A busy Science Week

The annual Science Days has come to an end, and it was a long stretch for us at the Science Center. We had two successful days at the Science Faire in Tromsø, and our booth was awarded as the second best presentation. A total of 5000 people visited the Faire these two days.


Our stall presented some simple ice experiments, focusing on the increasing meltdown of the Arctic icecap. And kids and adult alike could make their own UV critter for free. Luckily it was two sunny days, and the kids were running around outside the tent after visiting us, to test their UV beads.

SciencePub, a collaborative Polar Year science project between geologists, archeologists and science centers, shared the second place with us. Being a member of the SciencePub project, it was a tribute to us as well. They had a sandbox where kids could excavate real archeological items found in Northern Norway.

The winner was Medical Faculty, bringing a infrared camera to the Faire. I want one for our Science center! It is an excellent way to display the difference in temperature between the body core and the limbs. I am one of those with constant cold hands and feet, and this cam clearly visualize that I have cold feet and a warm heart.

The week after we visited another faire at Finnsnes, with the same topics as in Tromsø. We also visited a TechFest at Skjervøy the same week, where all 4th and 10th graders in five counties were offered a variety of science activities in one day.

Giant critters at Science Fair

In two weeks time we are attending the annual Science Days (Forskningsdagene 2007), celebrated across Norway. We are doing lots of outreach work during the 8 day festival, visiting Longyearbyen at Svalbard, Høgtun, Heggelia, Skjervøy and Finnsnes, joining the two day Science Faire in Tromsø and arranging Researcher's Night at the Science Center.

The main topic this year is Melting ice - climate change. We are focusing on Melting ice, doing ice-related experiments with the kids. And we are focusing on pollution, the ozone layer and UV radiation. Everyone visiting us at the Faire in Tromsø and in Finnsnes, can build and keep their own UV critter. The University of Tromsø and Nysgjerrigper/The Norwegian Research Counsil are sponsors of the UV beads. Thanks!

To prepare our contribution to the Faires, I have been busy today preparing some decorations and large scale instructional critters. It was much more laborous to complete than the normal size UV animals, but I had fun doing it. And I think the giant critters (named UVar and Åmund) turned out rather well, and quite alike the original instructional drawing made by Anne. The bigger ones have "bead" size 5 cm, the smaller ones 3 cm. In the middle you see the original UV critter, made by UV sensitive ponybeads, and the material pack we will offer at the Fair.

Back from a week in Lofoten

Last week I toured the Lofoten islands, with the topic "Soldering certificate". The new Science theme "T&D" requires skills new to Norwegian kids, and soldering is one of them. To be able to design, make and evaluate their own electronics, they need the basic skills and then some!

One of the schools I visited, where my former teacher Åse Karlsen is the headmaster, has written about the event at their homepage. It is in Norwegian, but is accompanied with a set of photos for everyone to enjoy.

In desperate need of a coke crib

I visited a school out of town today. Anne and I went to Hamnvåg Montesorri school in Malangen, approximately two hours from Tromsø. We travelled with three topics in our car trunk, a give away geology collection, energy (Lego Education) and solids, liquids and gases.

The last topic required four bottles of Diet Coke, to have a geysir show once again. But as we saw when travelling with this roadshow in Harstad, the experiment suffer because of the travel requirements. The roads were bumpy and the bottles got tossed around back in the trunk, resulting in rather lame geysirs today. Lots of fizz got lost when opening the bottles, as if we had shaken the bottles or dropped them on the floor.

The children and their teachers were happy with the geysirs, they were spectacular enough for the young at heart, but Anne and I knew it could have been much better.

We need some sort of spring system to keep the bottles unshaken upon arrival, a Coke Crib if you like. If someone out there could come up with a device to fix this, we would love to hear from you.