Kids experience a day in the life of a scientist – Scottsbluff Star Herald

Kids are experiencing a chance to participate in A Day in the Life of a Scientist with the University of Nebraska Panhandle Research and Extension Center in Scottsbluff.

Ashley Stevens, 4-H intern, led the student scientists throughout different activities that allow them to explore many aspects of the scientific field Thursday morning.

Two of the activities included creating boats out of tin foil and making balloon rockets.

For the tin foil boats, the children attempted to float as many pennies in the boat as possible without it sinking, and the balloon rocket gave children the chance to experience the scientific process.

Stevens had the children blow the balloons up and then used straws to attach the balloon to a string pulled across the room. The children shot off their balloon rockets to see how size affected how straight the balloon flew and how far it flew. For some of the balloons, the kids learned about scientific errors that could occur and how to retest the experiments.

Along with their experiments, the kids learned how to identify different trees with tree BINGO. They then learned about the different types of leaves on the trees and got the chance to wander around the Research and Extension Center and identify the different leaves.

The kids also got the chance to make silly putty.

Stevens said she planned out all the activities and based them off of a workshop that they did in Bayard that included older kids.

We always try to do workshops for the Clover kids, which are ages five to seven, and then with our 4-H kids we try to focus on the sciences. ... It just made sense to put the two together, said Jana Schwartz, the Extension Centers 4-H assistant.

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Kids experience a day in the life of a scientist - Scottsbluff Star Herald