Just for fun...here is a story I wrote for the company e-newsletter, which I edit. Does gold float? KBR engineers teach lessons in density to Girl Scouts by Liz Johnson, March 11, 2014 Which is more dense – an orange inside its peel or an orange that has been peeled? KBR volunteers posed that question to hundreds of Girl Scouts who participated in the annual Girls Exploring Math and Science fair at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. For five years, KBR has sponsored the GEMS program, which provides information to girls about careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. “GEMS is open to girls of all ages, but most of them are in elementary to middle school,” said volunteer Melissa Owens, Technical Professional - Environmental, Operations. “We conducted an experiment on density. Last year, the parents told us that they like experiments they can replicate at home, so we created a low-cost experiment that uses household items. With our lesson, parents can incorporate teaching moments at home.” Along with Owens, KBR engineers Nexal Flores, Sarah Korellis, Mariel Sturm and Xiaobo Wang set up a booth display with a tub of water and various items such as fruit (oranges and apples), corks, coins, rocks and a half-filled water bottle. The KBR crew, who are all members of KDEC -- KBR Discover Engineering Committee, posed different questions to the girls, with the more challenging questions going to the older girls. “For the younger girls, we would ask them if the cork or the rock would sink,” said Wang, Associate Technical Professional – Electrical, IGP. “For older girls, we pointed to a triptych we brought that has dialogue from the movie Titanic and asked for real-life density examples such as how does a life jacket provide flotation and how does a massive steel ship float.” For those students who excelled at the toughest density experiments, the KBR volunteers presented the Archimedes’ principle for density. An ancient Greek mathematician and engineer, Archimedes devised a method to test if a crown was forged of solid gold, or if silver diluted the gold crown of King Hiero II. If submerged in water, the crown would displace an amount of water equal to its own volume. This density would be lower than that of gold if cheaper and less dense metals had been added. Archimedes’ experiment proved that silver had been added. “Our interactive experiments had the girls – regardless of their age – quite intrigued,” Owens said. “After we explained the principle of density and performed the experiment, we tested their knowledge, and most of them understood the lesson and were able to justify the result.” Ah, and to the question posed at the beginning of this story – did you get the right answer? The peeled orange sinks like a rock. The rind of an orange is full of tiny air pockets which help give it a lower density than water, making it float to the surface.
Posted on: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 02:01:11 +0000
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