WEBELOS

Are your 2^nd Year Webelos getting excited about crossing over to Boy Scouting??? It is almost time – wrap up the last few Awards and psyche them up!!  Maybe consider doing your weekly meeting with a troop.  You could do Activity Awards while they go to Patrol Meetings and instruction time.

FITNESS
PHYSICAL SKILLS GROUP

Heart of America Council

Activities:

Have the boys read a story in the newspaper or magazine about a drug or alcohol related incident. Have them report back to the den and discuss what happened.

Invite a nurse, doctor, dentist, or E.M.T. to talk about the effects of tobacco, drug, or alcohol abuse as well as the positive effects of eating a healthy diet. Have the boys write questions on cards so they are anonymous.

Invite a local sports figure or coach to come and discuss fitness with the boys.

Invite the grade school gym teacher to your meeting. Get to know them on a personal basis: Why did they become a teacher? What kind of background do they have? What sports are they currently active in? What do they like about teaching kids?

Let boys design posters on how to say no to drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol. Display at a pack meeting.

Show films (approved by parents and pack committee) on drug and alcohol abuse.

Invite a dietician to come and discuss the benefits of a balanced diet.

Take a field trip to a fitness or recreation center.

Have the boys collect advertisements for tobacco and alcohol. Help the boys see that the activities in those ads have nothing to do with tobacco or alcohol. Have them read the warning labels on cigarette advertisements, note the size of the warning in relation to the ad. Can people do the activities depicted in the ads without smoking or drinking?

Invite the grade school gym teacher to your meeting. Get to know them on a personal basis. Why did they become a teacher? What kind of background do they have? What sports are they currently active in? What do they like about teaching kids?

Have your den write a skit depicting ways to say ‘NO’ to drugs & smoking.

Have a police officer involved with drug prevention attend a den meeting. Have the boys interview him and ask questions concerning drugs and alcohol.

Have the boys find out what the policies are in their school about drugs and what would happen to students with drugs in their lockers, etc.

Collect newspaper and magazine articles about accidents and crimes that are drug or alcohol related.

Find out what some organizations are doing to stop use and availability of drugs, especially to, children.

Arrange a visit to the YMCA or local health club. Tour the whole facility looking at all the machines. Meet briefly with various instructors to find out what they do.  Look at a schedule of classes. Get some fitness tips from a personal trainer. Ask what they do for emergencies.

Test Your Heartbeat

Did you know that you can’t actually hear a heartbeat?  The heartbeat itself is just a contraction of muscle and is perfectly quiet.  What you can hear is the sound of heart valves snapping shut. 

Here’s how to test your heartbeat:

• Press the first two fingers of one hand over the radial artery in the opposite wrist.  The radial artery is located under the depression just below the base of your wrist. 
• Sit very quietly and move your fingers until you can feel the pulse of your blood. 
• Using a watch or clock with a second hand, count the number of beats in 10 seconds. 
• Multiply that number by 6.  Now you know the number of beats per minute. 
• Run, exercise, or jump rope for 10 minutes.
• Take your pulse again to see how much faster your heart is pumping.

Magic Circle

Can you and all your friends all sit down without touching the ground and without using a single chair?

• You need at least 3 people, similar in size to do this. 
• Everybody stands in a circle facing the same way with his or her hands on the next person’s waist.
• On signal, everybody bends their knees until they are sitting on the knees of the person behind them.
• Lead your entire pack in this activity at the next pack meeting.

What is the largest Magic Circle you can make? All the workers at a Japanese car factory formed the world’s largest Magic Circle of 10,323 people!

Jumping Rope

Jumping rope is wonderful aerobic exercise, which means that it exercises the heart. Professional athletes such as boxers skip rope to build endurance and coordination.

See how many jumps you can do before making a mistake.

How long can you jump rope?
The world record is over 12 hours.

How fast can you jump rope?
Fast jumping is best done boxer style with both feet together all the time. It is helpful to have a short rope so that it just misses the ground as you jump.

Can you jump backwards?
With practice, you will find this almost as easy as skipping forward.

Cross hand jump:
Jump in the normal way but, as the rope passes over your head, bring your hands forward and cross your wrists. Quickly uncross them before jumping over the rope.

Two jump:
Jumping with a friend using only one rope.

Smell Test

Everyone knows what a taste test is, but have you ever had a smell test?

One way to cook healthier meals is to replace some ingredients like salt or fats, which are used primarily as taste enhancements, with healthier alternatives.

Herbs and spices have strong and distinctive smells as well as flavors.  Many of the smells can be associated with favorite or special food memories from even very early childhood, like mom’s apple pie or grandma’s cookies.

This introduction to herbs and spices will come in handy in a year or two when your Webelos will be responsible for cooking their own meals in Boy Scouting.  It also provides a meeting full of surprising discoveries.

• Before the meeting, gather a number of herbs and spices.  Try to have a few examples of an herb in both dry and fresh form. 
• Also, look for prepared food items in your kitchen that have the distinctive aroma of one or two of the items you have gathered. 
• During the meeting, have the boys sniff the herbs and spices (one at a time) and try to think of a food that often smells the same.  Have them sniff a dried herb, than crush or break off a fresh piece of the same herb so they can see the difference in the strength of the aroma and taste.
• Finally, open a container of a prepared food and see if they are able to identify which herb or spice gives the food a distinctive flavor.

Activities That Will Help The Boys Understand The Harmful Effects Of Cigarette Smoking

1.     Define "pollution.”

a.     "Pol-lu-tion: to make unclean, impure, or corrupt; desecrate; defile; contaminate; dirty”.
Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language

2.     Discuss pollutants in the air in the outside environment. Use pictures from magazines or newspapers.

a.     Include: factory smoke, car exhausts, rocket launches, and smoke from someone else's burning cigarette & so on.

3.     Explain how all living things need air to breathe.

a.     Put a plant under an airtight container. What begins to happen?

b.     Put ants or other insects in an airtight jar.  Give them everything else they need to survive. What happens?  Why?

When the ants' activity begins to decrease,
open the jar and set them free.

4.     Talk about the fact that smoking cigarettes is harmful to our health and how it "pollutes" the internal environment of our body (the lungs).

a.     Blow smoke from a cigarette through a tissue. What did you observe?  Wouldn't that also make your lungs "dirty?"

b.     Hold your breath and have someone check the time.  Did you have to breathe very soon after you started holding your breath?

c.      Demonstrate the effects of sick or injured lungs:

Light a candle. Ask a boy to stand a reasonable distance from the candle. Instruct the boy to take a deep breath, and then blow out the candle.

Relight the candle. Ask the boy to stand at the same distance from the candle. Instruct him to take a deep breath and blow out at least half of the breath before attempting to blow out the candle. With the breath that is left, ask the boy to blow out the candle. What happened?

Nutrition Connection

Nutrition and fitness go hand in hand.  Teach the boys the four basic food groups and what each does for the body.

• Have the boys make a poster or collage showing foods that belong in each group.  Use magazines and advertisements from the Sunday papers for these. 
• Let each boy make up a menu for a meal and let the other den members check it for balance.  This would be good to do for a campout menu. They need to be balanced also.

Milk Group

• Builds teeth and bones

Milk and Milk Products including cheese, cottage cheese and ice cream

Fruit-Vegetable Group

• Builds energy and helps your body defend against disease

All kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables

Protein Group—

• Builds muscles, bones, and blood.

Beans, rice, meat, cereal, grits, fish, bread, peanut butter

Bread-Cereal Group

• Quick energy builders, helps to make your body work better.

Flour products, eggs, spaghetti.

Jump the Beanbag

• A small beanbag is tied on the end of a rope or heavy cord.
• The leader stands in the center of the circle made up of the players facing him. 
• The leader swings the beanbag around the circle at ankle height. 
• Once a player is hit he must leave the circle. 
• The last player left is the winner.

A.B.C.

Two players hold the end of a rope about 10 feet long.  With rope lying flat on the ground each player jumps over the rope. The rope is then raised about four inches high, which is ‘B,’ and every body, jumps over. Continue raising the rope four inches with each letter of the alphabet until only one player is left.

Shuttle Run

Area and Equipment - You'll need

• Two blocks of wood, 2 inches by 2 inches by 4 inches
• A stopwatch.

Set Up:

• Mark two parallel lines on the ground 30 feet apart. 
• Then put the blocks of wood behind one of these lines. 
• The child will start from behind the other line.

Procedure:

1.     The timer should raise his arm and say, "Get ready!"

2.     Then the timer simultaneously says ‘Go!', lowers his arm, and starts the stopwatch.

3.     The Webelos Scout runs from the starting line to the wooden blocks, which have been placed just behind the second line.

4.     He picks up one of the blocks, runs back with it to the starting line, and places the block behind the line. The block must be placed, not thrown, on the ground.

5.     Then the Webelos Scout runs back to get the other wooden block.  He picks up the other block, and carries it back across the starting line.

6.     As the Webelos Scout crosses the starting line with the second block, the timer should stop the stopwatch. The Scout's time should be calculated to the nearest tenth of a second.

7.     The Scout should then be given a chance to do the event again.  The better of the two times will become his time for the shuttle run.

Indian Star Reach

Materials needed:

• Long piece of rope,
• Six cardboard stars,
• Six clothespins.

Directions:

• Tie the rope overhead at an angle, starting just out of reach of the shortest person. 
• Space the stars along the line with clothespins.
• The first boy jumps to touch a star, starting at the lower end.  He must tag one star before moving on to the next one.
• Count how many stars he can reach. 
• Repeat with the next boy. 
• This can be a team competition, or a personal quest.

In the Garden

All Webelos stand in a circle. The leader calls out the name of a garden vegetable. If it grows below ground, boys sit down (beets, carrots, potatoes). If it grows above ground, boys remain standing (peas, tomatoes, beans). If boys do the wrong action, they are eliminated. Toward the end of the game use less common vegetables such as okra, eggplant, peanuts, endive.

Last boy left is the healthiest eater!

Balanced Diets?

• Make up a chart with the food groups plus "junk." listed across the top.
• On the side make six lines and list breakfast, lunch, and dinner for yesterday and today.
• As the Webelos arrive, ask them to complete the form by filling in the name of the foods they ate. (Boys do not put their name on the paper.)
• Collect the forms and hang them up.
• Ask boys to circulate reading them and then vote for the most balanced diet shown. 
• The winner can receive a gift certificate for ice cream at a local store.

Betcha Can’t

1.     Put a paper on your forehead.  Write your name on it.

2.     Twirl one thumb clockwise and the other thumb counterclockwise.

3.     Write a sentence with one hand and at the same time use the other hand to put coins into a cup.

4.     Write your name with your non-dominant hand (the opposite hand than you normally use.)

5.     Pick up a piece of paper from the floor without bending your knees.

Thumbless

Give each boy two six-inch strips of adhesive tape. Ask them to help each other taping their thumb and forefinger together. (Both hands) Next ask them to untie their shoelaces, unbutton a button, peel an orange, thread a needle, etc. Find out how essential the thumb is for manual dexterity!

Footprint Mural

• Work in a large area like a garage. Roll out mural paper on the floor.
• Have pans of paint set up around the edges.
• Boys take off their shoes, step in the paint and start walking slowly!
• The only rule is they cannot walk on top of another footprint.
• Have pans of water and towels available for clean up.
• Talk about proper foot care.
• Take the mural to the pack meeting as a backdrop far your skit. etc.

Fancy Writing

Give each boy two pieces of paper and a pencil. Ask him to remove both shoes and write his name using the pencil in his toes. Try each foot on a different paper. Is one easier? Can you read it?

Fitness Stations

• Invite den parents to one of your meetings.
• Set up stations around the house and yard with one parent at each.
• Give boys an index card which the adults will sign upon completion of their activity.
• Stations could include:

How many jumping jacks can you do in 1 minute? Push a balloon five feet with your head. Shot-put six beans into a can. Walk ten feet balancing an egg on a spoon. Think up some other fun ones to use.

SCIENTIST
TECHNOLOGY GROUP
Heart of America Council

Activities:

• Talk about the various branches of science and how they differ.
• Do the atmospheric pressure tests or balance tests in the Webelos Book.
• Make Fog.
• Make Crystals.
• Do the inertia experiments in the Webelos Book.
• Invite a local Weatherman to your den meeting to talk about the climate during the year.
• How is weather different in the Southern Hemisphere?
• Plan a scientific experiment to be demonstrated at the pack meeting.
• Visit an industrial lab
• Visit the Museum of Natural Science
• Visit a planetarium
• Visit a TV news weather station
• Visit a high school or college science lab
• Go to a community science fair
• Have a magic show with each boy doing an optical illusion
• Visit an eye specialist and learn how the eyes work.
• Visit the control tower of the Metropolitan Airport or visit a Municipal Airport.
• Learn about the principles of fight.
• Tour an airplane and look at all the control dials.

Optical Illusion

Materials:

• A sheet of paper about 11 inches long.

What to do:

• Roll the paper into a tube one-inch in diameter.
• Hold the tube to your right eye and place the side of your left hand against the middle of the tube, with your left palm directly toward your left eye. 
• Keep both eyes open as you look through the tube and you will "see through" your left hand.

What is happening:

Since one eye is looking through the tube and the other is looking at the hand, the two views blend to form an optical illusion of a hole in the center of the left palm. A slight shifting of the tube may improve the illusion.

Illusion Circles

Need:

• Cardboard or poster board,
• Scissors,
• Pencil,
• String,
• Ruler,
• Circle Compass,
• Buttons,
• Markers.

Directions:

• With a circle compass, draw a circle on the cardboard, about 4 to 6 inches around.
• Cut out the circle.
• Draw two of the three patters shown, one on each side of the circle.
• The pie-like design is colored in using two different colors alternately.
• The other two patterns should be partially colored in black, as illustrated.
• Find the exact center of the circle by finding the compass hole.
• Punch two small holes on opposite sides of the point with a pencil point – about 3/8” from the middle works the best. It’s important that each hole is equal distance from the center or the wheel will wobble.
• Find two big buttons whose holds line up with the holes in the circle.
• Cut a piece of strong string about 3 feet long.
• Thread the string through the circle and the buttons.
• Tie the two free ends of the string together.
• Hold one end of the string loop in each hand.
• The illusion circle should be in the middle.
• Have a friend wind up the circle or it can be done by holding the string a little slack, and winding the edge of the circle against the body.
• When the circle is wound about ten or fifteen times, pull the string. The circle will spin as the string unwinds, and as the string winds again the in the opposite direction.
• By alternately pulling the string taut and giving some slack, the illusion circle is kept spinning back and forth.
• Observe under bright light and experiment with the various color combinations the boys have picked and the different designs.

The Pendulum Phenomenon

• Fasten a white disc 3/4 inch in diameter on a 3-foot piece of white thread.  Most any small object on a string will do.
• Have someone hold the thread so the disc can swing like a pendulum. 
• Start the disc swinging in a perfectly straight line and view it from distance of three feet against a plain wall.
• Notice how the disc swings in a line like a pendulum. 
• Hold a sunglass lens over one eye only. Any plain sunglass will do.
• Observe the path of the swinging object again.
• The movement will no longer be in a line but in a circle.
• If you switch the dark lens to the other eye, the movement will appear to be in the opposite direction. For example, coming closer to you rather than farther as it swings from right to left.

The Principle:

You see best if your eyes are as nearly equal as you can get them. Shows the importance for the two eyes to receive similar images.

Diving Raisins

Materials needed:

• Raisins
• Club Soda
• Clear Drinking Glass

Directions:

• Cut a raisin into four equal pieces and drop all the pieces into a glass of clear soda.
• They should sink to the bottom.
• After a few minutes of observation, you will note that the raisins will rise to the surface, dive to the bottom, then rise and dive repeatedly.

Why?

Look closely at the raisins. What do you see? Tiny gas bubbles have become attached to each piece of raisin. The raisins and their accompanying gas bubbles rise after their combined weight becomes less than the weight of the water they displace.

Eventually, when enough gas bubbles break loose and escape, the raisins sink to the bottom of the glass and the process repeats.

Condiment Diver, World’s Simplest Cartesian Diver

Materials needed:

• Unopened condiment packet (soy sauce, ketchup, etc.) From fast food or take out order
• Clear plastic bottle with tight fitting lid (water bottle, soda bottle, etc.)
• Glass or cup of water

Directions:

First, you have to figure out if your condiment packet is a good Cartesian diver candidate. Fill a glass with water and drop in your packet. The best packets are ones that just barely float. After you have found the proper packet, fill an empty, clear plastic bottle to the top with water.

Shove your unopened condiment packet into the bottle and replace the cap. You’re done! Squeeze the bottle to make the diver sink and release to make it rise. Why? Many sauces are denser than water, but it is the air bubbles at the top of the sauce that determines whether the packet will sink or swim. Squeezing the bottle causes those air bubbles to shrink. These smaller bubbles are less buoyant and the packet sinks.

Inertia

"Inertia is the tendency of a thing at rest to remain at rest and a thing in motion to continue the same straight line.”

1.     Get a small stick about 10 inches in length and the diameter of a pencil. Fold a newspaper and place it near the edge of a table.  Place the stick under the newspaper on the table and let about half he stick extend over the edge of the table. Strike the stick sharply with another stick. Inertia should cause the stick on the table to break into two parts.

2.     Get a fresh egg and a hard-boiled egg.  Give each of them a spinning motion in a soup dish.  Observe that the hardboiled egg spins longer.  The inertia of the fluid contents of the fresh egg brings it to rest sooner.

Air Pressure -
The Upside-down Glass That Won't Spill

Fill a drinking glass to the very top with water. The water should spill over the top a bit. Carefully lay the cardboard square to completely cover the top the glass. Holding the cardboard on top, turn the glass over until it is straight upside down. Stop holding the cardboard on. It will stay on by itself.

The Undrinkable Drinks

Using a can opener make a small hole in a can of juice. Try to drink the juice. What happens when you punch another hole in the can? Open a bottle of juice.

Add enough water to fill the bottle to the very top.

Put in a straw.

Use clay to completely block the opening of the bottle around the straw.

Try to drink the juice.

What is happening: There is no air in the glass of water to punch down on the cardboard.  The air pressure pushing up on the cardboard is greater that the weight of the water. And the juice won't come out of the hole unless air can get in to push down on it.  You need a second hole to let air in. Juice won't go tip the straw because no air is getting in to push down on the juice.

Air Cannon Hockey

This game will demonstrate air pressure.  Use round cardboard oatmeal boxes. Cut a hole the size of a penny in the top. Fasten the lid back to the box tightly. 

Use a table for a field, with a goal at either end.  Have a boy sit at each end of the 'field' with a cannon (box) and put a Ping-Pong ball in the middle of the table. By tapping the back of the box and aiming it at the ball, try to score by putting the ball through your opponent's goal. The Webelos leader can demonstrate the effectiveness of his oatmeal box cannon by using it to put out a candle.

Fill cannon with smoke, then aim at candle, tap back of box, and flame will be put out. These cannons are effective up to about six feet.

Homemade Barometer

Parts:

• milk bottle,
• a soda straw,
• a piece of a penny
• a balloon,
• a length of string.

Directions:

Cover the mouth of the milk bottle with the piece of balloon, tying it in place with the string. Glue one end of the soda straw to the middle of the balloon. Make a scale on a piece of cardboard, by making 1/2 inch long marks about 1/8 inch apart. Superimpose the free end of the straw across the scale, but don't let it touch the scale. Mark the scale from 1 to whatever number of lines is on the scale. Ask one of the boys to be in charge of the barometer for a month. Have him mark the number on the scale that the barometer points to each day at a certain time. This way there can be a check between your barometer and the actual air pressure as given in the newspaper each day. Remember that as the air pressure increases, the straw will point higher on the scale.

Bottle Target

Webelos take turns seeing how many toothpicks they can land in a milk bottle that is placed on the floor an arm's length away,

Players drop the toothpicks one at a time. They may lean forward, but can't move their feet.

Scientists Quiz

(True or False?) (This makes a good gathering activity)

(Make copies of this quiz for all the Webelos to try.)

1.     Electric current was discovered in Italy in 1781.

2.     Vulcanized rubber was an accidental discovery by Charles Goodyear.

3.     Madame Curie was the second woman to win the Nobel Prize.

4.     Mark Twain was the first author to submit a typewritten manuscript to a publisher.

5.     "Disks for the Eyes" was the original name for contact lenses.

ANSWERS To Scientists Quiz

1.     True, by Luigi Galvani

2.     True, in 1839

3.     False, she was the first woman.  It was in Chemistry, for the discovery of radium.

4.     True, Life on the Mississippi in about 1875.

5.     False, the name for eyeglasses that were made in Italy in 1280

A Real Attention-Getter:

Inflate a balloon and affix 3 - 4 squares of plastic tape to it.  Have a boy stick a pin through the center of each piece of tape.  To everyone's amazement, the balloon will not burst. 

When the pins are removed the balloon still will not burst. What is happening: The adhesive substance on the tape acts like a self-sealing automobile tire, adhering to the pin as it is pressed inward. When the pin is removed, the adhesive is forced outward by the air pressure from within the balloon, automatically sealing the tiny pinholes.

Air Currents

Hang two apples about 1/2 inch apart.  Blow between them - as hard as possible - You will discover that the force of breath alone won't blow them apart.  Instead, it will cause the apples to bump together.

Take a small wad of paper (paper should be a little over 1 inch square), and put it about 1 inch inside the neck of an empty soda bottle.  Now lay the soda bottle on its side and blow into the bottle.  You would think that the paper would be blown into the bottle, but will come flying out.

Get an ordinary kitchen funnel and blow into it while holding a lighted match opposite the center of the funnel. Your breath will blow the flame toward the funnel instead of blowing it out or away from you.

Line up three glasses.  Hold your mouth about 2 inches in front of the first glass and a lighted match behind the last glass (about 2 inches from it). When you blow you will be able to blow the match out.

Game

Equipment:

• Pop bottle (1 for each player)
• Balloon (1 for each player)
• Vinegar
• Baking Soda

To Play:

Into each pop bottle put three tablespoons of vinegar, and into each balloon put two tablespoons of baking soda.  At the word go, have each boy put his balloon on his pop bottle.  When the soda mixes with the vinegar the balloon will expand.  Have the boys tie off the balloons to see which is the largest. (Suggestion: Do this outside)

Bernoulli's Principle

Daniel Bernoulli was a Swiss scientist born in 1700.  He discovered that fast moving air exerts less pressure than slow moving air. This same principle makes airplanes and gliders fly.

Paper Strip Experiment

Cut a piece of paper 2" by 6". Hold the narrow end, with the other end hanging down, in front of your mouth and blow across the top. Most people think the paper should go down as you blow across the top but surprisingly the paper rises up.This is because the air you blow is moving faster than the air under the paper. That means there is more pressure on the underside than the top.

Ping-Pong Balls Experiment

You need:

• 2 Ping-Pong balls,
• Two 12” pieces of string,
• Tape, and
• A ruler.

Directions:

Tape one end of the string to the Ping-Pong ball and do the same on the second one. Tape the other ends of the strings to the ruler so that the Ping-Pong balls are hanging about 1” apart. Hold the ruler up so that the balls hang freely. Now, blow between the balls from a distance of about 3.”The balls should pull toward each other. This is because the air traveling over the curved surfaces of the balls is faster and therefore has less pressure than the air on the outside of the balls.

Paper Wing Experiment

Cut a 4” by a 8 1/2” piece of paper and fold it in half. Tape the narrow edge one-inch from opposite edge so that a wing with a flat bottom and curved top is formed.  Slip a ruler through the wing loop end opposite the taped end with the curved side up. Now, blow directly at the folded part. The wing should rise up. This shows how Bernoulli’s principle applies to wings and flight.

The Ball and Funnel Challenge

Materials:

• Ping-Pong balls,
• A few large funnels

Experiment:

Let the scouts know that it is time to have a little contest--you are going to see who can blow a Ping-Pong ball out of a funnel the easiest. All you must do is give a ball and funnel to each scout, and have them place the ball in the funnel. Then try to blow the ball out as far as they can. The ball won't move!  In order to blow the Ping-Pong ball out of the funnel, you must blow across the top of the funnel.  This activity can also be done by hooking a blower hose to the end of the funnel in order to provide a constant blowing air supply. The funnel can then be held upside down, swung around, etc., and the ball still will not fly out!

Water Up a Straw

Materials:

• A tall glass of water,
• Drinking straws

Experiment:

Place one straw into the glass of water, holding it upright and keeping the bottom of the straw just off the bottom of the glass. Next, blow a short, hard blast of air through the second straw, holding it so that it is perpendicular to the first straw and their ends are touching. Water will come spraying out of the first straw into the air.

Why:

By blowing over the top of the first straw you decrease the pressure in that area (due to the increased air velocity). This causes the water to be pushed out of the top of the straw by the higher pressure at its base.

Egg in the Bottle

Peel one or two hard-boiled eggs just before doing the demonstration. Set a small piece of paper on fire and drop it into the bottle.  Place the hard-boiled egg on top or the opening of the bottle, small end first.  The egg will be pulled into the bottle after the heated air from the fire has contracted. (As the air was heated, it began to expand.  

Why:

When the fire was extinguished, the air began to cool and contract. The egg sealed the bottle. There is less air in the bottle causing unequal pressure to occur between the air in the bottle and the air outside the bottle. The air pressure on the outside pushes the egg into the bottle equalizing the air pressure inside and outside the bottle. Air pushes on all surfaces that it touches. This push is called air pressure.

What's In A Cloud?

This activity will help you understand how clouds form and what is inside them.

Materials:

• Two small clear plastic cups,
• Flashlight (optional),
• Magnifying Lens

Experiment:

Fill one of your plastic cups 1/3 full of hot water.  Take the second plastic cup and place it upside down on the first cup. Make sure the rims meet evenly and the cups are sealed. Observe what is happening in the cups. Turn the lights out and use a flashlight to observe your cloud.  You may also get a better view using a magnifying glass. 

Why:

A cloud contains billions of tiny water or ice droplets that form around dust or salt. Clouds form when water vapor (a gas) changes into liquid and warm or cold air meet.  In this activity, the warm moisture-saturated air in the bottom of the cup moved upward and met the cooler air at the top of the cup.

Static Electricity

This activity will create static charges from a variety of materials.

Materials:

• Rice Krispies,
• Two Balloons,
• Paper Plate
• Wool Cloth,
• Pepper,
• Salt.

Experiment:

Inflate one balloon, knot it, rub it on your head or with a wool cloth, and try to stick it on a wall. Observe what happens.

On your paper plate make a combined pile of salt and pepper. Then, rub the already inflated balloon with the wool cloth and place it just above the salt and pepper. Observe what happens.

Put 6-12 Rice Krispies inside the second balloon, inflate it, and knot it.  Then rub it with the wool cloth, touch one of your fingers to the balloon where the Rice Krispies are. Observe what happens. 

What Happened?

Rubbing the balloon on your head or with a wool cloth creates a negative charge. The wall, which has a positive charge, attracts the negatively charged balloon, allowing the balloon to stick to the wall. The same thing occurs with the balloon and the pepper. The Rice Krispies jump inside the balloon because the balloon has been given a negative charge from the wool cloth. As your finger approaches the balloon it picks up a positive charge through magnetic induction just like the Rice Krispies and the two like charges repel each other.

Octagons:
Heart of America Council

How many octagons (eight sided figures) can you find:

Hexagons:
Heart of America Council

There are 28 hexagons (six sided figures) hidden in the figure.  Can you find them all.

Numbers:
Heart of America Council

Place the numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 in the circles so that any three numbers in a straight line add up to 15.

Answer:

Picture the block below as the circle.  5 is in the center

8 – 6 – 7
1 – 5 – 9
3 – 4 - 2