Saturday, December 20, 2008

Wasatch Mountain Jr High-Heber City Dec 15-18

The Lowlife crew enjoyed a week of snowy mountain views in the beautiful valley of Heber. We were lucky to drive up Parley's Canyon on Sunday evening in between storms surges that happened through out the week. We set up our exhibits in the Gymnasium which had a wonderful rubbery floor. This was a delightful situation because it absorbed the sounds of screaming kids as they all experienced the immediate jolt of electrons blasting through their connected hands.
Acoustics play an important part in the design of buildings, especially concert halls. One of our exhibits is a computer program that picks up sound waves and represents it in a spectral plot on a bar graph analyzing the frequency and amplitude in MHz. Students can sing or scream in to the microphone and see their voice represented with its Fundamental frequency along with it's harmonics. The lowest component of the waveform is known as the FUNDAMENTAL, and the others are HARMONICS, with a number corresponding to the multiple of the fundamental frequency. The second harmonic is twice the fundamental frequency; the third harmonic is three times the fundamental frequency, and so forth. It is important to recognize that the harmonic number is not the same as the equivalent musical interval name, although the early harmonics do approximate some of the intervals.
If this doesn't sound all too interesting, come visit us during one of our community nights and bring and instrument or sing a song in the microphone attached to our computer on the exhibit called, Voice Print and see for yourself!
Jeanne

Friday, December 12, 2008

West Lake Jr High-West Valley City Dec 9-12

This week Jody and I were in West Valley City. Folks here are great and the kids have been (as usual) having a blast with our exhibits! It's always fulfilling to see kids react so positively to our stuff. Especially since it's, sorry to tell you kids, educational. We were also amazed to learn that this school, West Lake Jr High, is close to 70% ESL students (English as a Second Language). At least most are classified that way, a fair amount of them are really more bilingual than ESL but they still get tagged that way. I forget the actual number but our lead teacher told us there are something like 30 different languages spoken at the school! I think that's cool and having that many different cultures under the same roof gave this visit a very distinct and wonderful feeling.
Next week we'll be in Heber for what will be another (I'm sure) fantastic visit. Community Night is on Tuesday so if you wanna come up and play in the snow be sure to stop by Wasatch Mountain Jr High and get your holiday dose of the LOW Life!
Thanks again to everyone at West Lake Jr High, keep up the great work!
Rodney

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Good work if you can get it! Monument Valley High, Dec 1-4

Once again the desert doesn't disappoint. This week Jeremiah and I were in Monument Valley and what a magical place it is. The people were GREAT (one of the teachers took the time to connect our ailing truck to the diagnostic computer the auto class has to tell see if he could fix it for us-he couldn't BUT we found out exactly what's wrong with it. Thanks Powers!) and the scenery is not to be believed. Check out the pictures; that's the view from my hotel room in the morning and the sunset over the school (in the lower left of the photo-you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them). Good work if you can get it!
Best of all, according to one of the teachers, she's "never seen so many of them involved; more importantly, I have never seen so many of them smiling". That's good to know Emily. It was great working with you and we're happy we made a difference for everyone there. The principal, Patricia Seltzer, even asked if we'd come back again next year; let's hope we can. I'd certainly love to go back.
This week we'll be in the Salt Lake area, West Lake Jr High in West Valley City. If you can come out for Community Night on Wednesday.
Thanks again to EVERYONE in Monument Valley for a fabulous visit. Especially to the visit sponsors, Rockwell Collins and the Bluff Arts Council. And thank you Larry for the pass into the Monument and to all of you out there; keep living the LOW Life!
Rodney

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Farmington Junior High, Nov 17-21

Jeanne and I found ourselves at Farmington Jr. High last week cortesy of local sponsor Autoliv. Thanks Autoliv! A great town with lots of small town cheer and high spirits. Setting up in Mr. Dallinga's science class we had just the right space for the smaller classes. We had the pleasure of working closely w/ both Mr. Price and Mr. Dallinga's eighth grade classes and were able to see all of the seventh and most of the ninth graders as well. Farmington itself showed great support through both the great volunteers - 5 in all - and the stellar turnout for community night - 80 people. A big thanks also to ATK who presented fellow staffers Rodney Kopish and Jody Ostrander w/ a $10,000 check to support the ongoing efforts of Leo on Wheels. Thanks so much ATK! All in all it was great week, thanks again for the support Autoliv and for having us FJH!
And thanks to everyone for livin' the LOW Life with us,
Jeremiah

Friday, November 21, 2008

Special Night in Farmington

Last night was Community Night for us at Farmington Junior High. In addition to having over 80 people visit our exhibits we also had a special guest; ATK. The company builds rockets and is extremely active in getting groups who are typically underrepresented in science and engineering (women and minorities) involved in these areas. In support of that goal they have generously agreed to be one of our major sponsors and last night they came by to present us with a check to help us continue bringing exciting science experiences to students throughout Utah. Thank You to ATK for your generosity and vision. Thanks, also, to LeAnne Dickerson and Holly Lamb for taking time out of your schedules to visit our program and present The Leonardo Executive Director, Peter Giles, with ATK's gift to us.
We're happy to have ATK as part of our team and part of the LOW Life!
Rodney

Thursday, November 13, 2008

North Summit Middle School, Coalville-Nov 11-14

LOW-S has been in Coalville this week and the visit has been fantastic. Everyone here has been exceptionally welcoming and hospitable. They have even treated us to school lunch. Usually I hesitate at that offer but let me tell you, North Summit Middle School makes a mean Navajo Taco. I wonder what we're having today?

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Volunteers and Pig Hearts-South Jordan Middle School, Nov 3-7

LOW-S visited South Jordan Middle School this week. Each day of the visit we worked with a different teacher and their classes. All of the teachers were great and really got involved with their students, connecting the content they saw in The Leonardo on Wheels-Science exhibits with concepts they were teaching in their classrooms.