The St. Louis Science Museum

Laura, Suzanne, Sela, Eli and I went to the St. Louis Science Museum on Friday.  It was free except I paid for parking.  Laura did not because she knows her way around St. Louis and Forest Park better than I do so she knows where the free parking is located.  

Sela digging for fossils

Eli investigating a tornado

My group demonstrating how to cause of an earthquake

Eli getting to feel an earthquake.
As he is from California, he probably did not need to have a simulated experience.

Through fortuitous timing, we were in time for the Combine demonstration in the new GROW area.
Here all the children are pounding on the machine to get the rodents to move out.
According to our guide, farmers do this before they run their very expensive machine to avoid costly repairs.  

Here is Eli in the cockpit of this huge machine.
He says it has a lot of buttons and knobs.  

This is the combine that Eli 'drove'.
It costs about $500,000 and is the smallest of its line.
The guide said that in the 1830's it would take a farmer 300 hours to do what this machine does.
With this machine it takes today's farmer 12 seconds to reap, thresh and winnow corn.  

Eli and new friend building the tallest stablest structure they could.  

Sela and Laura trying to move a ball with their brain waves.  See the straps on their heads.
The most relaxed person would control the ball.
As Sela practices meditation, she felt she would win.
She was right.
However, Laura just might still have been feeling the stress of getting two kids, Emily and I to the museum that morning.  

Scientists Laura and Sela.  

In the GROW area we learned the answers to the following questions:

      1.  What is Illinois state snack food?  Illinois is the third largest producer of this item in the US.  

      2.  Illinois produces more of this crop than any other state.  What is it?  

      3.  What percentage of the world's horseradish does Illinois produce?

There also was mention of pig farmers in Illinois.  As I know some former pig farmers I included a picture of this display.  

Answers:  In tomorrow's blog.  Or text me and I'll let you know if you are right.