Summer of Science: Battle of the Bulge

Have you ever had one of those years when things are going your way, but not easily?  Ah well, on with the blog. 


Today marked the official start to our Summer of Science series and instead of jumping all over the place we’re going to be spending this month learning about our Earth.  Beginning with why it bulges in the middle.

I’m going to share with you a video of a project we planned and executed, though not successfully.



In case you didn’t catch the real lesson of this experiment, here it is:  The force of the Earth’s rotation causes the poles to flatten out a little and the equator to bulge.


This experiment was a fail for us but there’s an easy fix to it.  Hold up a piece of string and ask your kids to imagine that the string represents the Earth.  Spin the string, lasso style, and point out that middle bulges and the top and bottom kind of flatten out, just like our Earth.  Duh, why didn’t I think of this before? 

This Thursday we’re going to talk about the our wobble and I’ll have our Summer of Science Page up and running so you can find links to all the experiments as well as a calendar for what’s coming up in the next few months!

You know I like to share, check out my Linky Party Page!