there was a 'night at the museum'
1:00 PM... not just the movie. we lived it. minus the animals coming to life and such.
yesterday I hinted at the smithsonian sleepover.
so Friday night, Janet & I got to help out with this sleepover for kids 8-12 years old and their parents at the Natural History Museum.
so from 8-11pm, the kids got to go around on this museum=wide scavenger hunt where they learned about different things like dinosaurs and mummies and mammals and rainforests and stuff. they also got to do some little interactive craft or game at each exhibit.
Janet & I were put in the Ocean Hall to teach about blubber and bioluminescence. I was at the blubber station with Phoenix the North Atlantic Right Whale.
this is how my shpeel usually went for the kids when they came to my station...
"so. you guys just learned about bioluminescent plankton didn't you? those are some of the tiniest creatures in the whole ocean. this, on the other hand {this is the part where I'd point up at Phoenix}, is one of the biggest animals in the sea. this is Phoenix, she's a North Atlantic Right Whale.
"they are also one of the most endangered animals. there are only about 350 right whales alive right now.
{if there were a lot of boys in the group, I'd go into this next part. it mostly made little girls sad so I didn't bother if it was a lot of girls}
"does anybody know why they were called right whales? {no answer...} it's because when early whale hunters saw a right whale, they would call off and say 'arrrrrrrrh! tharr be the 'right whale'!' because it was the 'right whale' to hunt- right whales like Phoenix are kind of slow, and when they're killed, they float to the top of the water. {sad, right??}
"right whales spend their time swimming and hanging out with other whales, but they spend around 18 hours a day just eating. right whales are about 1900 pounds when their born, and they can grow up to 200 pounds a day. that's like growing almost two of me, every day!!
"because right whales usually swim in super icy cold water, they have this layer of fat {most kids would just interrupt me at this point and yell 'BLUBBER'} called blubber. the layer of blubber is about a foot and a half thick and takes up around 40% of their entire body weight.
"now what we're going to do here is test some how blubber works on some icy cold water..."
then I had the kids stick one hand in a bag {layered with another bag inside so their hands didn't get all goopy} coated with crisco and leave the other hand bare and put them both in a bucket of ice water. they didn't leave the bare hand in the water very long, but with the fat insulation, you really couldn't feel the cold at all. I tried it, and it was kind of amazing. I encouraged parents to try it too, just because it was kinda cool. most were entertained :)
after that, I'd stamp their paper, give them their coloring book worksheet and they'd move on to the dinosaur station in the next hall.
oh, we also got rockin t-shirts.
awesome? yes. I like to think we are.
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i can't believe they actually let people sleep over there, that is freaking awesome. so jealous.
ReplyDeleteThis is the coolest job ever! I want to try that blubber thing!
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