We had two scientific experiments in December. The first was examining the fat content of food. This was a fun one for kids, who got to mush up a bunch of food. It was also educational, as we made some surprising discoveries about how much fat is in those chips.

As always, Whole Foods Market was a great host, and provided all the samples for us to use.

Then our second experiment turned out to be lots of fun, too. I thought when we started that this would be an experiment that would last about 1 minute for kids, but it turned out that some kids did this one over and over for a bunch of the morning. One dad, a structural engineer by training, got very involved in helping us figure out the science.

The experiment was very simple. Hold a piece of uncooked spaghetti at each end and slowly bend it so that it will break in half.

The interesting thing is that it almost never does. You think it would snap in two pieces, like a pencil, but instead a third, and sometimes a fourth or fifth piece pops out. Even if you try it on a shorter piece, the pasta will split off into three pieces.

Why?

Well, the structural engineer has some theories. Some great physicists have reportedly spent many hours in the kitchen breaking noodles on the kitchen floor. We explained the science some during the event, but most of the kids left with the idea that there’s still more to learn about the spaghetti phenomenon, and that’s OK. Our goal is not to teach everything, but instead have fun with science, and with luck leave the kids with a thirst to do more science experiments.

So, we hope you will join us for the next Second Saturday Science!