Monday, September 16, 2013

Science Project: Mercury

In our most recent Science lesson we studied about Mercury.  We learned that while Mercury is like the Earth in that it is terrestrial opposed to jovian, unlike our home planet it does not have much of an atmosphere for protection.  Making one of Mercuries most distinguishing features, it's crater covered surface!  

Our project gave us a bit of an idea of how those craters are created.
First we started out with a pan of flour. 

I had the boys go outside and find small rocks to replicate asteroids.  Ford ended up finding a fire ant hill instead so after helping him recover from that I let him pick out one of the gems from the kids extensive collection.  

Then we dropped them in.  

It was an ok project when I was leading it but when I texted Jed this picture of the boys, he responded with, "Tell the boys that daddy wants to make craters with them when he gets home."  I set the flour and rocks aside.

After we had dinner I was able to slip away and finally get some down time for the day.  When I came out I found this!  Daddy took the project to a whole new level!  

The next morning Ford asked if he could drive his cars through the flour (it was still sitting on the table for a project I had planned for later that day) I said yes.

I walked away for all of 30 seconds and I come back to this!  What have you done child?! 
After cleaning up Ford's mess I showed the boys how to make play dough and they showed me how to make faux facial hair.  


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