Let’s do science!

Meg the scientist making coral reef
Meg the scientist making coral reef

After our first round of sledding today, I shoveled the driveway. About 30 minutes into shoveling, I heard Meg calling me. I went to the door to check what was going on. She had her lab coat on, and told me she wanted to do some science experiments. It’s hard to argue with that! I finished up the shoveling, and then we started working on some experiments. One of her science-related Christmas presents was a kit to make coral reef (something that looks like Coral reef at least). I still don’t understand the science behind this particular thing, but I could read the directions, and it involved stuff like using the thermometer to measure water temperature, reading a measuring cup and so on. It turned out okay. I think we should have cut the pieces smaller to expose more surface area.

I got a bit of a scare when Spencer asked me a question about the experiment while I was giving a bath – does the coral reef water have soap in it or something? I panicked, because he had obviously put his hands in the solution with sodium silicate, and the directions clearly said not to touch it. (He was playing video games while Meg and I were doing science, so he didn’t know). I read up on sodium silicate, and the solution was already about 7x diluted, so it didn’t seem too critical. We washed his hands well, and he didn’t report any burning.

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