We surely do love our planet.  In the spring, the sun comes out, the blossoms bloom, and animals emerge from their winter homes.  That means we can do so much observational science!  Here are a few easy activities you can try at home that will teach you about light, animals, and plants.

How Many Colors in a Rainbow
Materials
A shallow glass baking pan
Water
White paper
Red paper
Blue paper
An outdoor table or chair

Process
1. Fill your pan about half full with water.
2. Take it outside and place it on the table so that one end is sticking out over the table edge.  Make sure it doesn't fall off the table!  You can use something or someone to anchor the pan onto the table.
3. Place your white paper on the ground where the sun is shining through your pan.
4. Slowly angle your paper until a small rainbow forms.  Experiment with the angle until you can get the largest possible rainbow.  What colors do you see?  What order are they in?
5. While holding your paper so that you can see the rainbow, gently place your blue paper on top of the white paper.  What happens to the colors?
6. Remove the blue paper and replace it with the red paper.  What happens now?
7. Switch back and forth between the white, blue, and red papers and observe how the rainbow changes.

What am I observing?
You created a mini rainbow.  Rainbows are caused by reflection and refraction of light.

Refraction refers to how light bends when it passes through different materials.  When the sunlight shines through the water, like the water in your glass pan, the light bends.  White light, like sunlight, is made up of all of the visible colors of light.  All of the colors bend during refraction, but because of their different wavelengths, they bend at slightly different angles.  When the light reaches your paper, you see all the different colors reflected.

With the white paper, you probably saw all of the colors clearly because white paper reflects white light.  When you used the blue paper, some of the colors likely appeared a little crisper.  Generally, the blue dye on the paper absorbs red light, allowing green and blue light to be reflected.  Since many visible colors are made up of green and blue light, the rainbow you saw on the blue paper likely looked similar to the rainbow you saw on the white paper.

The red paper likely changed the rainbow's appearance significantly.  The red dye absorbs blue and green light, and only reflects red light.  Removing blue and green likely left a mostly orange and red rainbow on the paper.

Model Moving Pollen
Materials
3 colors of chalk powder
3 cotton balls
3 small cups
Cotton swabs
Water

Process
1. Place each powder into a different cup, along with one cotton ball per cup.
2. Dip a cotton swab in water.
3. Roll the cotton swab along each cotton ball.

What is happening?
Pollen is a light, sticky powder that flowers need to make seeds.  In this activity, the chalk powder represents pollen, the cotton swab represents hair on animals, and the cotton balls represent plants.  As bugs and other animals touch a plant, they pick up pollen on their bodies, legs, and antennae.  When they move to other plants, they shed some of the pollen, helping the plants to propagate!

Grow a Bean in a Jar
Materials
A broad bean seed
Jar
Kitchen towel or napkin
Water

Process
1. Swirl a small amount of water around the jar.
2. Fold your napkin and place it in the jar.
3. Place the bean seed in the jar resting on the napkin.
4. Spray some water on the bean every few days.  The bean should start to grow roots in a few days.

What's going on here?
What you are observing is a process called germination.  The water causes the seed to break dormancy and initiate growth.  Bean seeds are relatively easy to germinate, as they don't need much more than water and oxygen.  Other seeds may also require sunlight, specific temperatures, scarification (a weakening of the coat), or stratification (chilling)!

We are so excited for Earth Week!  Of all the planets, Earth is definitely one of our favorites.  We've collected a few sustainability-themed activities that you can try at home.  Enjoy, and don't forget to reduce, reuse, and recycle!

Build a Pizza Box Solar Oven
Materials
Pizza box (the larger the better)
Pen or pencil
Ruler
White school glue
Black paper
Utility knife
Aluminum foil
Plastic wrap
Shipping tape
Wooden skewer or pencil
Sunlight, a warm day (above 75 degrees) and no wind

Process
1. Draw a square on the top of the pizza box's lid that is about one inch inward from each edge.
2. Use the ruler as a straightedge, and, using the utility knife, cut along each side of the square you just drew except for the side that runs along the hinge of the box.  Cut all the way through the cardboard on those three sides.  Fold the flap back slightly along the attached side.
3. Line the inside of the cardboard flap with aluminum foil.  Fold the edges of the foil over the flap to help hold the foil in place.  Glue the foil onto the flap, keeping it as smooth as possible.
4. Cover the opening made by the flap with a layer of plastic wrap.  Attach the plastic wrap to the edges using the shipping tape.  Make sure there are no holes in the plastic wrap and that its edges are completely closed.​
5. Line the inside of the box with aluminum foil so that, when the box is closed, the entire interior is coated with foil.  Glue the foil in place.
6. Glue or tape a sheet of black paper to the bottom of the box in the center.  This will act as your solar oven's heat sink.
7. Use a wooden skewer or pencil to prop the solar oven's lid up at about a 90 degree angle from the rest of the box.
8. To cook a s'more in your solar oven, place a marshmallow and a piece of chocolate between two pieces of graham cracker.  Place the prepared s'more on a small square of aluminum foil, and put it inside the solar oven on top of the black sheet of paper.  Put the solar oven in full, direct sunlight for at least 30 minutes, with flap of the oven facing the sun.

What's happening here?
Solar ovens use light and heat emitted from the sun to cook food.  They are designed to absorb more heat than they release.  Lining the box with aluminum foil allows sunlight to be reflected off of the foil and into the box.  The plastic wrap creates a greenhouse effect, allowing sunlight to pass into the box while retaining heat.  The black paper works as a heat sink, absorbing direct and reflected sunlight to become warm enough to heat up food placed on top of it.

Explore Climate Change with Before and After Pictures
NASA satellites take images from high above the Earth, and are able to capture the effects of climate change from a unique perspective.  Check out some of these incredible images here.

Are Rooftop Gardens a Good Idea?
Materials
Two shoeboxes, photo storage boxes, or half-gallon size cardboard milk cartons.
Sod
Exacto knife
A sunny spot outside on a hot day
Thermometer
Clock or timer

Process
1. Place one of the box's lids (or side of a milk carton) on the sod.  Using the exacto knife, carefully cut around the lid to get a piece of sod the same size as the lid.  Place the cut-out sod piece on top of the box.
2. You should now have one box with sod, which will represent your rooftop garden house, and one without, representing a house without a rooftop garden.
3. On a hot, sunny day, put the thermometer in the box with sod on it, close the box, and take it outside.
4. Place the box in a sunny spot.  Leave it there for 30 minutes.
5. When 30 minutes have passed, open the box and quickly read the temperature.
6. Put the thermometer in the shade near the box.  After it has adjusted to the shade, read the temperature.
7. Repeat these steps with the box that doesn't have sod on it.

What's happening here?
Rooftop gardens are a possible way to diminish the urban heat island effect.  Rooftop gardens generally absorb heat and insulate buildings better than tar and gravel roofs.  While both boxes were probably warmer than the temperature in the shade nearby, the box with the sod should have been relatively cooler inside compared to the other box.

Historically, women have not always been given the recognition they deserve for their contributions to science.  Here are some amazing women, whose work continues to impact STEM today.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  We thought we would celebrate with a little leprechaun science magic.  Try this out and let us know how it goes!

Shamrock Launcher
​Materials:
Short pencil or popsicle stick
Thin rubber bands (2)
Cardboad tube (2 empty toilet paper tubes or empty paper towel tube cut in half)
Packing tape or other strong tape
Scissors
Cotton balls (green ones, for St. Patrick's Day flair)
Single hole punch

Process:
1. Cut down the side of one of the toilet paper tubes lengthwise.
2. Squeeze the roll so that it becomes narrower, about half the original diameter, then tape it to hold it in place.
3. Punch two holes opposite one another, half an inch away from the end of the skinny tube.  Or, if you are using a popsicle stick instead of a pencil, use scissors to make narrower holes the same shape as the popsicle stick.
4. Carefully push your pencil or popsicle stick through the holes.
5. On the second toilet paper tube, cut two slits into one end of the tube, about 1/4 inch long and 1/2 inch apart.
6. Cut two more slits on the same end of the tube, directly across from the first two.
7. Carefully loop one rubber band through the slits on one side, so that it hangs from the cardboard piece in the middle.  Put a piece of tape over the slits to reinforce the carboard tab.
8. Loop the other rubber band through the slits on the other side of the tube.  When you are finished, the tube should have a rubber band hanging from each sitde.
9. Holding the rubber band tube so that the rubber bands are at the top, slide the narrower tube into the wider one, with the pencil end at the bottom.
10.  Carefully loop each rubber band end around the pencil.  Hold you launcher so that the pencil is at the bottom.  Place a cotton ball on the top, resting inside the narrower tube.
11.  Tilt the launcher down, but not so far that you drop the cotton ball.  Pull back on the pencil and release!

You used two types of energy in this activity.  As you drew back on the pencil, you added potential energy to the system.  When you released the pencil, the potential energy became kinetic energy!

If you've been following along, you'll know that the Artemis II mission did not launch during the first launch window in early February of this year.  The second window was for early March, but it is looking like the rocket will not be launching yet.  Engineers have encountered an issue with the flow of helium to the rocket's upper stages.

To address the issue, the SLS (Space Launch System) and the Orion spacecraft need to be rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building.  NASA expects this to be a relatively quick issue to fix, so the next possible launch window will be the beginning of April.

The Artemis II crew has been in quarantine leading up to the launch window.  They were released form quarantine on Feb. 21.

You might think that there isn't a way to celebrate President's Day with science projects, but you'd be wrong.  Everyday, you are likely to encounter the face of Abraham Lincoln or George Washington...on a coin!  Here are some fun and easy science activities that use coins.

Green and Clean Pennies
Supplies
4 or more pennies (some from before 1982)
Vinegar
Salt
2 small, non-metal bowls
Paper Towel

Process
1. Put a piece of the paper towel in the bottom of each bowl.
2. Place two pennies in each bowl.
3. In the first bowl, pour in a little bit of vinegar to soak the paper towel.  Allow the bowl to sit for an hour.
4. In the second bowl, pour in some vinegar and salt.  Swirl the bowl to dissolve the salt.  The vinegar and salt dissolve the outer layer of dirt on the pennies.  It should take about 30 seconds for them to start to shine.  Flip them over and wait another 30 seconds.
5. Remove the pennies from the second bowl, rinse them with water, and let them dry.  You now have two clean, shiny pennies!
6. After an hour, the pennies in the first bowl should be starting to turn green.

What is happening?
In the first bowl, the vinegar speeds up a chemical reaction that happens between pennies and oxygen called oxidation.  When copper oxidizes, it turns a greenish color, forming a compound called malachite.  There is more copper in pennies created before 1982, so the reaction is more visible.

In the second bowl, the vinegar and salt create a chemical reaction that dissolves the copper oxide (the dirty spots) and some of the copper on the outside of the penny, giving you a shiny penny.

Flowers and Copper
Supplies
Fresh flowers
2 glass cups
Water
1 penny from before 1981
Toothpaste

Process
1. Prepare your coin.  Use a small bit of toothpaste to clean the coin by rubbing the toothpaste onto the penny and letting it sit for three minutes.  Rinse the toothpaste off.
2. Trim your flowers to fit the two cups.
3. Put about an inch of water into each container.  Make sure the same amount of water is in each cup.
4. Place flowers in each container.  One container is the "control".  This container will not have a coin in it, so that we can see what happens to the flowers with no intervention.  The other container is the "variable".  Put your penny at the bottom of the variable container.  Keep both containers in the same place.
5. Observe what happens to the flowers over the next seven days.

What is happening?
Copper has antibacterial properties, which can potentially keep flowers fresh longer by killing germs that would break the flowers down faster!

Coin Power
​Supplies
6-8 pennies
6-8 nickels
Strip of aluminum foil
Paper towels
¼ cup white vinegar
1 tablespoon of salt
Multimeter (voltage tester)
Small LED pin light (optional)
Small bowl
Small plate

Process
1. In a small bowl, combine the salt and vinegar and stir until the salt is dissolved.
2. Cut the paper towels or paper napkins into small squares slightly smaller than the coins. You will need at least 20 squares.
3. Dip the squares into the vinegar and salt mixture.
4. Place a dry paper towel on a plate. Take a strip of aluminum foil that's about 1 inch x 3 inches and fold it lengthwise in thirds. Place the foil on the paper towel. Then layer the coins and the paper on top of the foil in a pattern: first a penny, then paper, then a nickel. Repeat the pattern until you run out of paper squares. The stack should have a penny on the bottom and a nickel on the top. The paper squares should not overlap or hang over the edge of the coins.
5. Test the voltage of the battery. Touch the black lead to the strip of the aluminum foil and touch the red lead to the nickel on the top of the stack. Set the multimeter to a low voltage of direct current.

What is happening?
Nickels are made of a mixture of metals, including zinc. Pennies are made from several metals, including copper. Both zinc and copper conduct electricity. When two different metals are connected by an electrolyte (in this experiment, it's the vinegar and salt solution), a chemical reaction occurs at the surface of the metals. The metals are the electrodes. When these electrodes are connected by a wire, they create an electrical current.

For more fun coin activities, check out the U.S. Mint's kid webpage!

Punxsutawney Phil woke up today and saw his shadow, which means six more weeks of winter, right?  Well, maybe.  Actually, the groundhog is wrong more often than he is right.  Over the last century, he's only been right about 39% of the time, making his predictive power worse than a coin flip!  So why do we even have Groundhog Day?

February 2nd is based on "cross-quarter" days.  It's a midpoint between the solstices and equinoxes.  The first cross-quarter day of the year happens in the period of February 2-6.  It has many traditional names including Candlemas, Imbolc, St. Brigid's Day, and Setsubun (in Japan).

In the traditional Japanese Lunar Calendar, cross-quarter days mark the beginning of seasons, unlike here, where we base the start dates on solstices and equinoxes.  According to the traditional Lunar Calendar, spring begins on the first cross-quarter day, roughly the beginning of February.  If you go by the solstices and equinoxes, this would be roughly the midpoint of winter.

Long before the groundhog was chosen as the predictor of spring's arrival, Europeans believed that clear weather on Candlemas forebode a long winter.  When German-speaking settlers arrived in the New World, they brought the superstition with them.  While it would be nice to have such a simple way of predicting the weather, unfortunately, Phil's predictions are not grounded in science.

When groundhogs emerge from their burrows at this time of year, they're not really looking for their shadows; they're looking for mates.  The first groundhogs to emerge are typically males.  They take a few days to mark their territories, and then head back underground to hibernate for another month.

One last thing you should know: groundhogs do not enjoy being handled by people.  Punxsatawney Phil has definitely been known to bite his handlers during Groundhog Day observations.

With the Artemis II spacecraft on the launchpad and engineers doing final checks in preparation for spaceflight, the crew of the upcoming mission have gone into quarantine.  NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen have entered the pre-flight period called the health stabilization program.  This is a period of isolation to help prevent the astronauts from picking up any illnesses that could delay their flight.

Typically, astronauts go into quarantine about 14 days before launch.  If all goes well with the wet dress rehearsal, they will fly to Kennedy Space Center in Florida about six days ahead of the spaceflight.  There, they live in astronaut crew quarters until launch.  During quarantine, they can continue regular contact with family (provided they follow quarantine rules), but they avoid public places, wear masks, and maintain distance with people they come in contact with.

If the wet dress rehearsal shows that the spacecraft is not ready for launch, the astronauts can come out of quarantine and will reenter quarantine 14 days before the next flight window.  The first flight window opens up in early February.

You can read more about the Artemis II mission preparations here. 

The Artemis II mission is set to launch this year, marking the first manned return to the moon since the end of the Apollo program.  As we get closer to the first possible launch window, there is still a lot to do to get ready!1

The SLS system and Orion spacecraft are currently at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.  Soon, (no earlier than Saturday, January 17th) the agency will send both parts of the rocket from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39B.  Though the two sites are only four miles apart, the journey takes up to twelve hours to complete!

Once the integrated rocket and spacecraft reach the launch pad, there is a long list of preparations that need to happen.  These include connecting ground support equipment, powering up integrated systems, and a final walkdown at the pad by the crew.

At the end of January, NASA will perform what is called a "wet dress rehearsal".  This is a prelaunch test to fuel the rocket.  Teams load more than 700,000 gallons of cryogenic propellants into the rocket, perform a countdown, and practice safely removing propellant from the rocket.  The astronauts are not onsite for this rehearsal.  There will be multiple runs of this rehearsal.  NASA engineers will use lessons they learned from the unmanned Artemis I launch to ensure that the vehicle is as safe as possible for the astronauts.  If needed, the SLS system and Orion will be rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building to make any necessary adjustments.

Following a successful wet dress rehearsal, there is a flight readiness review, where all systems are checked.  If everything is working properly, a launch date will be set.  The earliest possible launch date is February 6th.  If the spacecraft is not ready, there are also possible launch windows in March and April.  Check out this article for more info.  We'll keep you up to date with Artemis's activity here as well!