Exploring the Solar System
Leah Langby
April 25, 2012
Keeping Up With Kids
science | summer library program

Last week, IFLS librarians had a chance to tap into the knowledge and experience of Boyceville Library staffer Marguerite Blodgett, who has more than 200 hours of training from NASA about creating informal learning opportunities about outer space.  If you missed this workshop, you missed a fun day, filled with easy-to-recreate hands-on activities.  But don’t despair!  Marguerite provided us with excellent handouts about the session (look for the Exploring the Solar System heading)–along with some bonus handouts on making comet ice cream and stomp rockets.

Marguerite urged us to realize the important role libraries can play in encouraging students’ interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields by giving kids a chance to enjoy, explore, mess around, and not be afraid of tests or making mistakes.  Some cool ideas:

A great demonstration of how we see planets, and ways that we can get a better picture of what they look like.  Here, librarians orbit the planets with their PVC telescopes.

Creating creatures that have certain characteristics and need specific atmospheric elements or food to help understand the different conditions on planets and imagine where life could conceivably exist.
A discussion of comets as dirty snow balls–or snowy dirt-balls (hence the idea for making comet ice cream), an activity about Saturn’s rings, and a few demonstrations of how the planets are distributed in the solar system.
Coming up in May–watch for details about a webinar about more Outer Space adventures, presented by Amy Ambelang (from L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library in Eau Claire) who attended state-wide NASA training earlier this month.

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