We have a creek just down the street from our house. It travels down the mountain, runs under the road and then comes out the other side through a tunnel under the street. As far as water level, speed, and volume it is a record breaking year. Kevin has been studying all the statistics everyday for over a month now. He totally geeks out over stuff like this. It's pretty cute.
The experiment was in order to see if we could determine just how fast the water was speeding down the mountain.
Kevin asked the kids if they had any ideas of how to gather such information.
Karaia piped up, "The Internet!"
Beckham reasoned, "We should get a measurer, tie it to a string, throw it over the edge at the top, and see how long it takes until it comes out from under the road."
Um...hello? Aren't you only six?
As it turns out, that was the exact plan Kevin had already worked out.
He had tied some fishing bobbers onto fishing line and found a stop watch app for his phone.
We headed to the creek to discover it moving even faster and higher than we have ever seen it.
Karaia threw the bobbers over the edge while Beckham and I kept a watch at the bottom. It took a couple of time to get the throws just right.
Beckham and I had our eyes glued to the first spot beyond the tunnel.
To our disappointment the string broke, but only AFTER the bobbers had reached the other side undetected by the stalwart lookouts.
The only thing we can guess it that the water pushed it down and kept the bobbers under water as it traveled down hill.
The kids, and Kev, were truly disappointed.
I however got a cute family picture out of it....well two pictures that if you photoshopped some people from one and put it in the other it would be really cute.
Karaia lamented that the experiment was a fail. I explained that we didn't get the information we were looking for, but we still got information. I asked her what she thought that was.
"That the water is going REALLY fast."
Funny kids.
I can see more science experiments in the near future.
Perhaps this will be the Summer of Science.
3 comments:
I love that Beckham reasoned that out on his own. You've got a really smarty pants on your hands! :) It's cool too that you and Kevin are taking such neat opportunities to teach them about the world around them. I can't wait for the post where you come into your kitchen and find some huge baking soda volcano or other mess because Beckham was "experimenting"... :)
How fun is that? Cute pictures too.
Awesome! I love this. I'm thinking that Harland and Kevin would get along pretty well. He's always coming up with experiments and things for the girls. This would be right up his alley.
Have you guys tried geocaching with the kids yet? You need a hand held GPS but you're bound to know someone that would let you borrow one...or maybe right on your phone. Our girls call it treasure hunting. It's free and they love it! I bet there are tons of them out there.
Post a Comment