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SSC Interview - Staying Centered With Diana Bye
Sandy Baumgartner, CEO of the Saskatchewan Science Centre talks with Diana Bye about staying centered and focussed during stressful times.
Sandy Baumgartner, CEO of the Saskatchewan Science Centre talks with Diana Bye about staying centered and focussed during stressful times.
Diana Bye is a Yoga and Meditation Teacher with a background in business and fitness that spans over 20 years. Her inspiring leadership qualities are simply put, a "bright light". She is a beautiful soul who envelops everyone she works with in positivity and hope. Learn more about Diana and your yoga and meditation practice at dianabyeonline.com.
In 2017 Diana Bye shared an introductory yoga workout with us. You can see that video here: https://youtu.be/JeVak4-ni_c
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Build A Home Obstacle Course Activity
Keeping physically active is an essential part of living a balanced and healthy lifestyle. By using items found around your home and backyard, design, build, and complete an obstacle course that involves seven key aspects of physical fitness.
Activity Type:
Challenge
Age Group:
3 and up – can be easily adapted for any age group or fitness level.
Description:
Keeping physically active is an essential part of living a balanced and healthy lifestyle. By using items found around your home and backyard, design, build, and complete an obstacle course that involves seven key aspects of physical fitness.
What You Need:
The central idea with this challenge is to use the spaces and things you may find around your home or in your backyard. This following list is merely a suggestion of where you could begin. Remember – science is about experimentation, and there might be other things around your house that would work just as well or even better than the supplies we've listed here.
• Pens, pencils, markers
• Paper
• String
• Tape
• Bed sheets
• Pillows
• Chairs
• Books
• Cans of food
• Kiddie pool
• Pool noodles
• Scarves
• Skipping ropes
• Sports balls
• Spoons
• Balloons
• Bean bags
• Hula hoops
What You Do:
1. Think about the space you want to design your obstacle course in. Do you want to use your bedroom? Living room? Basement? Backyard? All of the above?
2. Think about the supplies and materials you have available to use. How could you use them to create different obstacles? How do you want to move through them, over them or on them? Where is the start and where is the finish line?
3. Open spaces are a great opportunity to move. What activities can you do without the supplies? (running on the spot, jumping jacks, pretending to play an instrument, dancing, balancing with one foot of the ground, stretching). What activities can you create in your obstacle course that will test your strength, flexibility, endurance, balance, agility, power, and get your heart beat up.
4. Don’t forget to work your brain muscles! Add mental activities to challenge your thinking. Are there any puzzles or brainteasers you may want to create for your obstacle course?
5. Draw a map of what your obstacle course will look like.
6. Build your obstacle course
7. Test out your obstacle course. What worked? What didn’t? How can you improve it? What else can you create for your obstacle course? Challenge yourself to beat your best time.
Explanation:
• In order to be healthy, our bodies need to move every day and need certain types of exercise to be the best body they can be.
• Creating and designing this obstacle course is great mental exercise as well, or exercise for you brain through creative thinking and problem solving. Exercising our brains is just as important as moving our bodies everyday.
• There are seven aspects of physical fitness:
o Cardiovascular – These are activities that get your heart pumping blood through your body and muscles. Great cardiovascular activities include running, walking, swimming, skipping, biking, and jumping.
o Flexibility – These are activities that help develop your range of motion around your joints like your hips, arms, knees, neck etc. Excellent flexibility activities include stretching, yoga, or just touching your toes.
o Muscular Strength – These activities develop how much force your muscles have. Activities for muscular strength include lifting heavier things (like how many books can you lift at one time?), squats, and push-ups.
o Muscular Endurance – These activities develop how many times your muscles can repeat exerting force. For example – how many times can you lift that pile of books? how many push-ups can you do?, before your muscles become too tired an need a rest.
o Power - Power activities develop your ability for speed and bursts of high intensity movements. Examples include sprinting as fast as you can or jumping as high as you can.
o Agility – These activities develop your ability to move in different directions in rapid succession. For example – zigging and zagging around some rocks on the ground, or hop-scotch.
o Balance – Balance activities are all about keeping control of your body while remaining stationary (like standing on one foot, or doing a handstand), or while moving (like walking across the room balancing a book on your head).
Taking It Further:
• How could you make your obstacle course more challenging?
• Have someone time you as go through your obstacle course. How fast can you safely complete it?
• Try doing your obstacle course 3 or 4 times in a row. Then check your heart rate or pulse to see what
• Do your obstacle course each day for a week. Keep an activity journal of your progress. Are you faster at the end of the week than you were at the beginning? Are you able to jump higher? Lift more?
• Use all your senses, paying attention to how your muscles in your arms and legs move. If someone was watching that you were safe, do you think you could do your obstacle course blindfolded? Is it easier or more difficult to do?
Other Thoughts:
• Allow your children to move, create a space in which they can pretend, move and explore. Try creating your obstacle course outdoors or in a park
• You don’t need to use extra supplies or materials. Use objects that are in the environment such as stairs inside or hills in outdoor spaces.
• Encourage questions, imagination and exploration. If an idea seems impossible, let your children explore the idea safely and let them explore solutions even if they do not work. To prevent frustration and encourage overcoming challenges, ask prompting questions such as ‘how can this be changed to have a different outcome?’
• Enjoy a bit of chaos. Take a step back and let imaginative play happen.
Helpful Resources:
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Lava Challenge
Challenge your imagination to find your way around lava. Lava is hot, liquefied rock that flows from a volcano or other opening in the surface of Earth.
Challenge your imagination to find your way around lava. Lava is hot, liquefied rock that flows from a volcano or other opening in the surface of Earth.
Start with the following scenario or feel free to create your own story: A volcano has just erupted leaving you stranded at one side of the volcano. Lava is very hot, and you can’t touch it. You need to get across the lava to reach important survival gear. How can you get across the lava without touching it? Use lava proof platforms, of course!
What you need
Lava safe platform(s) - foam mats, yoga mats, cushions, and/or pillows
Survival materials - 4 flags, ribbons, scarves, or yarn scraps
Space that is safe to move around in. If possible, try playing outside.
What you do
Setting up the game:
Place the colored flags (ribbons or scarves etc.) you must collect at one side of the room or yard; these will be the survival materials you need to collect. At the opposite side of the space, set a home base where you will start.
Spread the mats or cushions between home base and where you placed the survival materials. These are your lava safe platforms.
Playing the game:
Your goal is to collect all the flags and make it back to home base without touching the lava (or floor). Once the game has begun, you can ONLY stand safely on the lava safe platforms – you will have to jump from one to the next and not touch the floor, which is extremely hot lava. You can only bring one flag at a time back to the home base so you must work as a team to successfully retrieve all the survival materials.
If you land in the lava, you must start back at home base. And if you have a flag, you need to put it back.
Keep it challenging! Change the platforms and move them around, remove some to make it even more interesting.
Now that you have been saved from the volcano eruption, you want to be sure this doesn’t happen again. Your next challenge is to build a model of a vehicle, bridge, or other device that can safely transport people over lava.
What you need
Recycled materials such as cardboard, paper tubes, plastic containers, milk cartons
Scissors
Tape
Paper
Pen
What you do
1 - Brainstorm some ideas on what to create that would solve the problem of getting to safety if a volcano erupted.
Is it a vehicle, a bridge, or a flying machine?
What are some things you need to consider? Temperature of lava, materials that can withstand high temperatures, and other obstacles that might happen.
2 - Draw some designs or sketch your ideas.
How will it move, function, and what might it be attached to?
Does it need a foundation?
What material will you built it with
3 - Collect the supplies you will use to build a model of your design.
4 - Build your model.
5 - Explain and demonstrate your model. Think about what materials you could use if you were building your design. Would be strong enough to withstand the heat and pressure of an exploding volcano. Do you think your model would work? If not, what changes can you make to improve the design?
Explanation:
Lava is very hot! It can be 700 to 1200 degrees Celsius. Volcanologists, scientists that study volcanoes, use specially designed equipment and tools to study an active volcano.
Materials that volcanologist wear must be flame resistant, be durable, and light weight so they can easily move. It also must have a lot of pockets to hold notebooks, markers, GPS, rock samples and to hold clips for caring tools like rock hammers and their helmet.
There are a few different types of volcanologists. Physical Volcanologists study the ways volcanoes erupt. Geophysicist Volcanologists study volcanic earthquakes, gravity and magnets. Geodesic Volcanologists study the changes in the shape of the earth and how volcanoes are formed. Geochemist Volcanologists look at the makeup of different types of volcanoes and what they might send out when they erupt such as ash, gasses or molten rock.
Volcanologists know when it is safe to explore a volcano and when it is not. They use a lot of safety precautions to do their job.
Building structures where there might be a volcanic eruption will need to consider a few things such as
o Building on stilts made of titanium or tungsten, to be able to withstand the pressure and the heat of lava flow.
o Have reinforced roofs that can hold ash and other debris.
o Some volcanoes spew out dangerous gasses, therefore buildings would need to be airtight with a special system to filter outside air.
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SSC Interview - Michael Dalton-Smith - Volcanoes 3D: The Fires Of Creation
Ryan from the Saskatchewan Science Centre joins Michael Dalton Smith, writer, producer, director, and cinematographer of the IMAX movie Volcanoes 3D: The Fires of Creation.
Ryan from the Saskatchewan Science Centre joins Michael Dalton Smith, writer, producer, director, and cinematographer of the IMAX movie Volcanoes 3D: The Fires of Creation.
Volcanoes 3D: The Fires of Creation is a tale of science, culture, and thrilling adventure. Earth is a planet born of fire. For billions of years, volcanoes have helped forge the world we know. From the continents to the air we breathe and even life itself, all have been shaped by volcanic energy. These processes have created extraordinary ecosystems and wildlife habitats. With over 500 active volcanoes, the Earth is bursting at the seams with these forces of mass construction. The story of volcanoes is the story of the planet’s creation and the story of us.
An adventurer and business owner with over 17 years of experience in film & television, Michael Dalton-Smith is a leader in the production of factual Canadian television programming. As owner of Digital Crossing Productions, Michael has directed, produced and acted as cinematographer of several TV series including Volcanic Odysseys, Kenya Wildlife Diaries, Nomads of the Serengeti, Ol Pejeta Diaries and Ultimate Africa, which have aired on networks including Smithsonian, National Geographic and Discovery Channel. Michael is also a leader in the technical aspects of film-making, and he is on The Giant Screen Association’s Technical Committee, advising and presenting to peers interested in best technical practices for IMAX® and Giant Screen films and the future of film-making. Michael is a passionate activist for wildlife conservation and has filmed in some of the most remote and challenging places in the world.
Ryan and Michael talk about the movie, what it takes to shoot an IMAX movie near a volcano, the impact the movie has had, and more!
Learn More:
Related Links:
Want to explore a volcano in your own home? Buy a Volcano Combo from Atom + Geek!
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Stop Motion Movie Challenge
Get creative, use your imagination, and direct your own motion picture! Using single images, you will create your own movie using stop motion animation.
Stop Motion Animation
Get creative, use your imagination, and direct your own motion picture! Using single images, you will create your own movie using stop motion animation.
What you need
There are many great apps that you can use to create your animation. Here are a few suggestions that we have tried and are available to download for free:
You will also need:
Backdrop – cardboard, whiteboard, or poster paper
Camera on a phone or tablet
Tripod to hold the camera
Toys or other objects
Clay to make claymation
What you do
Write your story. Start by building your story. What do you want it to be about? Use your imagination to think of a unique story. Having a storyboard to get your ideas out helps when you are capturing your images later. Each box in your storyboard has a drawing of the image you want to capture along with the actions you want to take.
Build your set. Create a backdrop that is stable and will not move. This can be done using cardboard or other heavy material. Draw or add graphics to create the background you want for your story.
Create your characters. Using your story as a guide, find your characters. You can use toys, action figures, or even make your own out of paper or clay.
Start filming. Be sure to have the app you are using already downloaded. Each app will be a bit similar, but it is a good idea to review any available tutorials or make a few test videos and practice using the apps features.
Tips and Tricks:
Be sure to have good lighting. Position the lights so there are no shadows as you take the images.
Use a tripod for the camera and a stable background. Both should be kept still for the entire scene. This really helps to make sure that all the images are consistent from picture to picture (or frame to frame) and the only things that move are things you want to move. Some apps will use something called onion skinning, which shows a shadow of the previous image. This feature helps to know how each object has moved.
Use scrapbook paper or posters as a cool background. You can also use a green screen with some apps to be able to change the background later. Here are a few examples of short stop motion videos.
Sample Stop Motion Videos
Explanation:
Stop motion animation uses multiple images connected together to make an animation. In each image something changes just a bit, making what you are watching appear as if it is moving. In most films, there are 24 still images (frames) per second. Your brain puts all those images together as a series of moving images.
Notes:
At Home Lesson Plan - http://www.makerspaceforeducation.com/stop-motion-animation.html
Tips To Get You Started - http://www.teenlibrariantoolbox.com/2015/12/take-5-stop-motion-animation-hacks-for-a-makerspace/
Instructables - https://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Make-a-Stop-Motion-Video-Using-your-Phone/
Collection of Apps - https://www.colourmylearning.com/2017/11/the-best-stop-motion-animation-kits-for-kids/