Taman Warisan Pertanian - Explorasi Pokok Kelapa @Putrajaya

Off we go for a guided walk through the agricultural park

Zul, our tour guide explaining that the jambu air tree was pruned in such a way to minimize fruiting and maximize fruit quality

I learnt how to differentiate between a cempedak and nangka tree.
Cempedak leaves are hairy

Nangka has smooth leaves

Serai wangi used to ward off mosquitoes

Boys playing soldiers.

They were planning an ambush, waiting for the enemy to emerge from the drain

Zul thumping a nangka fruit - if its gives off a hollow sound, it's ripe.
We were also told that the nangka is the largest fruit in the world and it is the national fruit of Bangladesh.

Harvesting paddy

That whole patch would be able to produce just one bowl of rice!

Sniffing fragant pomelo flowers

Coffee beans

Coconut Workshop
From left(clockwise): lidi broom, coconut fruit, coconut leaves and ketupat

Showing how the 'lidi' broom is made.
First remove the blades of the leaves

The midrib

Tie many midribs together to get a very useful household cleaning device - for washing floors, sweeping leaves and removing cobwebs

Scrapping coconut

Doing it the tradional way.

Fai at work

The 3 coordinators were clearly impressed by this little girl - quizzing her about her schooling and her command of the Arabic language

A rubber tree and its milky white sap

Rubber tapping demonstration

Latex in water

Removing water

Pressing out more water. The sheet is put through the rollers 3x

Drying out the sheets

Taking a peek inside the smoky and hot smokehouse

Rice husker

Paddy farmer

JY's ketupat

Ean unravelling JY's ketupat as I enjoyed my lunch of rice and ayam goreng berempah at the foodcourt

Petrosains 3rdMay2011

We were in Petrosains in search of Earth Day activities...
The Dark ride that takes us up to the science exhibits gave the kids quite a thrill, as usual.
A volunteer showed that air occupies space.

When the kids ran off to the next exhibit, she pointed out this little known fact, the position of the snake's heart is effected by gravity. Researchers certainly find out the most extraordinary things....

This is a nice one. Place a paper on the pad than watch as the pencil swivels around to make spiral designs. It says that swirly designs occurs all the time in nature - flower petals, shells, whirlpool, a school of fish, waves....

The boys went "Just like Predator!!!"

Take a piece of paper, show that it is blue -no heat. Then blow at it and see the piece of paper slowly glow red. Wonderful!

3 year old's heart rate.

Ean had a ball playing with this.

He was rather possessive of the balls and refused to let anyone else have a go at this. For the first 30 minutes or so, he let the balls go midway on the slope. The balls would roll of the loop as it lacked momentum to complete the loop.

He would pick the balls up, guide it along the loop, as if teaching the balls that it was supposed to go round the loop. He did this repeatedly.

Eventually he went higher up the slope - not all the way up though but he successfully found a spot that enables the balls to pick up enough speed to go loop the loop.

He was one happy, satisfied boy :)

Han could only watch as he didn't make the height requirement as his brother and sister slid down the 'sleeping bag' slide

Hurricane.

Nice setup of a hydrogen cell but when asked to explain, the demonstrator faltered and had to refer to his computer.

I was rather disappointed.

He insisted that the battery does not give out electricity and that the battery was the one that separated the Hydrogen and Oxygen from water. No electricity required. Errr.....

We failed to find any Earth Day activities. Where, oh, where....

science behind potato clock 28thApril2011

The potato-tomato clock is still running after a day. The tomato is rotting though and attracting fruit flies.

Fai dug up some book on electricity and one was borrowed from PJ Community library.

The magazine by Horrible Science explained the science behind the potato clock pretty well with nice graphics to boot.

From this experiment, we learnt:

1) electricity flows in a circuit

2) Zn releases electrons

3) electricity can come from a potato, tomato, banana, milk, even water with the help of wires and copper and zinc strips

Han started inquiring about electrons and Fai asked what 'current' was - saying that he thought 'current' meant current at sea.

Thanks once again S for giving us the opportunity to play around with the science kit.

Next, we will try to make our own using old copper 1cent coins, zinc nails and wires.

Potato-Tomato-Banana-etc Clock 26thApril2011

A potato clock! How interesting. There were zinc and copper strips and wires and a digital clock.

Complete the circuit with alternating zinc-copper strips and the clock comes on.

We started with 2 potatoes because it said 'potato' clock on the box, then...

Fai came running with 2 pieces of ginger. that worked too. Then...

2 onions

Banana and potato....

Tomatoes.....

Then we ventured into liquids - 2 plastic cups were provided. First up, Coca Cola...

Milk works too.

Water can be used as well.
On loan from an unschooling mom, we had a wonderful time with the science kit. Thank you S!