By Lonnie Huhman
Preschool children learned how to count money at the CP Federal Credit Union table.
High school students mixed food dye into different types of milks to figure out the various fat contents.
Two different age groups and two different experiences, all with the same goal Tuesday: combine fun with learning at Michigan Center’s Family Math and Science Night.
Now in its second year, the event at Michigan Center High School had students of all grades and their parents — about 300 in all — participating in a variety of experiments.
Coordinator Jessica Trefry, a seventh-grade math teacher, said the event gets the community engaged in learning about math and science — two subjects that for some are a bit unpopular — in a fun manner.
Sixth-grader Hope Phelps got a firsthand experience of the Bernoulli principle at Amber Rogers’ corner of the gymnasium. Rogers, a high school physics teacher, used a friction-less board placed on the gym floor and a bike wheel to demonstrate air flow and how it can aid in movement.
“This is a lot of fun,” Rogers said as Hope went around and around.
As Hope stepped down, she said the first lesson she learned is that the laws of Bernoulli made her “feel dizzy, but it was a lot of fun.”
Ninth-grade teacher Kathy Cramer’s physical science experiment was called “Kaleidoscope Milk.” She had students mixing food dye into cream, skim milk, whole milk and 2 percent milk. Then a drop of detergent would be placed in the middle of the milk to see which milks’ colors moved the most. More movement meant a higher fat content.
“As you can see, there is not as much movement in the skim milk,” Cramer said as students watched.