I’m a prairie kid who loves research. I just completed a Master’s in economics with a focus on public programs, labour and education. Long before that, I did my undergrad in physics & English with a math minor.

Besides my resume, you’ll find this page full of sewing projects, the odd published poem, and stories about Canadian science.

A note about the blog title: in math and physics, the prefix eigen means one's own. It comes from the german, but mostly I always liked thinking about a particle's eigenvalues, and thought I might apply the same thought to my excursions.

Preschool intro to building

Preschool intro to building

Victoria Martinez
Kids' Science, Science

The preschoolers are practicing shapes and learning to build. Usually a building challenge like this works for older kids, where they have to build the biggest tower they can. Trying to build anything was quite enough of a challenge for the 3-5 year olds, but they nevertheless built some cool little buildings.

In this case, I found it was useful to start the kids off with making a square with their clay and popsicle sticks flat down, and to have them add a straight-up stick after that. The motor skills and shape recognition here are a good level of excitement, and helps the kids discover how the clay holds sticks together.

From their, I gave them the task of connecting the top -- however they figured out a way to do this was fine, as you know, science and engineering isn't about right answers, it's about figuring out what works, how it works, and finding solutions!

 

Car building

Car building
An awesome playdough circuit

An awesome playdough circuit