After a weekend of hosting multiple birthday parties someone reminded me that Monday (today) was the day I had agreed to assist on a field trip to the Museum of Science and Technology for a number of classes from my kids school. Yikes! Did I really agree to do that?! What the heck was I thinking?
After about an hour of a dry presentation the kids were broken up into groups and sent around to various stations to work on experiments. I was asked to man the station which contained hand held microscopes and magnifying glasses with various samples for the kids to view. In one group one of the children brought his microscope up to a frame with sugar crystals and other various powdered substances and loudly proclaimed,
"Awww, Cool! This one looks like cocaine!!!"
He's 9. His parents must be so proud.
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My favorite part of the whole darn trip was nearing the end of the day when after my group had managed to give me a nauseous headache from taking multiple trips through the crazy kitchen with me in tow, they decided they wanted to watch the "electricity demonstration."
The scientist called all volunteers up onto the stage who were brave enough to participate. Approx. 40 kids felt just brave enough.
"If you have a pacemaker, hearing aid or are pregnant please return to your seat." she announced to the crowd of children. Hopefully none of the 8 to 10 year olds were pregnant. D'uh! A few actually did decide this might actually not be a pleasant experiment to experience and left the stage.
"Okay," the Scientist announced "now that everybody is holding hands and the girl at the end is holding the large metal ball grounded to the stage we will proceed with the experiment called "THE CHAIN OF PAIN."
Half the kids on the stage dove back into the audience in a matter of seconds. We were down to about half the number of children. I'm not sure if the remaining kids were stupid or just trying to save face, but they awaited their impending fate.
Let me just tell you when they set that thing off, there were screams and kids flying all over the place. The first half of kids closest to the largest metal sphere seemed to get zapped the strongest. The sound of the static zap was quiet loud and I was glad to be enjoying the action from the sidelines, not the stage. The second half of the group seemed to receive a milder shock and remained with their hands joined looking just slightly stunned.
I'm wondering if I can borrow that equipment for the party I'm doing next weekend;-)
iglu
5 days ago
5 comments:
I'd like the home version too...
I love poorly planned and executed field trips!
OH, I remember our Science class participating in the Chain of Pain demo in High School...all to understand how electricity travels. The girl closest the point of entry felt it mostly in her legs and collapsed to the floor while the rest of us felt like our arms were heavy like lead afterwards...it was a weird pain too when we first got zapped and yes...stunned! lol
I had a giggle at the young boy who yelled out about it looking like cocaine....LOL....it makes the mind conjure images of his parents busily working in their own drug lab, of sorts. lol
I used to go on school excursions when my kids were much younger and, every time, I would come home with a migraine from the noisy bus trip. :(
Oh, I remember those headaches very well. My nephew recently went on a field trip with his little girl's class. I offered him some advice. "Make sure you take pain killers with you, lots of pain killers."
And I thought my kids were the chain of pain!
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