Welcome to the web presence for the Homesteaders STEM project, led by Connor and Curtis. Our regular meetings are on second Saturdays at 1 pm at the Homesteaders 4-H Ranch in Santa Clara. Our meeting schedule will be posted on the Homesteaders calendar with "STEM" included in the event titles.
Today we talked about the art of MC Escher and how he used Möbius loops. (Discussed at that same link) we learned about the most common Möbius loop, which is the recycling symbol, and how donuts are like coffee mugs, because of their topological properties.
We learned about fractals and made one out of paper. More activities:
https://educationonline.ku.edu/articles/teaching-kids-patterns-in-nature
https://cosmosmagazine.com/mathematics/fractals-in-nature
https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=139097
We learned how fast things grow when they can multiply. Here are a couple of things you can do on your own that are related to today's activities. Watch this video about what COVID-19 is; since we focused entirely on non-disease examples of exponential growth in our activities, this has more background information on the pandemic itself. Play around with this interactive graph of cases and see how the curves compare to each other. The hypothetical "cases double every day" line matches the rice, steps, and lilypond examples we went through.
We learned about the engineering design process and used teamwork to navigate an obstacle course.
music and sound! we did many experiments and demonstrations:
straw flute: when you blow across an open cylinder or container, it makes a sound. the sound changes based on how much air is present. demonstrated the straw oboe and had everyone make one. try changing length using second straw, cutting holes, changing size of opening with mouth.
demonstrated the related ideas on a flute and trombone
striking glasses with water as bells. we made a few glasses with notes to play "Mary Had a Little Lamb"
drum made from a tin can and balloon
amplify sound with a balloon (more about solid vs gas transmission of sound waves)
We built periscopes using convex and concave mirrors to see things above a table while we were hiding below it.
We experimented more with projectors.
We played with spherical (convex and concave) mirrors to discover their properties and discuss how they could be used in telescopes.
We drew ray diagrams to see how refraction works.
We assembled telescope kits.
We did some astronomy and optics activities from the NY 4-H Science Toolkit (search for astronomy in this page: https://nys4-h.org/projects).
Activities we did:
computer science - map coloring, and artificial intelligence using dice, coins, and rock-paper-scissors. This was a preview of this year's National Youth Science Day kit.
We did several physics magic tricks
We learned about genetics and extracted DNA from strawberries. We used the DNA for Dinner curriculum.
We learned about Rube-Goldberg machines and brainstormed ideas for making one.
We learned about whales!
We built weight-supporting structures out of paper. We started by holding up a book, and eventually held up Brylan.
We used popsicle sticks to learn about tension by making unstable structures that pop apart.
We used the National Youth Science Day kits to learn about propellers, drones, and lift.
We made aluminum foil boats to hold as many pennies as possible and learned about buoyancy.
We visited the Foothill College Observatory and were treated to views of Mars, Saturn, Jupiter (+ 3 moons!), and the Messier 13 globular cluster on their telescope.
We learned how to make a simple but fast kind of wind spinner (a three-blade turbine style). Everyone tried to make theirs go as fast as possible. Some got close to 400 RPM!
We started the Wind Spinners activity with Science Journal. Everybody made up their own design for a wind spinner and we learned how to test them and measure their RPM.
We used the new Science Journal app to explore our environment. We measured sound intensity, light levels, and acceleration, so see what interesting patterns we could find around the ranch.
We imagined what salt would look like if each grain was the size of our hands and drew it. Then we used microscopes to look at sea salt, table salt, sugar, pepper, and miscellaneous found objects.
Connor taught us about forces on flying objects (drag, lift, propulsion, and gravity) and we used our knowledge to make paper airplanes.
Rachel, a civil engineer, taught us about bridges. We made beam bridges out of paper to support as many pennies as possible.
We learned about computational thinking using a few problems from computer science: Map coloring, sharing information while keeping secrets, and how to guess which number I'm thinking. Activities were based on lessons from http://csunplugged.org.
We learned about geospatial science using activities from New York 4-H. Our first activity demonstrated how you can measure distance if you know how fast a signal is moving and how long it took to reach the target (going from a GPS satellite to a handheld receiver). The second activity showed that if you gather this data point from three or more GPS satellites, you can determine the location of the receiver (the user).
We will be doing the National Youth Science Day (NYSD) activity, Motion Commotion, to learn about the physics of moving objects (like cars) with some takeaways about safe, undistracted driving.
We had 23 youth attend (well, 23 signed in) to watch the lunar eclipse and experiment with micro eclipses on with polystyrene balls and a lamp. Clouds blocked our viewing, but we did science anyway!
Followup: Watch this video that describes the "supermoon" eclipses we've had the pleasure of experiencing recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gzgSuJM5O8.