The (Revised) Calendar of Science Holidays

(Note from Julie: Well, Blogger and I had a falling out over my previous Calendar of Science Holidays. So, I thought I'd recreate the post here. My apologies to those kind folks who commented on the previous version and sent me new holidays. Please add your comments or any link corrections here. Thanks!)


Each year holds a wealth of weird, wacky, and interesting -- yet under-celebrated -- days for science, like World Meteorological Day and World Water Day. I decided to put together a calendar of annual science holidays and special events that celebrate science so that we could enjoy them together.

National events listed here refer to the United States, unless otherwise noted. Of course, if you live outside of the US, you are more than welcome to celebrate with us! (And I'll admit, some of these holidays are a little less "official" than others.) I expect to update this post in the future, so feel free to send me your special day and I'll add it to the list. Thanks!

* * * *

January
5 - National Bird Day
17 - Kid Inventors' Day
Last Saturday of the month - National Seed Swap Day

February
2 - World Wetlands Day
11 - National Inventors' Day
11 - International Day of Women and Girls in Science
12 - Darwin Day
mid-month - Great Backyard Bird Count (four days)
third week - National Engineers Week (includes Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day)

March
12 - National Agriculture Day
12 - Plant a Flower Day
14 - Pi Day
22 - World Water Day
23 - World Meteorological Day
on or near Spring Equinox - Sun-Earth Day
National Wildlife Week

April
12 - Yuri's Night (The World Space Party)
13 - International Plant Appreciation Day
14 - Citizen Science Day
22 - Earth Day
25 - National DNA Day

second full week - National Robotics Week
last week - National Environmental Education Week
the week of the new moon - International Dark Sky Week 
Earth Month

May
4 - Star Wars Day (May the 4th be with you!)
8 - National Rain Day (Australia)
12 - National Lab Day
22 - International Day of Biodiversity
23 - World Turtle Day
third Friday - Endangered Species Day
first full week - National Wildflower Week

June
5 - World Environment Day
6 - National Butterfly Awareness Day
8 - World Oceans Day
15 - Global Wind Day
first Saturday - National Trails Day
National Pollinator Week

July
20 - Moon Day
22 - Pi Approximation Day

August
fourth Sunday - World Kitchen Garden Day
National Water Quality Month

September
12 or 13 - Day of the Programmer
14 - Protect Your Groundwater Day
18 - International Observe the Moon Night
18 - World Water Monitoring Day
25 - Nature Rocks Day
26 - World Rivers Day (Canada)
third Saturday - World Tree Day
last Saturday of the month - National Public Lands Day
24-30 Take a Child Outside Week

October
10 - Powers of Ten Day
14 - No Child Left Inside Day (date varies, part of Earth Science Week)
15 - National Fossil Day (date varies, part of Earth Science Week)
17 - Geologic Map Day (date varies, part of Earth Science Week)
20 - World Statistics Day
23 - National Mole Day (celebrating Avogadro's number)
4 - 10 World Space Week
week containing the 10th day - National Metric Week
second full week - Earth Science Week
third full week - National Chemistry Week
Waste Reduction Week (Canada)

November
10 - World Science Day (for Peace and Development)

15 - America Recycles Day
30 - Computer Security Day

December
(No listings yet.)

[Last updated - 3/17/18: Updated World Weather Day into World Meteorological Day, added Global Wind Day, International Day of Women and Girls in Science, World Science Day, International Dark Sky Week, Pi Approximation Day, Day of the Programmer; 3/16/18: Added Citizen Science Day and National DNA Day; 3/28/14: Added Star Wars Day and No Child Left Inside Day, corrected dates. 10/20/12 - Added Geologic Map Day.  1/29/11 - Added National Seed Swap Day; edited link for Sun-Earth Day. 10/4/10 - Added World Space Week. 9/17/10 - Added International Observe the Moon Night, National Metric Week. ]


Photo credit: SantaRosa OLD SKOOL via flickr // CC BY 2.0

The States of Matter

My son recently came home with a corrected test which covered three states of matter: solid, liquid, gas. His frustration with the test was evident, as you can see in this photo.

The essay portion of the test asked, "Describe how you use the three states of matter in your life every day." He re-wrote the question so that it read, "Describe how you use three of the states of matter in your life every day." To his teacher's credit, she gave him full points for his answer.

It baffles me that we still teach that there are only three states of matter, when clearly there are more. However, this is not a new problem. Years ago, my husband got into trouble with his high school chemistry teacher for arguing (correctly) that plasma - much of the sun is in this state - is a fourth state of matter. Bose-Einstein condensate, a fifth state of matter, was first created in 1995, and a sixth, fermionic condensates, was produced for the first time in 2003.

Less than a month after this test was returned, a possible new state of matter was described in chicken eyes: disordered hyperuniformity. I thought back to my son's answer(s) for question 2 on his recent test: How many forms of matter exist on Earth? He circled three, the expected answer, but then added his own response: "no one knows."

The Periodic Table of Haiku

I found something so strange and wonderful online today that I had to share it with you. The University of Minnesota at Rochester has put together a Periodic Table of Haiku. Most elements have a poem written about them and their properties. According to the website, this project was a 2009 venture of UMR's Center for Learning Innovation and seeks to "integrate chemistry and creative writing." The poems were written by students and faculty, and some of the haiku are quite good. Most poems reflect on the physical properties of the elements and describe how they react chemically.

I'm always interested in the many ways that people manage to combine science and the arts, and this project is a great example. Unfortunately, not all of the elements have been selected for poetry. So, I thought I'd take a stab at silicon & aluminum, two of the neglected elements. The project requires the haiku to have a 5-7-5 syllabic structure - so I did too - but modern haiku doesn't have to follow that format.

Silicon (Si)
master conductor:
your pure electronic grades
drive the world wide web


Aluminum (Al) in your reflection
I see pots and pans, cars, trucks ...
where are the people?


Photo credit: (top) Jannes Pockele, (bottom) Chris Harrison, via Flickr // CC BY 2.0

Get ready for National Chemistry Week!

National Chemistry Week is a community-based annual event hosted by the American Chemical Society. The theme for this year's National Chemistry Week, running from October 18-24, 2009, is "Chemistry -- It's Elemental!" to celebrate the 140th anniversary of the Periodic Table of the Elements.

The ACS has some great stuff on their website, including this free 12-page chemistry booklet, an interactive periodic table that can be printed in different languages, and October's issue of ChemMatters, which celebrates National Chemistry Week with games and articles (you can order a free copy using the “subscribe” link). For more fun, be sure to drop by ACS's Science for Kids section.

Looking for multimedia about chemistry? Check out Bytesize Science, over 40 short video and audio clips by the ACS on topics like honeybees, allergies, yak cheese (!), and the artificial mouth. Also, MEET ME AT THE CORNER has released a short video about perfume in honor of National Chemistry Week.

(My thanks to Donna Guthrie of MEET ME AT THE CORNER for letting me know about this event.)

----

P.S. I can't resist adding this. Check out this video and Meet the Elements!

Website of the Week: Knowitall.org

Visit ETV's "educational web portal" at Knowitall.org. You can try out simulations and interactive learning lessons on a number of topics, including science. Check out the Science Activities & Simulations at NASA Online and explore topics like Lightning & Static (my favorite), Lift, and How Sound Travels. Or visit Kids Work! and test drive your new job at the virtual hospital -- a medical lab technician, pharmacist, or a public relations specialist -- as part of Job Play. If that doesn't grab you, drop by The Hobby Shop, where you can look at items like fruit flies under a virtual microscope, run a virtual chemistry experiment, or "throw" water balloons with the catapult (it took me three tries to hit the target!).

Give yourself a chance to fail

Yesterday was a bad day for me and science. First of all, I forgot to write my Monday post -- oops! Sorry about that.

Then, there was the science experiment.

My son got a kit for Christmas for growing sugar crystals. Part of this kit consists of little, sugar-seeded sticks. You suspend them in a sugar solution and then supposedly, over time, the sugar crystals "grow" on the sticks.

Well, we never got that far. The kit came with one (count it, one) package of super-special sugar that was supposed to grow super-special big crystals. It claimed to be pure sucrose, although the box itself admitted to sugar and egg in the ingredient mix.

To make a long story short, I burned the solution. Everything was going swimmingly, the sugar was dissolving in the water I was heating -- turning the solution from murky to clear -- when things began to boil and the solution went all frothy and bubbly. The bag clearly stated that if you overheated things, no crystals would grow.

Why? My husband, the kindly Itinerant Cryptographer, figures that I denatured the protein from the egg. I'm wondering if I somehow managed to bind the egg protein to the sugar. Otherwise, what difference would it make?

But the frustrating part of the experiment was that there was no going back. I was given exactly one bag of special sugar -- one chance to get it right.

I think too much of science education is presented this way. We believe that if we fail one test or struggle with one subject, we are bad at science. And science is all about embracing failure.

Think of Thomas Edison, the American inventor who held over 1,000 patents for things like the light bulb and the phonograph. Edison was not afraid of failure, and, by all accounts, didn't see it as something negative. Exactly how many times did Edison fail? The numbers may vary, but you can bet it was a lot.

"Invention is ninety-nine percent perspiration, and one percent inspiration," Edison is quoted as saying. His quirky enthusiasm and willingness to try anything is captured in this fascinating article, The Undiscovered World of Thomas Edison by Kathleen McAuliffe in Atlantic Monthly. She writes of one incident in his lab:

" ... Edison and his colleagues behaved with the goofy abandon of high school kids set loose in chemistry class. Searching for a liquid with specific properties for an electrochemical device, they tried caraway oil, clove oil, oregano oil, nitrogen chromate, and peppermint oil. But as night stretched on into the wee hours of the morning, they adopted a more freewheeling approach. The next notebook entry records that they tested coffee, eggs, sugar, and milk ..."

So, maybe I should try that sugar experiment again. This time, I'll make my own sugar mix, using light brown sugar, dark brown sugar, table sugar, Easter candy ...

Splendid? Maybe not

Last fall, I was making cookies for a visiting diabetic family member and decided to try substituting Splenda® (sucralose) in place of sugar in the recipe. Now, I’ll admit right here, I did not use SPLENDA® Sugar Blend for Baking, which contains real sugar. I used 100% sucralose and the results were so bad that I can see why baking Splenda® was invented.

My initial concern was that the resulting dough would be too moist, since I knew that a smaller volume of sucralose would be required to replace the sugar. However, I soon realized that I had the opposite problem. These were some of the driest cookies that I had ever baked. What went wrong?

When you think about it, cooking is just one big chemistry experiment. And since sucralose has a different molecular structure than sugar, it makes sense that it would react differently than sugar. My first working theory was that, in this recipe, water must be liberated from the sugar during the baking of the cookies. What else could explain the extreme loss of moisture?

Thanks to The Culture of Chemistry, I learned that “sucralose [Splenda] is made by chlorinating sugar, that is replacing 3 of the 8 hydroxyl (OH) groups with chlorine atoms.” Aha! Remember that the molecular structure of water is H2O? You can also think of water as a bunch of H+ ions bonded to OH- ions. Or, to put it another way, based upon molecular structure alone, sucralose should be 3/8 less likely than sugar to contribute to the formation of water (or moisture) in my cookie dough.

But does the chemistry really work out that way? I’m not sure. How much does baking really alter the composition of sugar? And my problems seemed to begin prior to baking.

So maybe there’s a simpler explanation. I found several online cooking forums that discussed the importance of sugar for moisture retention in baking. This led me to my second working theory: maybe sucralose does a poorer job of holding onto the moisture from the eggs and shortening.

In the article "C" is for Cookie, Brian Strouts, head of experimental baking at the American Institute of Baking in Manhattan, KS, is quoted as saying, "During the initial creaming mixing stage, sucrose [sugar] particles are coated with a layer of fat … When the cookie dough piece warms in the oven, the fat layer melts away allowing the water to migrate to the sugar and go into solution. As the sugar changes from solid to liquid, it causes the cookie to flow or spread."

Aha! So maybe that was my problem. Since the sucralose and shortening didn’t blend well to begin with, this process was altered. The sucralose didn’t go into solution with the water when the cookies were baking so the moisture was lost.

But are either of my two theories right? It's been six months now and I still don’t know.

And that’s what is nice about science. You can always develop a working theory (or two) and replace it with a better theory when you learn more or obtain new information. So, if you know what happened to my cookies, drop me a line and let me know!

Whatever the reason, I’m certain the chemistry of Splenda® is to blame. It couldn’t possibly be my baking, now could it?

Website of the Week: American Chemical Society

This week’s Website of the Week is the American Chemical Society. Visit ACS’s Activities for Children to learn how to make salt dough or play games like Avogadro’s Element Hunt and Plant It for the Planet. Want to learn about National Historic Chemical Landmarks? Would you like to purchase some science activity books for children? ACS has a large online public outreach section. This organization is home to Project SEED, a program that allows economically disadvantaged students to work alongside a chemist and earn some money during the summer before their junior or senior year of high school. ACS is also sponsoring an Illustrated Haiku Contest for children from kindergarten through 12th grade as part of Chemists Celebrate Earth Day 2008. (If you are in the U.S., please call the American Chemical Society Office of Community Activities at 800-227-5558, x4458 or earthday [at] acs [dot] org to learn more about the writing contests offered in your area. Entries must be received by April 11, 2008.)

Chemistry is Magic

A recent edition of the Mizzou alumni magazine (Go Tigers!) pointed me to the Magic of Chemistry^TM, a ten-year-old science program for girls that began at the University of Missouri. This hands-on chemistry workshop lets junior Girl Scouts (4^th to 6^th graders) visit different chemistry stations and complete experiments on topics such as polymers and pH. If you are part of the Girl Scouts-Heart of Missouri Council, the next workshop takes place on March 15, 2008. Not in Missouri? Check out this page if you are interested in Starting Your Own Program.