On March 1st, City Science teens completed an experiment in the lab on nutrient identification in foods. Nutrients such as sugars, proteins, and lipids can be detected by the use of an indicator. In this lab, the teens used various chemical indicators and compared the results to "control" samples to determine whether a nutrient was found in that sample. Teens tested chocolate chips, peanuts, and cereal.

 

Check out more photos from this lab by clicking here.

Brought back by popular demand was Cake Chemistry, an activity where participants investigate chemical reactions between ingredients in everyday food we eat, specifically cake. Participants first tested baking soda and various ingredients including lemon juice, water, vinegar, milk, and eggs.  Which ones do you think resulted in the most visible reactions? After they tested the ingredients they used what they learned to create their own cake receipes. As you can see, we need some more time in the kitchen! Go to Firsthand Learning, Inc. to see the other activities we did and blogs the students made about their investigations!

And be sure to visit here to see more Science Firshand photos.

   

The staff working on Science Firsthand are pretty excited about some of our new developments. We've got another site on board, Northside Community Center, who hosts an after school program at Peabody Elementry where seven groups are working on investigations. The students in the STARS program decided that they wanted to investigate their questions around water, rockets, construction, electricity, cranes, the earth, and entomology. Science Center staff will be assisting the adult mentors in the program with developing student's questions. We'll be making a site visit on Tuesday March 25, so look out for pictures after that! Welcome aboard STARS!

Today I went to the botanical gardens with the Outdoor Community gardens. it was very fun and adventurous. by looking at the flowers and the plants, you can tell that alot of them were still dead, dbeacuse of he cold temperatures. some of the plants that i saw was a chinese juniper, lambs ears, and a snow drop, also known as the christmas flower. it is called the chriistmas flower because it is white and even though it is the winert and  normaly flowers dont grow as much, this flower grew, it grows ous out of the snow, thats why they call it a snow drop. some of the flowers that i noticed today was the camelia, tasmania tree ferm, baby tears, sheild fern, farfugium, japanese holly fern, begonia, boston fern, sping star-flower, cylomen, rex begonia, and the chocalate flower. i also saw a couple of birds like the robin bird. I saw two ducks, one male and one female. the male ducks are usally green and they have a little black outline. the females are brown, they most likely are bigger than the males.

Welcome to another exciting entry from the College Prep desk. With the snow day and a field trip, it has been awhile since we've spoken. Lets get an update on what our teens are doing in College Prep right now!

     

Freshmen and Sophomores: We are almost completed with our resume workshop series, with all teens now having completed a rough draft of a resume. Teens have taken the time to list their Academic Honors and Extra-Curricular Activities and have translated that information into a resume. This past weekend, teens spent time peer-reviewing the resumes and made revisions to their original creations. These resumes will stay with the Freshmen and Sophomores to serve as an early draft of a resume for a future job or college application.

Click READ MORE to find out what our Juniors and Seniors are doing. Click here to view more photos from recent College Prep activities. As always, if you have any questions about what the teens are doing in College Prep or need some more information, you may contact me at tmulhall@slsc.org.  

 Hi this is Leah,

I co-facilitate Learning Places with Meesa and Felix and I am now facilitating Biodiversible Teens, an Outdoor Learning and Community Engagement program that I designed. 

Biodiversible Teens meet on Saturday afternoon after learning lab and Tuesdays after school.  Cindy will be setting up a blog soon for the Biodiversible Teens to write about what we are doing.  In the meantime, I will tell you the purpose of the program.  The teens will study the natural, social, and built environments in the neighborhood East of the Taylor Building, near Herbert Hoover Adams.  They will be looking to identify and map a safe outdoor area within walking distance of Adams that can be used as our outdoor learning classroom during the summer with the kids from Adams.  The teens will be studying what makes an outdoor area welcoming to humans and other life forms and what makes it feel safe to be in.  

Today in Biodiversible Teens we walked and looked at trees, birds, and shrubs.  We paid close attention to how we could tell trees apart when they didn't have leaves.  Some things the teens noticed were texture and color of bark, distance between branches, types of seed pods, dry leaves and buds, as well as the shapes, densities, and thicknesses of branches. At the end of our walk we found a tree that had been knocked over, Kim really liked it and wanted to bring it back to the Taylor Building.  Now it is in a bucket of water tied up to an outdoor support.  The teens will watch it to see if it will leaf out.

Today in Learning Places we did another Botany class but we had to learn about every part of the plant from ANTHER on down to Palmate Venation. It was very interesting because I didn't know that there was several parts on the plant we observed. Then during the end of Learning Lab, we had a open-mind session called PLAYER'S CIRCLE. Its were the supervisor ask us a question about a specific subject but we have to finish the statement with our open thoughts and it had to be serious. Many people opened up about that specific subject. They may not know it, but it made Learning Places alot closer to one another than before