science for bigs: research subject

[psocoptera]

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.

Comments

[asmanyaswill.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I wanna try that one...

I picked up two loaves of homemade bread today from a woman wearing a "Stand back, I'm going to try science!" t-shirt. I commented on it, she mentioned that her husband is the scientist but she bakes like one (bagels when snowed in--he wants to change four things, she wants to try changing them one at a time and in specific combinations). I described your experiments. She says: try turmeric dying. And then try washing it with soap-soap (not dish soap or laundry soap). The alkali in the soap will turn the turmeric purple. This seems a little old for Junie, but perhaps fun just to watch things change color, if your designated dying area is sufficiently color-fast. (Turmeric is pretty stubborn stuff. Or maybe that's because of the butter/oil that usually accompanies it in cooking...) I wanna try this one, too!

[cereph.livejournal.com]

"further cementing the association between science and ducks"

Ah, that is hilarious!