism studies being conducted at the University of Washington Center for Human Development and Disabilities (Autism Center). The UofW Autism Center is one of the leading Autism intervention sites in the USA.  Apparently we have a high number of autistic children in our area (as does silicon valley), and so it is a natural location for autism study and intervention services.

She is a “control baby.”  The info they gather from the questionaires that I fill out, the brain waves that are caught on the electrode cap, the MRI’s of her brain, and the videos of her playing and watching pictures on a computer screen will hopefully assist the researchers in identifying the earliest signs of autism in babies labeled as “high-risk” (defined as babies with at least one older sibling with an Autism Spectrum Disorder).  This study will be ongoing for the next 1-2 years.  So far, it has been pretty interesting for me–especially the MRI.  The following picture is a souvenir picture provided by the researchers.  It is Thea wearing her electrode cap.  (Danelle says she doesn’t like Thea to wear that–it messes up her hair.)  We hope to have an MRI picture soon.

Thea in mher electrode cap

Thea in her electrode cap