The Northside Boys and Girls Club held a Science Festival on Thursday. They asked us to help coordinate the event by providing them with 15-20 science experiments. 20 volunteers from the Burlington Northern railroad company came to help us run the booths. We had bout 250 kids from all boys and girls clubs in Fort Worth visiting. To make this event kid friendly there was cotton candy, popcorn and jump houses. Our role was to perform the experiments and make science fun for the kids. Sammie was a big hit with Diet Coke and Mentos presentations. Each group would count down the seconds until she would trigger the physical reaction. The amazed looks on the children’s faces was priceless. Saafir ran the table of dry ice experiments and helped out at the stomp rocket launching site. There was a Melon Harp playing table, where the kids themselves we able to create music using fruit. Each kids was able to make a hoop glider, whirly-gig, stomp rocket and spin art painting. Spin art is always a crowd pleaser and Mary the director of the Northside club requested we bring this activity out. Sam helped man the USB microscope and the kids were able to take a closer look at their hair, skin, clothes and a few museum specimens. We also had a variety of simple science experiments such as bringing yeast to life, surface tension test, water soluble and acidic liquids experiments. The children seemed to really enjoy the activities as did the adults involved; the room was alive with energy and excitement for the entire festival. Over all Mary and I felt this was a success for a first go around and have already began thinking about improvements for next year.
