FAMILY EVENTS

Family Science Festivals:
A Family Science Festival is held each year at each participating school. These events, which consist of activity stations, target K-5 students and their families to introduce them to the curriculum health issues in a venue where families can have fun learning together. Some station duplicate classroom activities and demonstrations, while others cover the unit themes with new activities.  Family members receive paper passports so that they can keep track of their progress through the activity stations.  At each station they collect stickers, and if they collect them all, they can redeem their passports for a prize.

Family Science Festivals feature 8 to 15 of the following stations:

1. The Human Body: Families assemble and disassemble a plastic torso with removable organs.
2. Serving Size: Families test their knowledge of serving sizes for various foods.
3. Energy Balance: Using weights with calorie counts assigned to them, families try to balance their daily intake of calories with their daily energy use.
4. Sugar and Fiber: Families sort cereal boxes or beverages in order of the most to least fiber or sugar.
5. Pig Lung: Families watch a demonstration of a real pig lung that inflates and deflates and identify the parts of the respiratory system.
6. Brain: Families examine real animal brains, test their own reaction time, and take a quiz to determine whether they are right-brained or left-brained.
7. Diabetes: Families test fake urine samples with test strips to determine whether the pretend patient, John, has diabetes.
8. Heart Map: An 8’x11’ canvas diagram shows how blood flows to and from the heart. Families can walk through the diagram, picking up and dropping off oxygen and carbon dioxide.
9. Blood Pressure: Families learn the significance of blood pressure, in addition to learning to take blood pressure themselves.
10. Trait Inventory: Families look at a list of traits and try to guess which are inherited and which are learned.
11. Microscopes: Using hand-held microscopes, families view cells from various tissues (blood, skin, liver).
12. Mr. Potato Head: To learn about genetics, families flip coins to determine if the Mr. Potato Head they are building gets the dominant or recessive trait.
13. Peak Flow Meters: Families use peak flow meters to explore ideas about lung function and asthma.
14. Amazing Bronchioles: Families use LeapFrog QuantamPads to listen to an informative story about a young boy with asthma and his methods of staying healthy.
15. Non-toxic Cleaners: Families create a non-toxic cleaner and then test its efficacy by using it to wipe up oil.
16. Go Fish: Families “go fishing” in the San Francisco Bay. A chart detailing the mercury level of various fish helps participants decide whether they should throw the fish back or keep it for eating.
17. Handwashing: Families time themselves washing their hands and then look at diagrams detailing the efficacy of washing hands for 10, 20, and 30 seconds.
18. Blackbox: Families touch household objects sprinkled with GlitterBug powder, then place their hands under a blacklight to see how germs spread from the objects to their hands.