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The last session of the wonderful science programs at our local library had it’s focus on oil. The timing seemed a bit ironic as it occurred in the shadow of the big oil spill in the gulf.
As in earlier sessions, the mom leading the session had a wonderful mixture of hands on activities to illustrate where you might find oil, a bit about its properties, and how people go about drilling for it.
We started off building some custom puzzles that depicted three different locations where you might find oil.
Then she showed how oil will always float atop water (she died the water blue so you could see the line clearer in the little jar.)
The kids then constructed their underground layers in anticipation of drilling for the oil.
And, a ‘working’ model of how salt domes form and push their way up through the different layers of rock, soil and oil.
Finally, they had some hands on ‘games’ to drive home some of the points already mentioned. Releasing balloons to show oil shooting up was a fun one. Trying to drop pins into the bottle illustrated how difficult it can be to line up the drill heads to tap the oil. Rolling the ball into ‘pockets’ where a card was sitting with the drill sites contents “hidden” showed the kids that you might have to drill down several times before striking it rich.
All in all, the boys had a great time and we’ll be looking forward to when this generous mom starts back up in September.
