Marshmallow Toss!

Day #2 in Summa Science. School has just started and we are already having fun. So many marshmallows, so many ways to toss them! The constraints were 1. Build a lever and then identify what type of lever was used to toss your marshmallow 2. Toss your marshmallow 1.5 meters into a bucket using the machine that you designed and built. 3. The machine had to be built and disassembled in the same class period. 4. Each student was required to draw their final design and include measurements. 5. Students will be documenting their design process. A fun time was had by all! That's engineering! Tomorrow students will look at the effect of moving a fulcrum on a lever arm and how moving it affects how far a marshmallow is thrown. That is inquiry!

Wind Energy

All

along my summer trip through the West I saw wind turbines. Of course, I was expecting them in the Columbia River Gorge, but they were in fact much more prominent in the gorge than they were the last time I drove through it a few years ago. Here the turbines are somewhat removed from human scale, as they are perched high above Interstate-84 where they stand out against the barren basaltic cliffs. Occasionally the turbines are closer, giving them a more human scale. These things are enormous. I knew that the gorge was a hotspot for turbines because of the wind that often blows there, but as I was to learn as I traveled to other states, they are found elsewhere in even greater numbers.

Who knew that Minnesota and Iowa would be where turbines rise out of corn fields? They can be right next to a farm house, a barn, a town. The scale is enormous. At times I imagined that they were tripods from the books by Samuel Youd (by the way if you have not read this sci-fi trilogy, I highly recommend that you do). The appearance of the landscape to me was unearthly. People here live among these giants, drive their tractors next to them. Cows munch grass near them, horses seek shade beneath them.

The next hotspot for turbines was in Colorado and Wyoming. In fact, Wyoming is quite an energy state. There were large numbers of wind turbines on ridges and along the highway, clustered together in the most remote locations. How do they assemble these out here? How do they transport them to distant hills? One blade alone needs a double long trailer to haul it. Elsewhere in Wyoming were natural gas plants. This state seemed the least populated of any that I traveled through, yet it is indeed energy rich. How is this energy transported to population centers? So many questions. I definitely need to learn more.

Moving Heather into Madison, Wisconsin

Here is Heather's House in Madison. She and her roommate Hailey share the lower left half of this house. There are four apartments. Two on the bottom floor and two on the upper floor. You can see the great bay window that is in the living room and the back door entry that goes into their kitchen. The Lake is just half a block behind their house and the bus stop is right on the curb in front of her house. Heather is about two miles from campus. She can walk, ride her bike, or take the bus to get to campus.

Here is the side door into the kitchen. Those two windows are Heather's bedroom windows. They are about seven feet high. Ceilings in her apartment are over 10 feet high. Every room has a ceiling fan.

Here is Heather in her kitchen, looking grumpy (She hates to have her picture taken...) You can see the side door behind her. The kitchen is all remodeled and very nice. She even has a dishwasher. I was 35 before I had one..

Dawn joined us in Madison as did my parents. It was wonderful to have this great family send off for Heather's great adventure.

Most of the car was filled with Heather's bed, her book shelves, and her books. Kitchen supplies and her clothes filled all available niches in the car.

For most of our time there, we had no furniture. However, for the last day, the rental company finally delivered the living room furniture that came with the apartment. However, the plaid sofa was a sidewalk find. It was on the curb and was in nearly mint condition - and it was a sofa bed to boot. We got the coffee table in a similar fashion. Another student was throwing it away because there was no room in his U-Haul to take it home. We got Heather a desk in a similar way. I know it sounds horrible, but it is what is done in Madison. It is a form of recycling and I think that it is a great way for students to "share resources"

While we were there we visited a family friend, Ivy Chang, at her workplace Epic. She moved to Madison last March. It was great to see her. Mom and Dad are in the picture too. They got a kick out of the tour. Each building is decorated according to a different theme. There is the Garden building, the Scandinavian building (think Ikea) , the African building, the New York building, and the Forest building.

Ivy works in the New York Building. Here is some of the local art that makes this workplace really unique.

On our final day there we toured campus with Ivy. This bell tower is right outside Heather's building where she will be teaching and where her office will be. Most of her classes will be here as well.

More Badlands.... just because...

The Badlands of South Dakota were just so beautiful that I have to post more pictures! It really felt like Heather and I were alone, experiencing the world newly made. There was so much variation between the different areas of the park. There were lots opportunities to get out of the car and walk. In fact, nothing is off limits. The entire area is open for hiking. The interaction between the sky and the Earth is so dramatic. It makes you feel very small indeed. We both decided that this was a place that we wanted to spend more time in. The starkness, the vistas, are all so inviting. It is like the Grand Canyon, only in a more human scale that a visitor can understand and appreciate. Notice how sometime the pictures are at the top and looking down into the canyons and at other times you are at the bottom looking up at the erosion features. That is the most unique part of this park, the opportunity to experience it at all the various levels, the cliffs and the valleys, the vistas and the hidden dead end canyons where it feels as though you are the first human to visit and see it since the dawn of time....

Badlands

As we wing our way East to Wisconsin, Heather and I spent the day at the Badlands in South Dakota. It was fantastic!

Here is Heather at the first overlook that we came to on our journey. She is standing right at the edge. As a mom I was pretty nervous, but she had no fear!

You can see down into many of the canyons at the overlook and really see the striations. If you can believe it, this once was a verdant grasslands - 50 million years ago, filled with many animals. One of the trails that we hiked had fossils of some of the animals that once lived here. Many of the layers are ash deposits, which formed clay when mixed with water. Many of the rock formations look like sand castles that you made at the beach as a child. The rock is very soft and crumbly. Which is one reason that it is so spectacularly eroded.

The drive through the Badlands is superb. Sometimes you are at the top of the canyons and then you descend down to the bottom. There are plenty of pullovers that you can stop at and really enjoy the beauty of this unique location. A storm was in the distance and it actually rained for a brief time while we had lunch. It provided a spectacular backdrop for the day.

Heather took some great photos. Of course with a place as beautiful as this it is hard to not be inspired (as long as you watch out for rattlesnakes! ) I have included my favorite pictures of the day, including one that she took in black and white. It looks like another time and another place. The serene beauty of this place left us with wanting to return to perhaps explore more. We will definitely return again some day.