From the category archives:

Energy and Change

Sound Answers

February 22, 2012 Energy and Change

Somehow I had a scheduling glitch and the answers to the Sound quiz were never posted. Here they are, better late than never. 1. The loudest animal in the world is the Sperm whale, whose sonar clicks are about 230 decibels. Unfortunately sound works differently in the water and on land, so we can’t [...]

Wordless Wednesday – Whirlpools

February 22, 2012 Babies

I can’t say how happy it makes me that the girls love watching the whirlpool when you pull the plug out. I love seeing the two waves on top of the water – the huge influence of such a tiny flaw. A shining, silvery hole twisting and turning in the water. Excuse the scum.

Cloud Answers

February 17, 2012 Earth and Beyond

After you’ve checked out this post, I strongly recommend a visit to the Cloud Appreciation Society, they have fantastic guides for cloud viewing and a beautiful gallery you can spend hours browsing through 1. Noctilucent clouds are the highest type of cloud and one of the most beautiful. It literally means ‘night shining’ and usually they [...]

Girly Construction (Boys can do it too)

February 16, 2012 Activities

Sometimes it is brought sharply home to me that I have girls. And not just girls but fairy princesses. I don’t know if this is popular culture or some sort of cosmic payback, because I’m one of the least girly women you could think of. I don’t know if I even own high heels although [...]

Quiz – The Cloud Edition

February 14, 2012 Earth and Beyond

Beginning of school and my head is in the clouds. What are noctilucent clouds? How do contrails form? Can you tell how much rain you will get by looking at a cloud? What is a cloud forest? And what is the photo? (Courtesy of H. Raab) Answers on Friday.

Quiz – The Sound Edition

February 7, 2012 Energy and Change

Do you hear what I hear? What animal makes the loudest sound? How does sound travel? What are beats? What is the normal or average range of hearing for humans? And apart from being an incredible photo, what’s happening above? It is related to sound! Answers Friday.

Pendulum Waves

February 6, 2012 Energy and Change

First watch this video: How cool is that? And did you like the setup in the beginning when they showed you there were no tricks, it’s just a line of pendulums of different lengths. This, my friends, is all about maths. And physics, but at this level physics is pretty much applied maths. Pendulums Pendulums [...]

Colour Answers

December 2, 2011 Energy and Change

1. We see because our eyes pick up light that has bounced off the things around us. It feels a little backwards, but the colour something appears is the colour it reflects rather than absorbs. A green book would absorb every colour except green and bounce the green back to us. Colour is determined by [...]

Quiz – The Colour Edition

November 29, 2011 Energy and Change

Does anyone else find the rainbow song frustrating? Red and yellow and pink and green are not the colours of the rainbow! But there are lots of other interesting things about it. If something appears green, what is it doing to light? Is mixing coloured light the same as mixing paint? For StuffWithThing, are colours [...]

Sparkles

November 24, 2011 Activities

Little girl loves gluing at the moment. She doesn’t care if it’s a stick or brush, the sheer pleasure of spreading glue around is enough. It’s even more important than actually sticking anything to the glue, which is driving the control freak in me mad. In a bid to make it a bit different I’ve [...]