My Little Engineer

Before work on Tuesday, Grandma was talking about a conversation she had with a Wisconsin Congresswoman at the airport when she was flying out to DC.  One topic that came up was related to digester legislation.  Oliver, who had been playing with his trains, immediately perked up..."mommy, do you know what Grandma is talking about?  What is a digester?"  After a short verbal description, he was still not satisfied and asked to see some pictures and a video of a digester on my phone.  We managed to find some good information on-line (thank you YouTube).  For a good basic intro on anaerobic digesters see:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aULRryCVMyY

 
Once he was done with his research, he declared that he wanted to build a digester.  So I set to work scanning the kitchen for options.  Our first version was a good attempt, but our work was not done because he insisted, "I want this digester to work!"  Version two was more to his standards, and he digested manure and organic waste (aka chia seeds) for at least an hour while discussing the process of using a digester to make biogas.  We have been talking about digesters, biogas, and energy therefrom all week.

Another day this week, Oliver declared: "I want to build something."  So I flipped through one of our science project books and we settled on this marshmallow and toothpick tower.  He built most if it himself, I just helped by adding a few extra toothpicks for stabilization at the end.  He was pretty pleased with the resulting "parking garage tower."  And, yes, I did let him eat a few of the non-essential marshmallows.