Friday, February 27, 2015

Mouse and water flow non-conformity

The kids had a great time at the Children’s Museum of Green Bay and our interlude at Chuck E. Cheese’s in between. At the mouse house, our fuzzy host showed up to lead the children in his trendy rodent dance. Eliana was intimidated by Chuck E.’s size, so she stayed close to my side. Ethan was right in the mix of kids, but he wanted no part of the antics. His peers were dancing around, but Ethan just stood still with a willful look on this face.

Back at the museum, Ethan repurposed the the water flow exhibit. Its intention is to show various current patterns as you place obstructions in a stream. Instead, he mostly learned that when a steady flow enters a closed system, no matter how hard you try to stop it, that water is going to go somewhere. The same diverters designed to pin into the stream bed stack nicely into a dam as the current’s pressure holds them together. Ethan raised the water to three times its normal level, right to the brink of the exhibit’s capacity.

I instigated and played a large role in the experiment; however, the idea to go fishing in his newly fashioned lake was Ethan’s alone.