Curious youth can find answers at SEE ASU event
How tall are you in nanometers? Are you eating the right amount of food? How do bugs help farmers grow your food? What do you think of when you look up into the sky at night in your back yard?
You can find answers to these questions – and many others – at SEE ASU, scheduled for 9 a.m.-3 p.m., March 24, at Wells Fargo Arena on the Tempe campus.
SEE ASU is the university’s annual science and technology open house, and Wells Fargo Arena will be filled with interactive displays, hands-on activities, displays and more.
The ASU Planetarium will offer free shows at 11 a.m., noon and 1 p.m. comparing the experience of American astronaut Rusty Schweickart and the Greek author Homer, as each had an epiphany about life while looking into space.
The ASU Art Museum and Ceramics Research Center will offer free tours and activities for children ages 5-12 from 11 a.m. to noon and 1 to 2 p.m.
Other activities will include:
• The Pavement Lab in the Fulton College of Engineering: Test the hardness of different pavements by subjecting them to heat lamps.
• Global Institute of Sustainability: See insect display boxes with tropical and Arizona insects, and learn about the various roles that insects play in the food matrix.
• Department of Nutrition: How big is a serving size? Guess how many grapes, crackers, French fries and Cheerios constitute a single serving.
Children also will be able to weigh correct serving sizes and compare them to their guesses. And they will see how much bigger plates and glasses are now than 50 years ago.
• Biodesign Institute: Play a memory game in which an oversized deck of pictures of scientific items are shuffled and arranged in rows, upside-down. The players take turns turning over two pictures at a time in hopes of finding picture matches. They are able to see what other players turn over and must remember where the matches are.
The Biodesign Institute also will have a 6-foot height chart, similar to what is posted in front of amusement park rides, to measure children in nanometers. Measuring someone’s height in nanometers demonstrates just how tiny the scale is on which many scientists work today. Everyone will feel tall, as the numbers on the height chart will be very large.
Parking and admission are free.
SEE ASU is sponsored by the ASU Office of Public Affairs. For more information, contact Wilma Mathews at (480) 727-6031 or wkm23@asu.edu.