2024 Life Logs, Day 76: Science Fair, Mingle & Mix, Ollie Overnight
Date: Saturday, March 16, 2024
Weather: Mostly to Partly Cloudy; High Temp 52, Low 41 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue, Falmouth MA
The day began in the Falmouth High School gymnasium where I went to see the STEAM Fair entries. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. When you add the A to make it STEAM, you are adding art ranging from visual arts, language arts and physical arts to music. The annual event where students presented science experiments used to be called science fairs but have now been extended to include more. For instance, this year Sam did not enter a science experiment. Members of his physics class built marble runs and entered those as an active display.
Jonah and Ollie both did science experiments. Ollie’s was titled Food Dye Filtration. His goal was to determine which select mediums did the best job of filtering out Red 40 dye.
The title of Jonah’s experiment was Food Dye Hyperactivity in Zebrafish. He found that food dye does affect the level of activity in Zebrafish, similar to the way it produces hyperactivity in people. He won a second place in the high school division and received a $250 check.
The top first place prize was a $3,000 college scholarship. When Heather and Justin were entering science fairs, there was no monetary prize. I think it is wonderful that today’s students get the incentive that hopefully encourages them to keep entering year after year.
In the early evening, I went to an Encore Mingle & Mix affair. This is a two hour get together in a host home where everyone brings an appetizer or dessert and their drink of choice. It is a great opportunity to make new friends. I left right at 7 pm so I could go pick up Ollie. Heather and Jed were at the Falmouth Education Foundation fund raiser where the high school jazz band provided the music. That meant Jonah was there as well. Sam was at an away soccer game, so Ollie had asked me if he could come over to my house for dinner and an overnight. He loves chili, so I made that ahead of time. I picked him up and we came home to eat and then watch another Star Wars movie. We have watched all of the major ones, so last night we watched Solo. It is about Hans Solo as a young man. I really enjoy learning the background history of the various Star Wars characters. And I love having the special time with one grandchild at a time.
