We are in the middle of science fair planning at school, so when I was watching the movie, Igor I had to laugh. Poor Igor (John Cusack) is obsessed with breaking out of his predestined roll as a hunch-back assistant to evil scientist, Dr. Glickenstein (John Cleese), so he enters a creation in an evil science fair.

I couldn’t agree that mandatory science fairs are evil, but more on that later.

After reanimating a road kill bunny, Igor decides he’s ready for a bigger project, creating a Bride of Frankenstein-type monster (Molly Shannon) called Eva. Unfortunately for him, the town’s science fair is all about making evil monsters, and Eva is a sweet girl who couldn’t hurt a fly.

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  Have you ever wanted to go on assignment with National Geographic? Then maybe you should enter your child in the 2009 National Geographic Kids Hands-On Explorer Challenge.

Fifteen young explorers and two teachers will be selected as members of the 2009 National Geographic Kids Hands-On Explorer Challenge Expedition Team and will win the field trip of a lifetime — a 12-day expedition to Peru with National Geographic and local experts as their guides.
Highlights include exploring the ancient ruins of Machu Picchu, voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, and visiting Tambopata Reserve deep in the Peruvian rain forest, where team members will have the opportunity to help in a research laboratory. All winners will also receive a digital camera courtesy of Nikon.

The challenge is sponsored by National Geographic Kids magazine, PromPeru, and the marketers of PURELL.

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I recently watched the History Channel’s Life After People on DVD*, which combines visual effects and interviews with leading experts to show what happens to the planet if humans vanished. It’s basically the story of how civilization would decay, and how Mother Nature would reclaim and renew the Earth. The thought provoking documentary made me wonder what kind of children’s science activities could you do – besides watching the Life After People DVD of course – to explore the concept of decay. And what kind of children’s cooking activities could show you how you preserve food?

What decays?

• Build backyard compost bins or indoor vermicomposters (worm composters) for food and yard waste and watch the decomposition.
• Walk outside in the woods, the beach, or a park and look for evidence of natural materials like leaves, dead trees, and cut grass which are decaying. Even rocks break down into pebbles and sand. Contrast with man-made waste like glass and plastics that do not decay. Find some man-made materials that do decay like metal (rust) or paper.
• If you can stomach it, visit a local taxidermist to find out how the flesh is removed from animals. You can see the defleshing process online, but you may not want to share the pictures with the kids. Pretty graphic, but some kids love the gross out factor.
• Put a few food items on the counter and watch them decay – bread gets moldy, fruit turns into rotten mush, and if you’ve watched Super Size Me, you know that McDonald’s french fries don’t decay. (Don’t let this experiment go too long or you’ll have a smelly room full of fruit flies.)

And how can we prevent decay?

• Take a piece of untreated wood. Cover half with a some sort of deck sealant and the other half without. Leave outside for a few weeks in the sun and rain. Observe how to the two halves look compared to each other after being exposed to the elements. Theorize how the sealant prevents the wood from weathering and decaying. What do you think is more harmful to the wood – the sun, freezing and thawing, or getting wet and drying? (Probably all three.)
• Talk about the different ways we preserve food – salting, smoking, cooking, drying, freezing, canning, pickling, and refrigerating. Even cheese, ice cream and yogurt making are just ways to preserve milk. To explore this further, here’s a children’s food preservation science activity link. For cooking activities you could: 
  • learn how to make fruit leather 
  • make some pickles under three hours
  • make some homemade yogurt with a yogurt machine or make yogurt with a without a yogurt machine

(*Thanks to Attention!PR for the review copy of Life After People.)

Did you know that March is Brain and Brain Injury Awareness month? Brain Awareness Week, organized by the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, was last week but events are going on worldwide all month to advance public awareness about the progress and benefits of brain research.

Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives is part of  The Dana Foundation, a great resource for parents and teaches on brain science. It features Brainy Kids Online, a website for children, teens, parents and teachers with links to games, labs, education resources, and lesson plans.

As part of Brain Awareness Week, the Dana Foundation website also has links to puzzles and educational resources. One of the documents I found extremely helpful was Brain Books for Budding Scientists—and All Children with its list of brain books

As author Carolyn Phelan writes:

Any library can supply you with children’s books about the brain, but a dull, inaccurate, or outdated book can be worse than none at all. A well-written and illustrated children’s book, though, can help spark the imagination of the next generation of scientists, doctors, and citizens. Children’s books can help both to take the mystery out of science and to instill curiosity about the natural world. They can also remind adults how to simplify and explain complicated subjects for young, inquisitive minds.

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From Charlesbridge Publishing comes, Sneeze! by Alexandra Siy and Dennis Kunkel. For fourth through six graders, Sneeze! features nine kids discovering nine different reasons for sneezing including allergens, dust mites, bright lights (a reflex) and viruses. The book features full-color pictures of sneeze-inducing irritatants, human nerves and neurons, all 400 to 222,220 times larger than life.

Since the book shows cells close up, a fun activity to go along with Sneeze! is Make Your Own Cell Cookies.

My son Nathan did this activity in his second grade science class. (Younger children could do this with some adult supervision and older children will enjoy it as well.) The kids in Nathan’s class loved this activity because of the hands-on approach to learning science by using food, and most importantly eating their creations after the activity was completed.

Make Your Own Cell Cookies

Materials:

1. Large sugar cookies (one per child)
2. Cake decorating frosting (at least 4 different colors)
3. Cake decorating candies (at least 3 different kinds) – good choices include licorice, M&Ms, small marshmallows, red hots, Jolly Ranches, etc. Nuts and dried fruit can be used, but beware of food allergies!

Activity:

1. Review plant and animal cells, organelles, and organelle functions. A great website for this is Cells for Kids, which has lots of links to similar activities
2. Explain to the children that they will be making their own “cell” cookie.
3. Each child should choose at least six organelles to create on his/her cookie using the frosting and decorations provided.
4. Allow children to be creative. After they finish their cell cookies, have each child identify the organelles on his/her cell cookie and explain their functions.
5. After they’re done, they can eat their cell cookie. Delicious!

I’m reading Healing Night: The Science and Spirit of Sleeping, Dreaming, and Awakening. Author Rubin R. Naiman explains how the erosion of night (darkness) by artificial light is one of the things contributing to sleep disorders like insomnia. I’m one of those people who like a dimly lit room and am constantly turning off the lights my family turns on. Still there’s nothing like going camping or into the countryside away from the town lights, and observing stars, planets and meteor showers with your family.

Sometimes it’s impossible to leave the city. Instead, you may want to try sleeping on the roof like the little girl in At Night who needs the night sky to help her fall asleep. Written and illustrated by Jonathan Bean, the book will be released in late July/early August by children’s book publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Two other wonderful books that deal with night come from Sylvan Dell Publishing. Influenced by Native American folktales, How The Moon Regained Her Shape deals with bullying, self-confidence, and understanding the phases of the moon. The "Creative Minds" section explains the phases of the moon and helps to answerquestions like "Why does the shape of the moon change? Moon crafts and games are also included.

Pieces Of Another World is the story of a father and child’s nighttime excursion to watch a meteor shower. The "For Creative Minds" section is loaded with information about meteors and meteor showers. While I loved the artwork in How The Moon Regained Her Shape, Pieces Of Another World struck a cord with me. I really loved how the father took his daughter on a surprise trip to share something as magical as a meteor shower. Not only is this a book about appreciating nature, but it’s about father-daughter bonding, too.

Pieces Of Another World comes with a recipe for Comet Cookies. It’s a little messy, but it sounds like a bit of delicious, educational fun.

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When I saw this snack on the FamilyFun e-newsletter (sign up here) I just had to share.

Snail Snack
Makes 4 to 6 pinwheel sandwiches.

This silly-looking snack may appear to be moving at a snail’s pace, but it goes together — and disappears — quick as a wink.

Ingredients:

1. Mayonnaise or whipped cream cheese
2. Large tortilla (square if possible)
3. Lettuce or baby spinach
4. Sliced deli meat of your choice
5. Sliced cheese of your choice
6. Gherkin pickles
7. Chive stalks

Instructions:

1. If necessary, trim the rounded edges of the tortilla to make it square, then spread on a thin layer of the mayo or cream cheese.
2. Layer on the lettuce or baby spinach, then the meat and cheese, and roll it up tightly.
3. With the seam on the bottom, slice the tortilla into 2-inch-wide pinwheels. For the snail’s heads, cut a pickle in half at an angle. Poke two small holes in the uncut ends and stick pieces of chive with knots at one end in each for antennae.
4. Slip each pickle half under the edge of a pinwheel, securing them together with a toothpick, if necessary.

Click here to see a step-by-step video demonstration of this recipe.

Since this snack appeals to the preschool crowd, a great book pairing would be Are you a Snail? (Backyard Books) or Snail, Where are You? Make the snack, and read aloud while you enjoy your snail treat. Yum!