Little Aggies make slime
Chemistry majors helped draw children to the world of science Saturday at the Utah State University Bookstore.
The second Saturday of every month, the bookstore sponsors a storytelling and activities hour for children. Each month has a different theme. This month was science.
Crystal Shipley, Matt Wheatley and Landon Karren, who are all chemistry majors, helped the children learn about science and have some hands-on experience with it, as well.
Wheatley and Karren helped the children make some pink or green slime. Creating the slime requires mixing up some polyvinyl alcohol and sodium borate to make one large polymer, Wheatley said.
Dylan Leicker, a 5-year-old who attended the activities, said, “I like making the mud.”
Shipley helped the children make paper butterflies. The children colored their papers with markers and set them in water to watch the colors spread and mix into designs. This activity was the equivalent to chromatography, which means putting something in a solvent and letting it develop, Shipley said. The solvent will determine where the color ends up.
Lacey Erickson, a junior majoring in exercise science, is a bookstore employee who is in charge of putting on the Little Aggie Activities each month.
The bookstore sponsors the activity to let children and parents see what kinds of new children’s books and other items are available to them there. It also gives the children a chance to learn something, she said.
The bookstore has been holding Little Aggie Activities since last year.
“I feel like it has been successful,” she said.
Erickson said the activities have given her a chance to work with not only the regular children who come, but the faculty children, as well. The USU Bookstore has about 30 Little Aggie participants each month.
Cindy Erickson, a librarian from Soda Springs, Idaho, is the storyteller. She gets the children involved by having them interact with the story that she is telling.
“All my life I have loved to read stories,” she said. “There is something magical about a good story, no matter what your age is, you can’t resist it.”
Esmaiel Malek is a grandfather who participated with his grandson in Saturday’s Little Aggie Activities.
“It is an excellent program. The kids learn a lot,” Malek said.
Many parents said they liked the location, time and cost, which is free, as well as the fact that they were bringing their children to something educational.
Julie Gast, professor of health education, said the program gives children an opportunity to be around other children and lets them hear some great stories.
Six-year-old Kendra Jenson attended Saturday.
“I come every month,” Jenson said. “I love it.”
The next Little Aggie activity will be March 1. The USU Bookstore invites all young children and their parents to attend.
“When you excite a young child’s mind, there is no telling what they can achieve,” Wheatley said.
–alwhite@cc.usu.edu
Kallen Brunson, 4, and Landon Karren, a sophomore chemistry major, make slime in the USU Bookstore. (Photos by Amy Fuller)