Week 6 - To Be or Knot to Be? Möbius Strips with the Mad Scientists!

OM NOM NOM nom nom!

Sadly, last Thursday was our last Mad Scientist meeting at the Beaver Valley Public Library :( since this Thursday will be our Summer Reading Club Party, see my post about that here: http://beavervalleylibrarykids.blogspot.ca/2012/08/whats-happening-this-week-party.html

Today for out theme I thought science is awesome and so far this summer we've had lots of fun looking at science themed stuff, from biology, zoology, chemistry to math, so I thought more science is always a good thing!

Voila! You see? A simple piece of paper, one loop with a twist (Mobius Strip) and a circular loop!

So, the day before I practised my Möbius strip making and paper loop making! The above and below pictures are the before and after of my loops! The fascinating thing about Möbius strips is how simple, yet complex they are! All a Möbius strip is a loop that has a twist through it! (see above picture on the left!)

Tada!

The Strange ... But True? fact about a Mobius strip that makes it so weird, is that it is characterized as a surface with only one side and one edge, WHA- what!?!! right?

But its true and you can totally try it out for yourself its easy! Cut out a strip of paper and give it a twist before you tape your loop! Then with a pen or pencil start in the middle at a point in our loop and draw a continuous straight line down the middle until you connect the line. :O

The Möbius strip was found by two great German mathematicians, August Ferdinand Möbius (for whom the Möbius strip is named for) and Johann Benedict Listing in 1958.

I'm probably not it explaining it right, but there is this great story on YouTube, that introduced me to Möbius Strips! It's a video done by Vihart, who calls herself a Mathmusician and has a YouTube channel full of crazy, awesome math and music related videos that will blow your mind!

Anyways, I played the story of Wind and Mr. Ug for the Mad Scientists, its a good story that may make you cry :( its a little sad but also well told! I'll post the video here for you to watch! Let me know your thoughts!

Week 6 - A Trick of Light? with the Young Professors!

Time to Colour! Wheeeeew!

So this Wednesday marked the second to last week of our Young Professors programming for the Summer Reading Club! (sad face :( ) The theme we talked about today was "A Trick of Light", so we discussed mysterious and uncertain happenings! We started off talking about sea monsters! So we all coloured some colouring sheets from the Summer Reading Club website: http://www.kidssrc.ca/

This is the colouring sheet we worked on:

After our colouring escapades we read through "Sophie and the Sea Monster" by Don Gillmor and illustrated by Michael Martchenko, a book that I've mentioned quite a few times this week, but you can definitely check out my review for it here: http://beavervalleylibrarykids.blogspot.ca/2012/08/library-childrens-book-review-sophie.html

The kids liked the book, as I read to them I asked them questions and quizzed them on why the moon orbits the earth! Answer: Gravity!

After our story time we went into one of my favourite games, one that I generally call The Human Knot! You've probably played it before, SINCE ITS AWESOME! But here are the rules:

• you probably first want to alert everyone that hands will be held and you will be very very close to each other, so its always good to check that that's okay with everyone!
• now that that's cleared, get everyone to stand in a circle, a fairly close to each other! 
• get everyone to put a hand into the circle and get them to grab another person's hand, only one person should be holding the other person's hand! So no triple holding or grabbing someone's wrist! 
• Once that's done get everyone to put their other hand into the circle and grab someone else's hand, not the same person's hand! OK? OK!
• And now! We have our monstrous knot! Everyone's tangled and bunched and now working together the knot must unwind without letting go of any hands! 
• Make sure the kids don't hurt each other! And for an added challenge tell the kids that not to talk at all! :O It gets tough, and fun! 

Here's some pictures of the Young Professors trying to untie their knot!