science for bigs: research subject

Project: Spin and Find
Materials: toddler, cooperative mother, Lab for Developmental Studies
Explanatory details: I like to take Junie in to be a lab rat whenever they call looking for kids in her age group
How did it go: Pretty good. I always figure that any behavior she demonstrates is data, and they can conclude that 18-month-olds are totally uncooperative with experimenter instructions, or whatever, but in fact she played along pretty well this time. We had to stand in the center of a round room in this low box with two dark walls and two light walls, with upside-down bowls in the four corners, and then a toy was hidden under one of the bowls and I picked Junie up and spun around with her, covering and uncovering her eyes, until we were totally disoriented, and the experimenter told us to stop facing some direction and asked Junie to find the toy, which she sometimes tried to do and sometimes didn't.
Things we talked about: These people were scientists and we were helping them do science!
What Junie got out of it: Five bucks and a rubber duck from the prize shelf, further cementing the association between science and ducks.