tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83421681080361416972026-02-22T13:03:45.847+01:00Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-73060837126941212222008-04-26T23:34:00.003+02:002008-04-26T23:54:52.094+02:00

After receiving 50 million kroner to our science center, our planning have changed from "dreams" to "reality". This also means that we are in a hurry. We need to gain as much experience in the field as possible, to be able to design and make a science museum worth visiting. The other day I stumbled across a very helpful blog named "Charlie's European Museum Crawl". Charlie Trautmann describes

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-21851376158295976422008-04-23T21:52:00.006+02:002008-12-10T15:58:07.082+01:00

This time of year is the least fun season in Tromsø. Knowing it is spring further south, makes it even more depressing to look outside and see snow everywhere. It varies from year to year when spring decides to show up. Anything from early April to early June is normal. This year it seems to become a late spring. The last weeks we've experienced 20-30 cm of snowfall on a daily basis. Luckily some

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-61362862815699112362008-04-20T19:49:00.006+02:002008-04-20T21:25:51.447+02:00

Some of my interests include history and linguistics, and since I was a child I was fascinated by the viking era and its influence on the western world. They were often descibed as villains, but they were also farmers, skilled craftsmen building beautiful longboats, navigators and explorers.As a kid I used to search the Atlas for Norwegian words in other countries placenames, and found quite a

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-37895180027414061582008-04-16T22:43:00.004+02:002008-12-10T15:58:07.331+01:00

Last week we finally got the money we needed to build a bigger and better Science Center here in Tromsø! We received 50 million Norwegian Kroner from a local fund called RDA, and that is enough to start the process of extending our Planetarium building to 3-4 times its present size.It is a dream come true! Imagine being a part of the process of building a science center from scratch. The workload

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-90432502249103271542008-04-16T22:32:00.003+02:002008-04-16T22:42:54.646+02:00

This winter has been hectic, and I have been neglecting my blog. Shame on me! But now I am back. It has truely been an interesting winter up here, and I will tell you about it in my coming blog posts.See yaa!

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-57182373072947781852007-10-22T23:18:00.000+02:002007-10-23T21:36:32.939+02:00

Some of our mathemathics activities include the use of Zometool. Zometool is a great tool for a variety of construction activities, and I am sure many of you are familiar with the toy. To be able to build freely, you need a variety of the sticks available, and that might be to expensive for some of you. But don't worry, there is a cheap alternative!I visited Innlandet Science Center a couple of

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-47879802596882140532007-10-03T10:27:00.000+02:002008-12-10T15:58:07.646+01:00

The annual Science Days has come to an end, and it was a long stretch for us at the Science Center. We had two successful days at the Science Faire in Tromsø, and our booth was awarded as the second best presentation. A total of 5000 people visited the Faire these two days.Our stall presented some simple ice experiments, focusing on the increasing meltdown of the Arctic icecap. And kids and adult

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-85666076260976078272007-09-09T00:00:00.000+02:002008-12-10T15:58:08.101+01:00

In two weeks time we are attending the annual Science Days (Forskningsdagene 2007), celebrated across Norway. We are doing lots of outreach work during the 8 day festival, visiting Longyearbyen at Svalbard, Høgtun, Heggelia, Skjervøy and Finnsnes, joining the two day Science Faire in Tromsø and arranging Researcher's Night at the Science Center. The main topic this year is Melting ice - climate

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-2357760091216373132007-09-05T22:30:00.000+02:002008-12-10T15:58:08.432+01:00

These days I am busy preparing a chemistry program for young kids (age 4-9). It is inspired by a program developed and used by Navet in Borås, Sweden. They have for several years now had a program called "Do chemistry with Berta the Dragon". They start with story telling about Berta and her doing an experiment. Then they do the experiment with the kids. Afterwards they go to the laboratory and do

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-34142714016671187652007-08-29T23:22:00.000+02:002007-09-15T16:53:58.897+02:00

Everyone knows the effect of helium gas. Who hasn't inhaled a party balloon and had fun talking like Donald Duck? Kids today are at least familiar with this phenomenon.At Jay Leno a couple of months ago, Josh Duhamel demonstrated the behaviour of a different gas heavier than the components of air. He described it as "anti-helium", the correct name is SF 6 (Sulfur Hexafluoride). This is a nice

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-26991814514230376482007-08-26T03:18:00.000+02:002007-09-15T17:03:46.935+02:00

I just saw this amazing video made by The Shooting Eggs Production, and I can't wait to try it for myself. It does not look like a fake to me. It requires three household chemicals, match phosphorus, bleach and hydrogen peroxide. The chemicals have to be strong, though (according to a comment to the video), so take care with your hands and your eyes if you want to give it a go.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-7226539977637349482007-08-12T13:07:00.000+02:002008-12-10T15:58:08.627+01:00

Last Friday was the 75th birthday of the danish toy company LEGO. I have played with the bricks since I was a toddler, and still enjoy to play with them, both with my son and at work. This summer I visited Legoland Billund with my family, and my son claimed it had been the best day of his life! I must admit, I enjoyed it tremendeously as well. We were the last people to leave when they closed....

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-40379570368631858532007-08-12T13:00:00.000+02:002007-09-15T16:32:03.462+02:00

It was reported from work around July 20th that 6 eggs had hatched. I returned to work a couple of days later and found an empty nest. We don't know what has happened, but we believe that other birds have visited the nestbox and robbed the chicken (meaning; food). Anyone out there who knows more about this than me?

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-31097237373170430212007-07-05T10:13:00.000+02:002007-09-15T16:32:53.467+02:00

The Great Tits have started a second round in our nestbox. This morning it was reported from work that six eggs had been observed, and there is a chance they were laid yesterday. Most of us are away on vacation these days, so the observations will be less frequent this time. But we are hoping for the best for the brave parents.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-1475353042610649672007-06-26T19:22:00.000+02:002007-09-15T16:33:38.486+02:00

Living in a country stretching 1800 km North-South, with a very elongated form, comprising fjords and mountains, most Norwegians are very concerned about the weather. The weather varies a lot, and the regional differences are often extensive. Where I come from, we are used to having three seasons in a day, every day. It is just the way it is - and we have a saying sounding something like this: "

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-76226915066350903222007-06-26T17:02:00.000+02:002008-12-10T15:58:08.840+01:00

Being busy preparing our summer science club, I have not written about our nest box since the tragic, yet natural events taking place almost two weeks ago. After loosing three young ones the parents managed to rear the four chicken left, and they all survived until they could leave the nest. They grew remarkably fast, although there were huge differences between them. The two birds sitting

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-4000598511395248422007-06-26T15:56:00.000+02:002008-12-10T15:58:09.122+01:00

With July a few days away, here is a craft activity with a scientific twist. From a number of science toys dealers you can buy pony beads sensitive to UV light. I have bought mine from Educational Innovations - 240 beads for $6.95. Out of the sun they are white, and when they are in the sun they change to various colours like yellow, orange, red, purple and blue. This is an excellent reminder to

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-50915318041364174892007-06-14T09:11:00.000+02:002007-09-15T17:16:46.520+02:00

Nature is harsh! The last couple of days there has been a dramatic reduction of the number of chicken in the nest. From the original seven, they dropped to six, then five and the third day there were only four young ones.What has happened to the dead ones has been an enigma. I saw one chicken being carried out by a parent, and the day after I was able to catch on film an even more bizarre episode

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-59349755669902932612007-06-11T22:23:00.000+02:002008-12-10T15:58:09.147+01:00

Yesterday I checked the nestbox and was a bit worried about one of the chicken. It was smaller and weaker than the others, and was not able to fight with its siblings to grab the food. The parents seemed a bit disturbed, they came into the box multiple times without bringing any food, as if they were stressed about something.And sad to say, my worries were justified. When I came to work this

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-34003798086349438172007-06-08T12:31:00.000+02:002008-12-10T15:58:09.547+01:00

According to our information, the eggs in our nest box would hatch some time between the 29th of May and the 3rd of June. This was a bit problematic because the whole staff was going to Lisbon from the 31st to the 3rd. So we got ourselves a couple of babysitters, Kristin and Jørgen worked on shift monitoring the nest box while we were away. The eggs hatched sometime between the afternoon of the

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-79714715504552608452007-05-30T09:48:00.000+02:002007-09-15T16:39:36.624+02:00

Tomorrow my colleagues and I will attend the Ecsite Conference in Lisbon. I look forward to days filled with inspiring talks about Science Center topics, and hope to bring back home some new ideas for a small Science Center up north. I also look forward to meeting Science Center colleagues from Europe and elsewhere. If you are going there, and are reading this, I would love to meeting you there!

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-15920171055475337562007-05-30T09:16:00.000+02:002007-09-15T16:40:23.998+02:00

The other day I made the Blinky Mosquito I had planned to. It turned out rather well, but I will change the design a bit to make it easier for small hands to make. I soldered all the electronic, and used string to attach the legs and the wings (because I didn't have any glue available, will use hotglue next time). I tried using a pantyhose to make the wings more correct, drawing veins onto it.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-3400795563594104442007-05-22T14:41:00.001+02:002008-12-10T15:58:09.911+01:00

There has been major changes in our nest box since I last wrote about it. A few days after we had put it up in the tree, we had to do some changes. The battery supply turned out to be unsufficient, and we had supply the camera with a wired supply instead. When doing this, we discovered a nest in the box, and got both excited and worried. Would our fixin' make the birds leave the nest? But luckily

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-41129129040911976212007-05-21T09:33:00.000+02:002007-09-15T16:41:33.250+02:00

Last week I toured the Lofoten islands, with the topic "Soldering certificate". The new Science theme "T&D" requires skills new to Norwegian kids, and soldering is one of them. To be able to design, make and evaluate their own electronics, they need the basic skills and then some!One of the schools I visited, where my former teacher Åse Karlsen is the headmaster, has written about the event

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342168108036141697.post-86779413251230001382007-05-09T10:08:00.000+02:002007-09-15T16:43:07.905+02:00

March 1st the International Polar Year was launched, running till March 1st 2009. IPY is a large scientific programme organized through the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).It is actually the fourth Polar Year, the previous ones were in 1882-3, 1932-3, and 1957-8. And this time the workforce and money put into it is bigger scaled than ever.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0