MORE SCIENCEWORKS SPRING CAMP
WORLD RECORD HIGHLIGHTS

Here's Aubrey standing next to the world's tallest living man, Sultan Kosen, and the (formerly, recently, RIP) world's shortest man, He Pingping. For the project, the kids all sat in a circle, measured out the tall height and the short height onto separate pieces of butcher paper, and took turns drawing the body parts. They couldn't believe the contrast in heights between these two people -- and how they (the students) stood in comparison.

They also measured their waists in comparison to the world's smallest waist, a mere 15", a record held by Cathy Jung, who's been wearing corsets for 20 years and can't stand up now without one because her organs are all squished above and below her waist and her muscles there are shot! Find a coffee can -- we're talking smaller around than that. The kids' waists all measured in at around 22-30", if I remember correctly.

Here's all the butterfly art. The Queen Alexandra butterfly has an 11" wingspan, so it was easy to tell the kids to make their wing spans reach to the edges of standard paper laid out in landscape. They had the option to design their own colorful wings; I think Aubrey's the only one who chose to try to imitate it exactly. See if you can find it! (Click for larger image, of course.)


And here's one of the creepy clay creations. Dane opted to measure and replicate the world's longest tongue, which is nearly 4"!

Other clay projects were bulging eyeballs stuck up against their own eye sockets, long ropes of fingernails attached to the hand, and 7 inches of clay stretched from the ear to demonstrate the world's longest ear hair. (Grody!)

I would teach this camp topic again in a heartbeat. The subject is SO ripe for curiosity, wonder, and the opportunity for students to situate themselves in a larger context.

OOPS - SURPRISE!

How did I fail to anticipate a student would get queasy on Bizarre Human Feat Day?

It started with the hairiest family, got worse with the 12mm bulging eyeballs, and sealed the deal with the woman with the most piercings - specifically, the photo where she put her finger through her tongue hole! Poor little chap... he just said, "Um, I'm not gonna look anymore" and put his head in his hands.

In case you're concerned, he recovered. And I'm thinking there was no permanent damage.

Tomorrow is Dream and Scheme Day.

There will be foam tubing and duct tape to make humongous looping marble chutes, and newspapers and tape to make humongous twisting marble chutes; there'll be a huge box of dominoes to make a giant design to topple; there will be Dane's record-high number of Legos to build with; and an abundance of yarn for cat's cradle.

So many kids were fully engaged in learning cat's cradle today! It blew my mind. The World Record is 21,200 cat's cradles made by 3 women in 21 hours. Six kids who'd never picked up a loop of yarn learned today. It was really exciting to see how fully engaged they were, and how many "attempts" they were willing to make. "Attempt" is an awesome word at World Record Camp. It was also exciting to see children teaching each other. It even kept some of the more wound up kids mellower.

Dream and Scheme Day will include lots of kids trying to do their favorite activites, World Record Style; it will also include them brainstorming with me, so we can give ScienceWorks a list of records we think ScienceWorks should host to try to break a world record!

That's all for now. I'm actually feeling some sickness coming on -- I wish I could say it was just because the finger through the tongue grossed me out, but I happen to like that kind of stuff. It's more like a sore throat and earache. Just gotta make it through tomorrow...

THIS WEEK'S TOTALLY TUCKERING ME OUT...

But it's fun.

Field Day was perfect - for energetic boys, and as a break from a jam-packed museum on Spring Break. Tag was great, as were hula hoop, jump rope and head stand record attempts. Wore the kids out a little. They LOVED the Mentos and Soda group fountain record experiment. (Of course, anything with sugar or caffeine makes camp about the awesomest experience ever.)

Tomorrow is Bizarre Human Feat Day. It's been fun to define FEAT vs. FEET for them.

We'll cover stuff like the World's Most Tattooed Body, World's Hairiest Family, Furthest Popping Eyeballs, Longest Ear Hair, and, yes, possibly, Loudest Burp. (If I dare. Parents might boycott my classes after this, so I have to figure out if I'm prepared to go down in the name of Science!)

With scientific explanations for all of them, of course, if there's one to be had.

For one of our projects, I think I'll have students make clay representations of this:


Or this:

Should be spectacular.

THIS'LL BE QUICK SINCE A KID IS SICK

Taught at ScienceWorks again today, but had to go without one of my kids. That's right, Dane is sick. Turns out he's got Strep Throat.

Mick took him to the doctor on his lunch break, we both kept tabs on him via the phone, and he watched movies with Sharkles the Dog for a few hours. Not your ideal setup, but thank goodness I'm just a part-time worker and generally a full-time mom.

Tomorrow's camp lesson plan got switched to World Record Field Day instead of Bizarre Human Feats, because the weather's supposed to turn on Thursday (of course!) -- so we'll be trying to break records for hula hooping, jump roping, playing tag (no, I haven't found a record on that one yet, but with 13 boys in the class, I'm aiming to set one) and the Mentos and Diet Coke soda fountain.

I'm tired - and I've gotta squeeze in a midnight antibiotic dosage -- so good night. But, bless his heart, Mick's making the run to Albertson's as I type this to pick up my fountain supplies. I love that guy.

Gearing Up For Day 2!

Today was great. LOTS of energy in that lab with 14 boys and 3 girls. Fortunately, they were all happy to spend their free time with Twister, Jenga blocks, stacking cards, Guinness picture books, and dissembling and assembling the organs of the human body -- and reading or learning World Record facts pertaining to each of those.

Lab lessons today included measuring everybody's waist and then seeing how they each compared to the woman with the smallest waist (15"!) and the world's fattest twin's waist (84"!). Of course, there was lots of fun and interesting talk as to how they got that way (corsets for the first, and a messed up pituitary gland after German measles at age 4 for the second).

The kids learned a lot about the pituitary gland today -- especially because the world's tallest people were/are so tall because of an out of control gland, or a tumor on it. We did a really cool project on those tall folks, too, drawing the world's tallest man on butcher paper and hanging him up to stand next to. He also has the world's largest hands and feet, so we measured those out too.

He Pingping's not the shortest man because of his pituitary gland, but because of primordial dwarfism, and we drew him on butcher paper as well - to stand next to the tallest man.

Tomorrow is Amazing Animal Day, which will start with charades and amazing animal facts. It'll move then into watercoloring the world's largest butterfly, which has an 11" wing span and is poisonous to predators. Kids'll be able to choose whether they want to paint the largest male or female butterfly (different colors, of course) or moth.

I'm still choosing my afternoon activity, but it should be fun. Natch.

The next day gets even juicier with Bizarre Human Feats. Kids'll learn a lot of wonderful and useless information -- and you'd better believe I'm going to let them see how much work and skill it would take to be the record-holder of the world's loudest burp!

My friend Nate thinks "most ciggies in the mouth" should be in the curriculum at ScienceWorks World Record Week. Good thing they didn't hire him to teach the K-3 "hands-on" course.