SSC Interview - Discovering Exoplanets With Dr. Edward Gomez

Lisa from the Saskatchewan Science Centre talks with Dr. Edward Gomez of the Las Cumbres Observatory in Cardiff, Wales about discovering exoplanets!

Dr. Edward Gomez is the Education Director at the Las Cumbres Observatory in Cardiff, Wales.

Fascinated by astronomy since childhood, he realized that he could use math and computers to do fun things with astronomy. A professional astrophysicist, his role with the observatory is to find novel ways to engage the public in astronomy. This has taken the form of creating citizen science projects like Agent Exoplanet, interactive educational web apps like Star in a Box, and online community events like Show Me Stars. The global education hub for LCO is based in Cardiff University where he is an honorary lecturer/adjunct faculty in the School of Physics and Astronomy.

Dr. Gomez provided science advice to the BBC Wales script writing team for several episodes of Doctor Who (during the time of the Tenth Doctor), including The Sontaran Stratagem and The Sarah Jane Adventures. He regularly appears on the BBC radio wales programms Science Cafe and the Eleri Sion Show. He has served as guest judge for the national Debating Matters competition. Currently he is working at how to make a global telescope network accessible to the general public and what tools are needed to make the most of their potential. He is particularly concerned with using the power of astronomical images to inspire people who would not normally be interested in science.

Learn more about Dr. Gomez here.

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Build A Vermicompost Hotel

Invite some of your worm friends over to your brand new worm hotel! Create a living ecosystem called a vermicomposter and learn how worms can speed up the composting process of the vegetable and fruit scraps from your kitchen — making rich, natural fertilizer for your garden.

Activity Type:

Project

Age:

7 years old (with adult supervision) to adult

What You Need:

• 3 x 2-gallon or 5-gallon pails

• 1 x lid for a pail

• Drill & drill bits (1/8” & 1/4” )

• Red wiggler worms

• Newspaper

• Carbon-based material — cardboard, wood chippings, grass clippings, or recycled egg cartons

• Food scraps

• Water in a spray bottle

• Optional: a small amount of garden soil, gardening gloves, screen material, erasable marker.

Buckets And Drill For Your Worm Hotel

Starting Supplies For Vermicomposter

What You Do:

Step #1

Using a drill and 1/8” drill bit, drill holes into the sides of two of the pails. Spread out the holes from top to bottom and all around. This helps provide aeration for your vermicomposter.

Mark Holes On Two Of The Buckets

Drill Holes In Buckets

Step #2

In your third bucket, drill holes that are 6 inches from the top of the bucket. Keep all holes above the 6-inch mark and don’t drill any lower than that. This is where any liquid will be caught at the bottom of the vermicompost. Add the lid to the bucket and drill air holes into it as well. (Approximately 20-30 holes)

Mark & Drill Holes On Drain Bucket

Drill Holes In Vermicompost Bin Lid

Step #3

With the ¼” drill bit, make 15 to 20 holes into the bottom of the first two pails (NOT the liquid catching bottom pail). Remove any dangling plastic pieces from the holes and empty all the plastic bits from the pails. When completed, put one of the pails into the liquid catching pail. This is your first working pail for the vermicomposter.

Drill Holes In The Top Two Buckets

Slide The Buckets Together

Step #4

In the first working pail, cover the holes in the bottom with 2 sheets of newspaper to cover the holes and spritz lightly with water. Do not soak, only moisten! This is to allow liquid to go through to the bottom pail but prevent worms from falling into the bottom pail. 

Add Two Sheets Of Newsprint To The Bottom

Step #5

Add shredded newspaper and other carbon-based material to create bedding for the worms. This helps keep the temperature and moisture levels at the right spot for your vermicompost.

Shredded Newspaper In The Vermicomposter

Step #6

Add the worms, also add the bedding and casting (compost) that the worms came in.

Red Wiggler Worms For The Vermicompster

Step #7

Add a very small amount of food scraps and cover with carbon material. Allow the worms to adjust to their new surroundings for about a week before adding more scraps.

Store your worm hotel in a room temperature, darker location such as under the kitchen sink or in a laundry room. Make sure to put the lid on tight. Optional: You can add the screen material to the lid to help prevent flies/bugs from entering your vermicomposter.

Vegetable Food Scraps Make Great Worm Food

Cover With Shredded Paper

Step #8

After a week or so, you are ready to start adding scraps regularly. Make sure to add the right kinds of foods and not too much at one time. When adding scraps, dig a small trench on one side, add scraps and cover with more bedding or carbon-based material. Avoid using dirt for this (but it is suitable in a pinch). Leave for 1 to 2 weeks until all the scraps are processed. If they are not processed in 1 or 2 weeks, you have overfed your worms. When adding more scraps, add to the other side of the bucket and move around the spot you add the food scraps.

Swapping Buckets Around

Step #9

As the worms start to process your kitchen scraps, they will produce more and more castings (compost). As the containers starts to fill, it is time to add the 3rd and final pail to your vermicomposter.

Step #10

Add the third pail on top of the vermicomposter. Add some carbon rich shredded newspaper to the bottom, spritz with water, add scraps and more newspaper, wood chippings (small amount), egg carton or shredded cardboard.

Step #11

The worms will work their way up into the new working layer of your vermicompost over time and leave all the castings in the first working layer to be harvested. You can add a fourth bucket in time and rotate the 3rd and 4th buckets for easy harvesting.

Reaping The Rewards:

You will end up with liquid in the bottom bucket, called “worm tea”, this liquid is an amazing fertilizer. Dilute the worm liquid with water and use in your indoor plants and garden. Mix your worm castings (processed food, worm poo!) into your vegetable soil and see how great your yields are.

Tips For Best Results

Do not use meats, bones, processed foods, dairy, spicy foods, highly acidic, oily, or non-foods in your bucket, and minimize grains. Stick to vegetables and fruit as well as things like coffee grounds, tea leaves, and blended eggshells for grit and texture.

Cutting your scraps into smaller pieces helps speed up composting time and is better for smaller buckets.

Your compost bin will not smell if you are feeding them the right types and amounts of scraps, but if you do find there is a smell, then the microorganisms in your vermicompost have gone from aerobic to anaerobic, and adding more carbon rich scraps, such as shredded newspaper should help return the microorganisms return to an aerobic state

Keep your vermicompost in a place in your home that is darker most of the time (laundry room/crawl space/cupboard) and in a temperature of 13 to 25 degrees Celsius. If it is too cold or too hot, your worms will slow down their consumption. Ideal Moisture: 60-70% moisture is ideal, if too soggy add more carbon-based material. Spritz with water if you think the vermicompost is too dry.

Taking It Further:

Vermicomposting – the use of worms to convert organic waste into fertilizer.

Compost Castings - a convoluted mass of soil, mud, or sand thrown up by an earthworm or lugworm on the surface after passing through the worm's body. Castings are also known as vermicast, worm manure or worm poo.

As the worms eat through the compost in the worm bucket, the leftover worm waste(castings) is an optimal soil enricher. Red wiggler worms are the best choice for quickly converting food scraps into fertile compost and can eat about half of their weight in food every day. Tiny sensory cells in their mouths alert the worms when they have found the more nutritious scraps. When food enters the mouth, the pharynx acts as a suction pump to pull the food into the digestive tract. It travels through the esophagus, into the crop. After the food has been crushed in the gizzard, it travels to the intestine. The intestine takes up most of the length of the worm. This is where nutrients are absorbed. At the end of the worm is the anus. Dark, earthy material called “worm castings” are excreted. Worm castings are alive with soil-friendly bacteria and valuable nutrients.

Additional Resources:

https://www.saskwastereduction.ca/recycle/resources/composting/vermicompost/vermicompost-suppliers-in-sk

https://home.howstuffworks.com/vermicomposting1.htm

https://unclejimswormfarm.com/red-worms-eat-compost/

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/composting/vermicomposting/worm-castings.htm

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Wind Chimes Activity

Create your own wind chimes to dance in the Saskatchewan wind.

Activity Type:

Craft

Age:

3 to 7 years old

What You Need:

Gather Your Supplies

• Paper cup or a single egg carton cup

• Pipe cleaner, twist ties, or kitchen twine

• Strings

• Big beads

• Small bells

• Metal washer, metal fork, or a metal button

• Straws

• Scissors

• Hole punch

• Paint

• Paintbrushes

• Markers

• Stickers, glitter, or other craft supplies you have at home

Preparation:

Cut Your Strings to Length

• Cut 4 strings to a length of 30.5 cm each (about the length of a ruler).

• Cut 1 string a little longer than the rest, about 38 cm in length.

• Cut straws into 2.5 cm lengths. These will act as long beads.

What You Do:

1. Using the hole punch create 4 holes evenly spaced around the paper cup. Your holes should be just below the rim of the cup.

2. Decorate your cup with paint, markers, glitter, or other craft supplies you have at home.

3. Tie a small bell to the bottom of each of the 4 strings cut to 30.5 cm size.

4. Thread the cut straws and beads onto each string. Be sure to leave about 2 inches at the top of the string to tie on the strings to the paper cup later.

5. Tie one string of beads and straws to a hole in the paper cup. Repeat until all four beaded strings are attached to the paper cup.

6. Using a pencil carefully poke a hole in the bottom of your cup.

7. Take a pipe cleaner and thread it through the hole you just made with the pencil, leaving enough on the outside to make a loop.

8. Twist the end of your pipe cleaner into a loop. This will be how you hang your wind chime. (This loop should be on the outside of your cup).

9. With the other end of the pipe cleaner, make a second loop. This loop should be inside the cup.

10. Attach your longer piece of string to the loop inside the cup.

11. Attach the metal washer, fork, or metal button to the string you just tied to the pipe cleaner loop inside the cup. Try to tie it to be the same length as where the bells are so when you hang your wind chime the metal and bells clang together.

12. Hang your wind chime outside where it will blow in the breeze.

A Completed Wind Chime

Explanation:

The first wind chimes were used by farmers to scare away birds and animals from their fields.

The wind chime has been around for almost 5000 years. In Indonesia, wind chimes were found to be used by farmers to ward off animals from their crops. Around 1100 BC, the Chinese started to cast bells and the wind chime began to resemble the ones we see today.

The western world adopted wind chimes in the 1800’s when Asian art and design started to influence Europe and North America.

Today’s wind chimes are used for decorative purposes

Taking it further:

Listen for sounds in your neighborhood. Can you hear another set of wind chimes?

Try to modify or change your wind chimes - what other materials can you use to make new sounds?

Did you create a wind chime? Share your experience in the comments below!

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Paper Airplane Challenge

What effect does wind have on a paper airplane? Your challenge is to create various paper airplanes and test them in the wind. Humans have been creating various things that fly for hundreds of years. By exploring the principles of flight, testing out materials, and observing the wind we can learn a bit more about the effect wind has on airplanes.

Make my way back home when I learn to fly.

Activity Type

Challenge

What You Need

Paper

Tape

Scissors

Before You Start

Think about the ways things move in the wind. Why does the wind make them move? What are some things that move in the wind? What are things that don’t move in the wind? What does an airplane or jet look like in the sky? And on the ground?

What You Do

Build and test a paper airplane.

1) Select the paper: What type of paper would work best? What size do you think it needs to be? Have a few types and sizes of paper. Most paper airplanes start with a rectangle (but yours doesn’t have to!)

2) Fold the paper: Here is one way to fold a paper airplane – but there are many others. Use this one first, then try to build your own design.

• Start with a rectangular piece of paper, fold the paper in half vertically

• Unfold the paper and fold each of the top corners into the centre line, where you just made the fold.

• Fold the top edges into the centre line. The paper should have a sharp point and you should see 2 triangles on either side.

• Fold the paper in half with the folds you just made on the inside.

• Fold the wings down by folding the paper back long the long side of the airplane. Matching the top edge with the bottom of the body is helpful.

• Add some tape to the nose or point of the airplane. This will help the airplane to stay together.

3) Test: Take the paper airplane outside. Throw the airplane toward the wind. Throw the paper airplane in the same direction as the wind. What do you notice?

Ready to fly

Wings

Explanation

There are four main principles of flight, and their interactions help us to explain flight. They are weight, lift, thrust, and drag.

Weight is the force of gravity. It acts in a downward direction—toward the center of the Earth.

Lift is the force that acts at a right angle to the direction of motion through the air. Lift is created by differences in air pressure. If lift becomes greater than weight, then the plane will accelerate upward. If the weight is greater than the lift, then the plane will accelerate downward. When you see birds flying in a formation, one reason is because it creates lift for the birds behind them helping them to conserve energy.

An airfoil is any surface that produces more lift than drag. This is important for your paper airplanes. Airfoils are seen in the wings that lift the plane, the fins that add more stability and the flaps that control the airplane.

Thrust is the force that propels a flying machine in the direction of motion. Engines or muscles can produce thrust.

Drag is the force that opposes thrust. Imagine sticking your hand out the window of a moving car and flying your hand. The force that pushes your hand back is called "drag". As your hand pushes on the wind, the wind also pushes against your hand. Drag is caused by friction and differences in air pressure.

Taking It Further

Here are some additional flight resources you may be interested in:

Paper Airplane Designs: https://www.foldnfly.com/

Effects of Wind on Airplanes: https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-effect-of-wind-on-airplanes.html

Centennial Wind Power Facility: https://www.saskpower.com/Our-Power-Future/Our-Electricity/Electrical-System/System-Map/Centennial-Wind-Power-Facility

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SSC Interview: Emily Putz from Nature Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan is a great place to see migratory birds.  We spoke with Emily Putz from Nature Saskatchewan about some of the amazing migratory bird species in Saskatchewan. 

Saskatchewan is a central location on the North American Migration Flyways - or the routes followed by migratory birds as they travel north in the spring to breed and south in the winter to find food. Three of these pathways converge in Saskatchewan, meaning we get to experience a truly unique variety of birds in our province.

The Central Flyway is sometimes called the “flyway of the Great Plains” because it encompasses everything between the valley of the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. On the east, it merges with the Mississippi Flyway. As they pass over Saskatchewan, these two migratory birds routes converge.  

The Atlantic Flyway runs primarily along the east coast, but some birds that make use of it begin their journey in Alaska and the Yukon and traverse the entire continent on their journey south.  

The Pacific Flyway passes mostly through western Alberta.  However, birds like the sanderling and northern pintail do travel into Saskatchewan from this flyway: a popular stop is Chaplin Lake.  

Want to experience some of these birds for yourself? Spend some time outside to observe the birds in your neighborhood. 

Resources:  

https://www.migratorybirdday.org/ 

https://www.birdday.ca/discover 

https://www.natureconservancy.ca/en/feature-stories/migratory-birds.html 

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