Friday, November 13, 2009

General Science: The Right Stuff



This week the kids had to design a spacesuit that could withstand the intensely high temperatures one might find on Venus. Lacking the funding to actually travel to Venus and not wanting to violate the Helsinki Declaration (ethical principles for research on human subjects), we used shlukim instead of people and boiling water instead of Venus. The kids decorated their cold-blooded subjects and then dressed them in spacesuits they designed from a range of materials including aluminum foil, plastic wrap, and inflated zip-lock bags. The subjects were then placed in boiling water for 1 minute. Afterward, the kids opened up each shluk and measured the liquid's temperature to see which one was wearing the best-insulated space-suit.

No comments:

Post a Comment