Saturday, September 25th marked the second annual Science Day at the Santa Barbara Zoo. Several community partners as well as zoo staff and volunteers had booths set up from 10am - 3pm with hands-on activities ranging from figuring out the anatomy of a starfish to guess which droppings belong to which animal to discovering the Solar System and many more in between. And there are many fascinating animals, birds, reptiles, and more to see and learn about around the zoo, and some even came out of their enclosures to mingle with the public. The weather was beautiful, kids were full of energy and enthusiasm, and science teachers were ready to learn some new ideas to take back to their classrooms.
The event was geared towards science teachers (who received free admission into the Zoo with preregistration) and many of the activities from the different booths were aimed at specific grades or shown how they could be adapted for others. Rachel Ross, Gary White, Brian Haworth, Andrew Pickles, and Jessica Barton from LCOGT joined in all the fun with a few hands-on activities that could be modified to work in the classroom over several ages and levels.
Two activities were adapted from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and included making a pocket-sized, distance-scaled model of our Solar System on a piece of register tape with stickers and Seeing Through Alien Eyes which showed why astronomers use filters when observing through telescopes and how we might see things differently if our eyes were sensitive to different colors by looking through a pair of filtered glasses (two activities for the price of one!). Another used a set of carboard tube telescopes from Hands-On Optics along with a cardboard spectroscope from the Stanford Solar Center to show how these instruments work and why they are important in the study of astronomy. And back by popular demand was the infrared camera, where we took images of kids drawing on their faces with ice cubes through "space dust" (or in our case, an opaque plastic bag) while learning how observing different 'colors' of light show much more to the universe than we can see with our eyes.
All of the activities were well received and the participants were enthusiastic. The day was nonstop fun and excitement (and probably I wasn't the only one with a lost voice by the end, but it was well worth it) and couldn't have asked for a nicer day or location!
Thank you to the Santa Barbara Zoo for hosting this spectacular event and hope to see you at next year's Science Day!
