The Leslie Nature and Science Center was the site of education, exploration, and playful fun on Sunday. Education Director Pattie Postel, a self-proclaimed "bubble head," coordinated the first ever Bubblemania.
More than 52 kids and 36 adults attended the event on a brisk weekend afternoon.
"Child's play is more than just child's play," Postel says. "It can be educational." The staff at Leslie Nature and Science assisted families in exploring scientific principles and chemistry of bubbles.
The beginning portion of the event was hosted indoors, where kids could construct bubble wands and tri-wands made of pipe cleaners, T-shirt cotton and wooden dowel rods. They also learned about the science of color and thickness of bubbles. A bubble sphere is created when a thin film of water is surrounded by two layers of soap. The thickness of which is about a billionth of a meter. The faculty also taught geometrical connections using bubble hemispheres and how they are reflected in the natural world.
"We try to connect kids with nature," Postel says. "More than anything, it's a lot of fun." Participants were welcome to use their new bubble devices outside. She says there are three types of people in the world; poppers, watchers, and blowers. "But we don't want to pop them all, we want to let some live," she says.