maris_james

Space and Nature Day – Mickey Lewis

NOTE: This is Mickeys blog post, his page was being silly. I am simply a vessel.

We began the day with a presentation from Ivy encompassing the history of the world and the size of the planet in relativity to the universe. Then we set off for the science museum. We struggled with downtown parking for quite a while and whilst at the meter to pay, the man behind Ivy and I gave up on paying and simply strutted away (maybe it was a reflection of his wealth (he was wearing a fancy business suit)) We narrowly missed Craig Lazarski which was quite disheartening, but it was okay because they had taxidermy ducks. Below are wood ducks. Fun Mickey fact, I am obsessed with ducks and they are my favorite animal. I own my own taxidermy duckling (obviously it was not killed for taxidermy, it was found dead)

(december 17, 2022 the day i purchased my taxidermy duckling in winston salem)

anyway back to X day, i really like Wood Ducks because of their brightly colored feathers. They have to live in bodies of water near trees (hence the name “wood duck”) because they require wooded cover for nesting.

we continued our journey and saw other fascinating taxidermy!

(i literally only took pictures of the taxidermy ducks, but there were bears, raccoons, possums, other birds, etc.)

Then Maddie, Ivy, and I ventured into a store where i bought a pocket sized book on sharks. Little did the rest of the group know that i would spend the rest of the day sharing my new round plethora of knowledge with them. I love the ocean and marine biology so this was very exciting to my friend’s dismay.

We ventured onward and saw some geology related things which i promptly got very excited about as i do rocks and minerals in science olympiad. I shared with Maddie and Ivy about the fluorescent properties of Calcite and how rubies and sapphires are the same mineral (corundum), depicted below.

We entered an interactive room where there were many skulls that we were allowed to touch which was SO exciting. After a quick hand wash, we ran into Maris and Brooke and explored the Arthropod Zoo. Here are Chrysalis’

and here is me kissing an arthropod (i forget the specifics, clearly we didn’t have anything serious it was merely a fling)

Maris, Brooke, and I applied our biotech skills in a fun little lab and off we went to lunch. it was scrumptious. everyone tried fried pickles per my request and (most) enjoyed them! Below are additional photos (Please enjoy)

Space and Nature – NC Life and Science Museum

Today we learned about the magnitude of space and explored the intertwinement of space and nature at the Life and Science Museum in Raleigh. We got to do hands on science projects about DNA, and reinforced our knowledge of space from the morning in the planetarium and space exhibits. My favorite stop was learning about history of archaeology in our own state, and I got to see beautiful gemstones that were found in locations not too far from us. We were also surrounded by around 100 fourth graders on a field trip, and spent most of the time trying not to step on them (results varied.)
Side note: we found Mr. Lazarski wandering amongst the common people and gently coerced him into taking a selfie (much to his chagrin).

taxidermy owl that made a kid cry in front of me 🤩

gorgeous gem on a pedestal that was found in rural NC in the 20th century

titration experiment with iodine and vitamin c solutions 👩🏾‍🔬

baby micropipette (cue ADV biotech war flashbacks)

Café Hopping – Fount Café

Our last stop is Fount Café. By far, this was my favorite stop not only because of the ambience and how nice the servers were, but also because of the types of coffee they had. Their coffee comes from South and Central America, and we all noted how smooth the coffee was in both hot and iced drinks. While this is similar to The Hub’s coffee (coffee is from farmers in Honduras), we thought that the expansion of different countries creates a different flavor of coffee.

Café Hopping – Benelux Coffee

The second stop was at Benelux Coffee, which was in the furthest corner of the world and took years to find. Regardless, this café is also themed in more rustic aesthetics, and a lot of their foods are themed around being organic and natural. I feel like The Hub can’t really accommodate for the organic ingredients that Benelux has, we can sort of connect as we have local ingredients.

Café Hopping – Brew Coffee Bar

Our first spot is Brew Coffee Bar in downtown Cary. They have a very retro theme in the shop, as they use re-usable dishware like mason jars, and they tend to play swing music and old piano music. This brought up the idea of themed restaurants to create memorable experiences – while it might be hard to introduce a theme to The Hub (and we only really have seasonal themes), we could try and introduce artwork from students for each seasonal theme like at the Brew Coffee Bar. The art here is both abstract and retro-ish themes.

NCMA

We just finished our tour of the North Carolina Museum of Art. Even though the main museum was under construction, we still got to tour outside and look at the architecture and the statues. A few of us also had some extra time, so we got to check out an unrelated museum, the Museum of the National Guard, and we saw tanks.

Van Gogh

We just finished our tour of the Van Gogh experience, a temporary museum of the artwork and life details of the famous painter. We sat through a beautiful…

immersive unit, and my favorite thing we learned was how Van Gogh used sunflowers as a representation of the life cycle hence why they were a main subject for many paintings.