Welcome to the Weird Science Show!
posted in Cooking, OmegaDad, OmegaDotter, Science |Science fairs will be in late March, so OmegaDad decided to get started with some experiments with the dotter. Unfortunately, the experiments are daddy’s ideas, but, hey, get the kid used to doing it, right?
Firstly, she was very possessive about “MY lab!” In other words, I had to explain to her that real scientists these days were very open about their research (see PLOS) and, if they’re excited about their experiments, they’re very happy to have people in, show them around, tell them what the experiment is about, etc.
Anyway. Since OmegaDad has been Doing Bread this past year (and very nicely, too!), and trying out sourdough starters with wild yeast, he thought it might be fun to see if you could get a sourdough starter from varying fruits. He selected grapes and blueberries because both fruits have a blush on them; apples, because they don’t have a blush; and then we had a control of just plain ol’ flour and water. Herewith the ingredients:
Then there’s the scientist herself:
Note that she is wearing “goggles”. She was very concerned that everyone in her lab wear goggles, because, as she explained, “You never know when you’re going to get an explosion!” Then she demonstrated how things would blow up:
Please note the “lab coat”. Folks! Let me tell you about this amazing new costume for your kids! It’s a chef’s coat! It’s a lab coat! It’s two—two!—two coats in one! OmegaDotter received a chef outfit for herself plus a matching chef outfit for her Karito Kids Ling doll, and has since taken to wearing the pink striped black pants as pajama pants or loungewear ever since, and when time came to do the experiment set-up, she decided it would make a fine lab coat.
What followed: Placing one cup of blueberries into a Mason jar:
Mushing grapes before putting them into a Mason jar (an action shot!):
Explaining what comes next, and how you need to be careful (note the goggles again!):
Adding flour (we got a lot of flour all over everything, including the floor. There were also a grape or blueberry or two on the floor, sigh. Not that I really want you to look at our floor; please edit those shots mentally.):
Adding water:
Stirring (please note that we used different spoons for each jar, so that we had no intermixing):
She has the Evil Scientist pose down perfectly—“I have created LIFE!!! Bwahahaha!”
And then, the finale, a “Ta-da!” pose:
And then she signed off with, “Thanks for watching Weird Science!”
