Science

By Becky Wolfe, Science Programmer

Bright yellow and purple flowers. Lush green vegetation. Sounds like you are on the roof!  Wait. The roof? At The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, we have the Schaefer Rooftop garden, visible from the Sunburst Window. This beautiful garden is one of the ways the museum is trying to be greener and more sustainable. By adding this garden, we are helping with water conservation efforts.

When water falls on this garden or enters the garden from gutters on the roof, it is absorbed by the soil, which is a mixture of clay and plant food. We have to use a special mixture so the garden doesn’t become too heavy for the roof. Plants in the garden use the water and will even release this back into air.  Water that is not used by the plants, particularly if we have a huge rainstorm is filtered by the plants and soil.

So why would the museum want to capture this water? Why don’t we just it run into the sewers? In Indianapolis, all of the rain water that enters our sewer system is sent to the treatment plant. When we have a lot of rain, this puts a lot of stress and strain on the treatment facilities. By sending some of the rain water to our garden, we are helping to filter water and also lowering the burden on our treatment facilities.  We also provide a beautiful garden for visitors to enjoy!

In front of the Welcome Center, the museum has also installed a rain garden. The rain garden provides the same benefit to our environment.  While rooftop gardens can be difficult to install at home, a rain garden can be planted in your yard. Look for areas where water naturally collects in your yard or choose a place near your downspouts for your garden.  Send the water from your gutters into your garden to filter and conserve water. Native plants work well in rain gardens and there are many local resources to help install rain gardens. A quick internet search will connect you with experts!

Next time you are at the museum, stop by the Sunburst window, located on Level 2 to see the museum’s beautiful rooftop garden!
 

By John McCollum, Biotechnology Learning Center Supervisor

This is a great at-home science activity for your kids! Seeds often use the genetic material from two parent plants to grow into a plant with a new mix of traits different from the parent plants. Since farmers want their crops to consistently have the same types of traits (such as large size, good taste, fast growth, etc.) they try to grow certain crops like potatoes without using seeds. Instead, plants like potatoes are reproduced using a process called cloning.

When planting potatoes, you will cut a fully grown potato into pieces and use those little pieces to start your new plants. In cloning, there is only one parent plant and the genetic material stays the same, so the offspring produce the same traits as the parent. 

Be sure to prepare your potatoes the day before you want to plant them, as you need to have the seedlings dry overnight. Any potatoes could be used, but special “seed potatoes” are preferable to grocery store-bought eating potatoes if you actually want to grow plants for food. Store-bought potatoes will be more likely to have problems with disease.

Materials:

Potato
Paring knife
Mulch and/or potting soil

Procedure:

• Take a potato and locate the "eyes." Use the knife to cut the potato into 1-inch cubes, each cube having one eye.
• Let the potato cubes dry overnight.
• Put the cubes on top of well-drained soil, 16 to 24 inches apart, in a sunny location.
• Cover the cubes with 6 inches of mulch, and water them until the mulch is wet.

If you would rather start your clones indoors, it is acceptable to plant each potato cube into its own pot with potting soil. Once you see a sprout in your pot, you’ll want to transfer it to a garden area outdoors as soon as weather permits. A typical growing season starts in the early spring with some people choosing to plant as late as mid-June.

You can do even more programs like this in the Biotechnology Learning Center at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis!

Note: Adapted from content by Andrea Helaine
Read more: How to Clone Potatoes | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_7786227_clone-potatoes.html#ixzz1kalVdnQ3

 

As part of Literacy Month, we asked Children's Museum of Indianapolis staff to share their favorite or most influential book from childhood. Today, we talked to John McCollum, Biotechnology Learning Center Supervisor.

Don't forget to keep shopping at the online Scholastic Book Fair throughout March. Each book purchased earns us points that will go toward buying new books for the kid's in our community. Last year we were able to provide more than 300 new books!

By John McCollum, Biotechnology Learning Center Supervisor

I was an avid reader as a child. My love of science was sparked by  the book The Mad Scientists’ Club  written by Bertrand R. Brinley. My father passed his own childhood copy on to me when I was in middle school, and it quickly became one of my most cherished books. The Mad Scientists’ Club strengthened my desire to study science almost more than any other fiction book I read as a child, and the wacky science adventure tales it contains still inspire me to share my excitement about science with others today. Check out The Mad Scientists’ Club website at http://www.madscientistsclub.com/books.html.

What passions are being inspired by your reading collection?

Today is the first day of spring and the Vernal Equinox! An old myth claims you can stand an egg on its end ONLY during the Vernal Equinox, when day and night are equal in length. Supposedly, this is because there is equal gravity between the Earth and the sun on that day. But that's a myth! In reality, you can stand an egg on end any day. Why?

On the bottom of an egg you will find tiny bumps in the shell. Those bumps are simply irregularities in the eggshell that hold the egg up (similar to legs).

To prove this point, we successfully balanced an egg outside of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis yesterday– a full day before the Vernal Equinox.

Also, while we were having fun with eggs, we tested out the strength of an egg. Because of the shape of an egg, it can hold up to five pounds of weight on top without breaking! Don't believe me? Check out this photo!

This is a fun science experiement you can try at home, too! You’ll need:
* 2 caps from 2-liter bottles of pop
* 1 egg
* hardback books

1. Place one bottle cap open-side up on a smooth, level surface.
2. Put the large end of the egg on the bottle cap.
3. Put the other cap, open-side down, on the egg.
4. Gradually add some books or other weighty materials.
 

More egg trivia:
* Spin an egg to see if it’s hard-cooked or raw. If it wobbles, it’s raw!
* The expression, “It’s so hot you could fry an egg on the sidewalk,” could only be true if the sidewalk reached a temperature of 300°F.
* Eggs have tiny pores just like human skin. Through these pores they can absorb flavors and odors, so it’s best to store eggs in a carton in a refrigerator.
* Eggs age more in one day at room temperature than in one week in the refrigerator.
* If you accidentally drop an egg on the floor, sprinkle it with a lot of salt before you clean it up. This makes clean-up easier.

All over the world eggs symbolize the release of earth from winter and the coming of new life in the spring. We hope you enjoy the first day of spring!