Field trip to Space (and Science Center)

Last Friday we went to SPACE!  :)  Actually it is called the Telus World Of Science center in
Edmonton.  We learned all kinds of cools stuff about Science and Space.




Here is some fun stuff we learned:



1) Did you know that even though the scientists have already discovered 1.2 Million species of animals, they still have about 7.5 Million species yet to discover.  That means that about 85% of the species have not been discovered yet.  WOW!

 

2) Have you heard of the planet called Uranus.  It has a funny name, but it is the 7th planet from the sun and we learned some cool stuff about it.

- Uranus is named after a Greek god of the heavens who was the father of Cronus (Saturn)

- The temperature of Uranus is-210 degrees C

- The planet is covered with a haze of methane gas that absorbs red light and reflects blue light.  That makes the Uranus look blue.

- The moons around Uranus are named after Shakespeare's plays

- A spacecraft called Voyager 2 was launched from Earth and it flew past Uranus in January 1986.

3) Scientist discovered we were part of a solar system in the 16th century.  A Polish astronomer named Copernicus was the first to discover it.

4) The last trip to the Moon:
The last time scientist sent a spacecraft to the moon was as satellite called Clementine.  It was in 1994.  It had sensors that mapped the surface of the moon.







5) We learned that the Earth is like a Lava Lamp!

In my Lava Lamp, the blobs get hot at the bottom and then go up.  Then they cool down at the top and sink down again. 
The Earth does the same thing with rock deep under ground.  The Earths core is very hot.  The heat makes hot rock rise.  And the the cooling rock slowly sinks.

6) How do you go to the toilet in space?  You have to use a special toilet like this one that kind of sucks it out of you. ;)

We finished our trip to space by walking on the moon.  Here is a picture of my friend and I sharing a spacesuit.

Alberta Legislature Building

We took a tour of the Legislature building in Edmonton on May 15

Alberta became a province on September 9, 1905.  The legislature building was built between 1907 and 1913.  On the tour of the legislature building we learned that the province of Alberta is named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria.

 

We learnt on the tour that Canada made Treaties with the natives so that we could live on their land.  Alberta is part of Treaty 7 territory.  

This is a picture of E.C. Manning.  He was Premier of Alberta for 25 years.  That is the longest any time any Premier has ever served.  When E.C. Manning was Premier he started the "Rat Patrol" in Alberta.  He saw how rats were destroying farmers crops and other things.  So he made a law that no rats are allowed in Alberta.  |He had the "Rat Patrol" get rid of any rats that were found.  Alberta is the only place on the earth where there are no rats.  The movie "Ratatouille"  even mentions that rats aren't allowed in Alberta.  

These are portraits of all of Alberta's premiers.

These are portraits of Alberta's lieutenant Governors.  The Lieutenant Governor is the Queen representative.
The lieutenant Governor gives the Royal assent when a new law is passed in government.

The Lieutenant Governor's offices

These next pictures are my favorite part of the tour.  We learned about Alberta's first Mace.  It was made by Rufus E. Butterworth.  He only had two weeks to make the mace, so he made it with things he found around his house.  He used plumbing pipe, a pin cushion, a shaving mug, tea cup handles and bed knobs.  I think he did a good job with what he had.  That mace was used for  fifty years.

This is the area that the MLA's sit and talk about the laws they want to pass in Alberta.  The governing party sits on the side that has the portrait of Queen Elizabeth.
There are 87 members of legislator.  That means that every member of the legislator represents about 40,000 people.
  

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At this table the law clerks sit and they check law books to see if there are any other laws that might conflict with new laws that the government wants to pass.

This is where the speaker of the house sits.

It was very interesting visiting the Alberta Legislator building.  I learned a lot about Alberta's past and how the Alberta government works.

This is a model of the Alberta legislator building, it is made out of  A LOT of legos.

This is a model of the Alberta legislator building, it is made out of  A LOT of legos.

Growing Crystals

In this Science project, we just added some salt to water and watched the change over a month.
Salt is a type of Crystal.  The same type of reaction occurs with other types of crystals if you use crystal powder made up of ground up crystal. When we added the salt to the water, it made what scientists call a "solution".  This starts a process called "nucleation" which means the process where a small number of molecules become arranged in a pattern of a crystal.

It is amazing how the crystals kept on growing and even went up the side of the jar and down the outside.  It almost seemed like they were alive and trying to escape from the jar, but what really happens is the molecules continue to re-organize themselves into a crystal which appears to grow.  Scientists also call this "Self-organization".

How Butterflies Come To Be

Butterflies are a beautiful creature, but did you know they start off as caterpillars.  Seeing a caterpillar transform into a butterfly is really cool and interesting.  Let me tell you about it.

We started with a container of 12 new caterpillars that my mom got.  Watch this video to see the caterpillars.



After 6 days of having the Caterpillars they went to the top of their container and started to spin a cocoon around themselves.  Sometimes a cocoon also is called a Chrysalis.  

This video shows the caterpillars making cocoons in time-lapse photography.

After all the caterpillars were in their cocoon we moved them into the Butterfly Habitat.

The caterpillars were in the cocoon for about 7 days.  During that time they turned into butterflies through a process called metamorphosis.  Metamorphosis is an example of the miracle of life where these caterpillars transform into beautiful butterflies.  The following video shows the butterflies coming out of the cocoon in time-lapse photography.


The butterflies that came out are beautiful.  These butterflies are called Painted Ladies.  We put a small container of sugar water in the Habitat for the new butterflies to eat.
In this video I explained what I learned.

Finally, it was time to release our pet butterflies.

Bake Cinnamon Buns on the Campfire

Last week we went camping with our friends, Brad and Karen, on the beach in Grenada.  It was a great time and I learned a lot.  Karen taught me how to bake Cinnamon buns on the campfire.  Here is how:

1. First, we cut large oranges in half and scooped out the insides so that we had bowl shaped orange peelings to bake the buns in.
2. Then we made the dough for the buns and rolled it up into the shape of cinnamon buns.  We put the raw buns inside the orange peelings.
3. Then we wrapped each dough filled orange peeling with tin foil and put it in the campfire for 10 minutes.
4. Then we took it out of the fire, removed the tin foil, and added icing 
5. Then I tasted tested to make sure it was good enough for the rest of the family. :)

They were great.  We all loved it.  Thanks Karen for teaching me how to bake on a campfire.

Fort Edmonton

Today we visited Fort Edmonton with my friends: Abby, Lola, Dayo, Jamin, Kailey, and Matthew.  We learned about the history of Edmonton from when people first moved here until they began building a city.
 

Our first stop was to the Fort that the settlers first established in the 1800's. 

 

 

 

 After touring the fort we went to 1885 STREET.  This is where it showed how people lived in 1885.  They had their own houses, but still didn't have power.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then the last section of our tour was the 1905 STREET.  In 1905, they had power and even had a type of train that runs with power.  They had more businesses in bigger buildings.  This is when Edmonton started to become a city.

 

 

 

 

 

We even watched a movie about Edmonton in the old theater.

 

And we danced like they did in the 1920s

 

Our visit to Fort Edmonton was a lot of fun.

Here is a video about some of the other things we learned: