Yes, City Science Kids is STILL Having Tech Troubles!

But we haven't forgotten about you, we swear! Here's a picture clue to the episode we would LOVE to be working on right now if it weren't for some serious iMovie headaches. Please continue to stand by!
xxx, Lela & Ada

City Science Kids is Experiencing Technical Difficulties!

So please stand by while we continue to work on our upcoming episode about…well, something to do with this:

Any guesses while we try to sort out some iMovie headaches?

Happy Vernal Equinox from City Science Kids!

Even though it's a myth that you can only stand an egg up on this day—also known as the first day of Spring, when the sun shines directly over the equator—we like to do it anyway.

Can you stand an egg on end? Send us your pictures!

New Episode of City Science Kids, Coming Soon!

We're working up something a little…different this month. Here's the first clue!

Some Icy Thoughts on a Day of Melting

New York City is having a big February thaw! As we start to melt out of all the ice and snow that's built up over the past couple of months, it's a good time to ask: How did some of this stuff freeze in the first place? Like the dripping water from the pipe you'll see in the video below. (Or even more amazingly, Niagara Falls in upstate NY and Canada, seen beneath our video footage in an historic old photo.) Do you know how moving water freezes? Check out the video for clues. See what you think. Then, and only then, read the answer!

Are you ready for the answer? Here it is: 

As you may have guessed, moving water takes a lot longer to freeze than still water. And it doesn't freeze all at once. Instead, it "supercools" when its temperature drops below freezing. That's when water molecules slow down enough to start to stick together into tiny discs. Then these discs clump to each other, and also to any other surfaces they touch—like the brick wall and metal pipe in our video. The icy portion slowly grows and grown, cooling the still frozen water around it. Until that freezes, too.

Did you get the right answer? Or did you have another hypothesis (guess) entirely? Write in and let us know!

Video by Robert Cowan.

Butter!

Butter has been around since ancient times. People used it as a way to preserve fresh cream from their cows. In some places, people also make butter from cream they get from water buffalo, sheep, goats, and yaks.

Katie Phelan went to culinary school to learn all about food and cooking. She started making butter a few years ago. But she and butter go back a long way. When she was growing up, she worked on a farm at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. The family she worked for made butter. But not to eat—to oil the saddles for their horses!

You can make butter for eating (or for oiling your saddle), too. Just be sure you use regular pasteurized cream instead of ultra-pasteurized, which won’t work. Also know that you should wash your butter very well, until the water runs clear. You want to make sure no buttermilk remains, since it will quickly start to turn rancid. Be sure to write in with descriptions and pictures of your results!

The super pictures of butter-making below were drawn by Katie. You can find her here.

To read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s description of butter making, check out Little House in the Big Woods from your local library.

It's January So We've Got a Clue...

…about our next episode! Can you guess what it's about?