Jennifer Peterson and I'm joined by Kendra Morgan who is logged in as WJ support and you can chat with her to get assistance. I'm excited to have us -- to have joining us today Brianna Hoffmann who is the project coordinator and has a great connection with our presenters today and is going to get us started. One more reminder, today's session will be recorded. We will let you know once that recording is available later on today. I will be sending a certificate to all of you who attended today's live session. However, if you have colleagues that require certificates and need to get to that via the recording, you can do so in our Web Junk catalog and access the courses available there. I will also mention there is not this particular learner but we have a learner guide for today's session with questions that the het Heathers have provided along with handout that leads you through the questions on today's sessions. I will be posting links to chat with those resources and you can access those later on. Brianna, I will have you introduce our presenters today. >> Thank you for being here today. My name is Brianna Hoffmann and I'm the project coordinator for the small libraries create smart spaces. Over the course of working with our 15 project participants, the need for good S.T.E.M. and STE(A)M programming sources has become clear to us. Clear not only for small libraries but libraries of all sizes. I actually had the opportunity to attend the Heathers inspiring 2016 presentation, 52 weeks of S.T.E.M. at your library and I'm thrilled they are here to share their expertise with us today. So without further adieu, it is my pleasure to introduce our first presenter Heather Love Beverley and heather Thompson. >> Hello there. Thank you so much. I'd like to thank ocl c and for having us here and we will have a fun hour talking all things STE(A)M. First off, the person you are listening to right now, I'm Heather Love Beverley and this is Heather Thompson we are the type of librarians who attach a stuffed an ma to a remote car with a Go Pro. >> Because science. We are not very serious people and we have a lot of fun with S.T.E.M. Speaking of S.T.E.M., a quick overview in case you don't know already, which you probably do. S.T.E.M. versus STE(A)M. S.T.E.M. is science technology, engineering and math and STE(A)M has art in it because fen art and S.T.E.M. are a natural fit as you can see in the picture to the right. They were creating artwork but it had to do with number and numbers. So that is often the case. So, one thing we want to get off the bat, anything you hear us talk about today, any programs, guess what we have a website. It is STEMinlibraries.com. All the information we will be talking about is on there. When we mean all of the information, we mean all of the program details. We give you supply lists, instructions, links that explain the science and we give you tips and tricks on how to improve, and do it better than we did. You will find a lot of programs on there. I think right now we are at 71 different projects, but with variations that puts us in to 160 different program options. All free to use and on the website. So don't bother to take a ton of notes, because it's all on-line. >> Yep. >> Okay. So for anybody who has not done S.T.E.M. in the library yet, you may run in to a little resistance from administration asking why you want to do science programs for kids in the library. One of the biggest reasons we have is that schools often don't have the time and/or resources to do a lot of hands-on experiments, but we, in the library, do have the time and in some cases the resources to support and supplement school curriculum and give kids the hands-on learning opportunities. >> Along with that, kids are naturally interested in exploring the world. Heather likes to say do you remember when science used to be fun? >> No. >> Well, for kids science is still fun. We are getting kids to maintain the fun and excitement. It lets them explore and experiment with things and try things they may not ordinarily get to do. . S.T.E.M. programs mote creativity and thinking and problem solving skills. This girl was asked to modify the instruction and we said is it going to put someone's eye out and she said no. And we said go ahead and make whatever you want. She made a switch operated double catapult. We don't know how it works exactly or how she made it but that's the kind of thing that will come out of your program if you allow the kids the creativity and flexibility to do that. >> You are going to see amazing stuff when you let the kids experiment. Additionally, what we love about S.T.E.M. programming, it creates a collaborative learning environment. This is a chance for kids to learn something and help others learn something and share the knowledge they have. Often times when we do a S.T.E.M. program we throw the questions at the kids, why do you think this works? Who can tell me what gravity is or explain philosophy? They love to share what they know. This picture is a casual conversation we were having in a program where they were talking to me about a math assignment they had. I'm like, I don't remember that from math. What was it. And four kids did an impromptu math lesson for me and the rest of the kids and it was fun and creative and they don't get that opportunity have often. Being able to teach an adult something is great. >> The odds are that your library has a mission statement and the mission statement has something about education or enrichment or something like that in it. So, by offering these S.T.E.M. programs, you are very likely supporting your library's core mission. Here's Heather's library director Dave. He's playing with the kids at a slime program. It is really good for Dave to be able to come in to the program and see the kids learning and having a great time. Instant buy in. >> Most importantly, S.T.E.M. is fun and it is awesome. These are going to be some of the most exciting programs you have that you will enjoy the most. These pictures are some of our favorite moments. They built structures and destroy it by running through it. We made a fluid that is both a solid when you step on it and a liquid when you stand on it and they are running through it and then an egg drop with a cherry picker because why not? >> Yeah. We kept the cherry picker a secret until the kids came outside and they saw it and they freaked out like it was reality television. It was incredible. >> They because came for publicity. We hope you are excited. Where do you find ideas? First you have the usual suspects. Pinterest, Google and Google images. We really do start here. We will sometimes do a search for easy science for kindergarteners or nano science, and you look and see what is out there. There's a lot of good information. And it is a good place to start. Find something that catches your eye. >> You can also ask a librarian. We're going to plug our. It is a public facing group but you have to request membership and we will let you in. Is it now 1,000 members. >> Over 1,000 members. >> Over 1,000, other educators and librarians who are interested in providing S.T.E.M. opportunities at their library who will provide you with stuff they have done before or answers or anything. It is a wonderful resource. Before you click the next slide -- oh, 1500 members. My goodness. So the next slide will blow your mind. You haven't thought about it. >> Truly earth shattering. >> Brace yourself. >> Library books. Library books is the best possible resource for doing kids' S.T.E.M. programs because often times they have experiments in the back, like easy experiments for you to do about magnets, electricity or whatever it is and it explains the concept in such simple terms that a child can understand it, which means that a Heather can explain it to children. It is a win-win across the board. The last place to look at something I like to call constant vigilance, all S.T.E.M. all the time, no, not really. We'd probably go crazy if it was all S.T.E.M., all the time. What it is keeping your mind open because you never know when a good idea may drop in your lap. For example, one of my favorite programs actually came from conference session I went to about how to remodel a library on a budget. Probably not S.T.E.M. related, right? Except one of the libraries decided to make a Lego model of their library in order to see how to move things around. My mind was blown. I was like, Legos, floor plan, library, that's a S.T.E.M. program and I did a Lego architecture program that was amazing and it came because I sat in this random program about remodeling your library. You will go through your Facebook page and see something interesting, watch TV and you might find something, read a book, you might find something. There's a lot of stuff on there. And all of that being said and I see a little question about this, there's a lot to scroll through, how do you know if it is a good idea? >> Being able to evaluate a good project, versus a bad project just from looking at a picture or a vague description on the internet can be difficult. But we have done it a lot, and we have some qualifiers that might be able to help you. So, first of all, how long is your program? That's also the settling in time, if you need to reach the kids or clean up or anything like that. How long will the project take? And keep in mind when you test a project in isolation, as an adult, it might take ten minutes. It's not going to take ten minutes for a group of 24 children. It's going to take three times as long. Heather likes to call it the rule of three. Take your time, how long it takes you to do something and multiply it by three and allow that much time. >> You will see it will take enough time in your program but can it be replicated for 20-plus kids? How many kids will be in the program. Some things like tying knots are difficult to do. So you may have to tie knots for 20-plus kids or punch holes for 20 plus kids. How feasible is it which is the next point. >> Nice job. Are the supplies easy to find? Are they in your supply cabinet already or can you get them Wallgreens or China. What level is the science at any don't mind going over their heads because the worst thing that will happen is they will be exposed to a concept or a word they don't quite understand that may be they will remember in the future, or not. It's okay. As long as it ticks the last box -- is it fun, which is the most important part. The library is not school and we don't want it to be like school. We want it to be super fun so they are engaged and want to come back for more. >> A good thing to keep in mind is if you see a project and you are excited about it, odds are the kids will be excited about it. So make sure you think it is fun, too. Fun should be both ways. Now that being said, with our tips and tricks on what makes a good program we thought we may ask you out there, looking at this photo, is this a good project for 20 odd some first and third graders or a bad project? We will give you a second. Feel free to chime in on the chat and say yes, no, maybe so. >> By the way, this is an actual question that I asked other Heather. I like how everybody is saying what Heather says. >> You are on my people. You are on the same wave length. Somebody said great for middle school. I like the way you think. First through third graders, maybe not so much. Blake nailed it. >> All right. >> I'm loving what I see. You probably know what the next slide says, no, bad. This is not a good program for first through third graders because there's a lot of steps here, there are holes and hot gluing and taping things. It's just not gonna happen. >> One way to make it happen is by making it a family program, which we will talk about a little later. Or you could find as is the case with me I wanted to make balances and I sent it to heather and she told me I was insane. So I found an easier balance project that we will talk about in a bit. >> Some people are pointing out it would work well for middle schoolers who can do most of the work. We tend to follow the same structure at our libraries. First one is science explorers Jr. It is a 60-minute program and five minutes are spent settling in because the kids are excited and least in my library not always there on time. So there's some talking. We like to play science hangman where they guess science words. It is a time waster that is vaguely scientific and then 10 to 15 minutes talking about the topic, having a discussion. We do read for first and third graders, we read a book related to the topic because we think it is important to tie literature in to the program. Then we have 40 to 45 minutes of demo and hands-on projects. I will say for the first and third graders they love demonstration. They could watch you do science all day long. They don't mind if they are not the ones doing it. You are like a magician up there, a rock star it's the best feeling in the world. For first through third graders demonstration is the way to go. At this age group we like to get them something to take home with them, a project, art-related thing, activity, we want them to think of the science beyond the library walls. We want them to go home and tell everyone at the dinner table, look at what I did today," the takeaways are very important. >> Then we have our tween group. This is the age we have done the most programs for. When we were working together at Cook it was fourth to sixth graders. For those tweens we had the standard five minutes of getting them in, settled, shaking the sillies out. 15 to 25 minutes of introductions and explaining the science concept behind whatever project we were doing, as well as discussing that and doing demonstrations or, most importantly, videos because tweens would really, really much rather watch a video than hear me talk. So there's a whole bunch of really fabulous videos, educational videos on You Tube for free. So then you have 60 to 75 minutes of hands-on project time. Usually we have one to two projects. The one you see here is a DIY roller coaster program and we will be talking about this in a bit because it is one of our favorite projects, but in this particular program it is one project for the entire time and it keeps them super busy. >> Following that we do science explorers for grades seven and up. This is five minutes to get settled. You need the settling in time no matter what the age group is. And then 10 to 15 minutes of instruction, science explanation and discussion. Demos or videos. Particularly with the teens they really want the videos and not us talking and we try to keep it to a minimum. Also with this age group we really like to have them contribute more to the science explanation. They love to share the stuff. And then the rest of the program is 75 to 80 minutes of in depth projects and they usually have an emphasis on creativity, competition and reading instructions, because that's an important skill they need to learn, even though you will constantly say, did you read the instructions? Please read the instructions. Have you read the instructions? It is really fun and creative space for the teens. Lastly, we have some STE(A)M story times we have done. We do these for 3 to 6-year-olds with a caregiver. The caregiver is imperative. They are 60-minute sessions. We typically did them at 5:00 at Cook Library. So we have the five minutes. Always give yourself five minutes at the beginning. We do 25 minutes of a science-themed story time. It maybe about electricity and magnetism or sound or animals or whatever. And then 30 minutes of hands-on lab time with two to four stations, depending on how ambitious you are feeling, that parents and children can explore together. >> Now, when it comes to S.T.E.M. programming one thing we hear is S.T.E.M. must be so expensive. That is a myth. We found when doing some programming the supplies aren't that bad. In fact, we'd like to introduce you to our very best friend the Dollar Store. Most science stuff is affordable to find and the things you have to pay more for, nine times out of ten are things you will use time and time again. We could bore you with a complete list of supplies that you need, but guess what we put it on handout. An the handout, I went through the past 60 some odd programs we did and those were the items we used the most. >> Heather did math for you. >> I love you all so much, I did math. >> Yep. >> Take a look at it. That's what we recommend and you don't need to buy it all at once. Buy it when it is appropriate for the program. We tend to find once you buy something you find other uses for it. I will plan programs along -- I have these eye droppers. What can I do with them. I like to justify the expense. >> Tips, tricks and other practicalities. You will learn and forget many strange and interesting things. At one time I learned how hydraulics worked even though I never took a physics class. I do not remember that right now, but nice thing is it is on the blog and I can relearn it anytime I want. >> Other things you might learn -- oh, I got click happy again. Sorry about that. Don't be afraid to say I don't know. This is like a really hard thing for librarians because we like to know all the answers. So when we do a program on aerodynamics we want it be able to explain everything, lift, velocity, how jets stay up in the air and it's not possible. It's okay to say I don't know in a program. In fact, I often like to do, I don't know but let's find out afterward and then you can show library databases and books and continue the learning beyond the program. Don't be afraid. For kids it is refreshing for an adult to admit they don't know something. It is freeing once you come to embrace it. >> All right. So be as excited as we are in this photo of us in our ALA presentation. Don't be worried about not knowing stuff. Just go in like a rock star. We come in and say who's ready for science? Woo! And they will sometimes stare at you like you have two heads. That's okay. Keep up the momentum and get excited and eventually they will follow your enthusiasm once they real isize it is okay to be silly and loud and have fun. >> Other things, this is something that Heather and I are guilty of overplanning. There can be such a thing as too many projects in a program. We advise for any science program, have one back pocket project in case they run through what you have planned. I've gone in with three and four and never used them. In the three or four years I have set up my library I think I used the back pocket plan once. >> I never have because all of my stuff tends to be in the program. Too much stuff already without a backup. So try not to do that. It's hard. Just remember the rule of three where it will take them longer to do things than you think and you will be fine. >> This is our favorite, free building projects are the best. What we mean by free building is if you can tape it or create something with it and the kids have free rein, they love it. We also call it the clean out the supply closet program because you can literally build with anything and they will happily build and construct things with a goal for hours. >> Yep. >> Is there something questionable in your program like an industrial hot glue gun that is in the picture there? A lot of times I have hot glue in my programs and kids will -- I will tell the kids they are not allowed to use the hot glue gun. Only I am allowed to use the hot glue gun and they are like my mom lets me use hot glue guns at home and I say at the library only the librarian is burned. We built density columns one day and it had oil, like vegetable oil. We were allowing kids to pour their own liquids and this one kid up ended an eight ounce cup all over himself, the table, carpet and chairs and winter jacket, everything. We had to send him home with a black plastic garbage bag and apology to his mother in hopes he wouldn't ruin her upholstery. If it is remotely questionable consider doing it yourself. >> Keep it in mind. After that, with the spilled oil in mind, embrace the chaos. Honestly, S.T.E.M. programming is going to be chaotic and messy. It is going to be loud. Things aren't going to always go as planned but those are sometimes the best programs. All the programs that have been extraordinarily chaotic where I am like, oh, my gosh, this is chaotic, reuse the word, have been the ones where the kids left with grins on their faces. And this program is highlighted the most here with the cornstarch. That was extraordinarily necessaricy and we will talk about it later. It is by far one of the most popular programs. Even though the kids left a mess the parents didn't care. The parents are so happy their kids are learning and having fun and leaving with smiles their kid is covered head to toe in cornstarch and they didn't mind. They were thrilled. They were like tell me about what they did. I want to learn more. Embrace the chaos. That means they are having a great time. And lastly something to keep in mind is there is no such thing as failure in S.T.E.M. programs. Both for yourself and the kids. S.T.E.M. is supposed to be something to explore and experiment so if they don't do the project exactly as you envision, that's a good thing. They are trying it out. They are figuring it out themselves. For yourself, any failure is actually learning opportunity. Sometimes, most of the time, you are the only one who notices something has gone wrong. Other times it is obvious and is a learning experience. For example, I did a program on magic science where I did a bunch of demos and one of them was elephant toothpaste which was a foamy chemical reaction. I had done it dozens of times without a problem. This particular time I'm building it up with the kids, if you are going to see this great reaction. It will come up and be really foamy and amazing and I get to the last time and go ta-da and nothing happened. It was like crickets. We looked at it. We looked at each other, looked at it. Nothing happened. So I went, okay. What do you think we need to do differently? And we proceeded for the next five to ten minutes to have a discussion about what we might try differently and what might work and eventually together we figured out how to make the elephant toothpaste work. It became a learning experience for the kids. So it wasn't a failure because they got to think creatively and to do things. It was great. All right. Some other things, when we get in to our program, a lot of the programs we do can be done for multiple age groups if you age them up and down. We want to give you an idea of what we found are the key aspects for programming for certain age groups. For the little kids, which is that prekindergarten through third grade, they are always demonstration happy. They are simple process experiments, not a lot of steps, not a lot of hands on, not a lot of intricasies. No failure rate meaning whatever they do it will work and they always have something to take away so they can do the seans at home. Older kids, fourth through eighth grade that is hands on, instruction-based permittation and give them written instructions to follow. And say this is your goal, these are your objectives and supplies. You need to towards that. For teens, it is more, sixth, seventh grade on up it is more free. Give them a goal. Like this is your projected outcome. Go to it. And make it creative. They also love competition. So it is like who can build the tallest tower in the shortest amount of time. Anything they can compete on they will thrive on and it is where you throw the science at them and explain to me what you know. Talk to me. We will discuss it. It is both of you teaching each other. And family science, which is amazing to do, is designed so everyone participates. The parents can't sit in the back of the room. They should be with the kids. And it encourages discussion as the parents, families do experiments they can talk to open other. What I love is they are patron led, meaning you introduce the program and say, have fun and go on. All right. So, I'm going to jump in here really quick. I think at this time might be a good spot to ask a couple of questions. I encourage people to post questions that I mention we will be touching on a couple of points, but a few that came up in the first part, when you were talking -- when you had the picture with the balloon, somebody wondered if you have issues with latex sensitivity or if you have had to address that? >> We haven't yet. >> But we usually tend to advertise what it is. So when it was balloon structures, we did say in the description building with balloons. So it was out there and our patrons are given an E-Mail reminder. >> Good. That's good to have a little information about what is to come. Somebody did mention the stream adding reading. I know you will talk about story time. So we can talk about that. Are there -- here's a question, what kind of books do you read? I know you will talk about that with story time. We will circle back to that. Somebody did ask the question do you do anything besides science and I think their question was beyond your S.T.E.M. program do you do anything else but someone else pointed to your site has separate ways to search for the math and the engineering, as well. So -- >> We call our program Science Explorers but it is all S.T.E.M. It works more but a lot of our programs are technology and engineering based and when we can math. >> Yes. Definitely the hardest of the topics. If they didn't mean that we do programs outside of the science fields, arts and crafts and writing or -- >> Book clubs. >> We like a variety. >> Yeah. >> Excellent. >> Here's a good question. How far ahead of time do you plan on which activities you are going to be doing? >> As far as in advance as our newsletter that needs to be done which is several months usually. >> Right now I'm putting on the final touches on my spring program and then to summer. >> Wow. O.J. >> Few other questions. I think we can continue on. I know you are going to touch on some of these as you move through the different examples. Let's circle back. And keep them coming. >> As a side note, if we don't address any of your questions, please E-Mail us. Our E-Mail is on the handout as well as the slides and we will happily answer any questions that way. >> We love to talk science and S.T.E.M. to people. Feel free to contact us, too let's go to the fun stuff. Talking about the programs that we do. We are going to talk about our various programs and give you the highlights of our favorite programs we have done >> Go a little in depth on some of them. For our themed story times, as I mentioned, it is half story time and half experiment, lab time with the caregivers. So for these they are really the best for anybody who's scared of science because it is all really basic, easy to understand science that's incredibly high interest for little people. Things like the human body or animals or how boats float or things like that. Our first one that we wanted to highlight is outer space. It is so cute. Every time that I have ever done this, it is the most adorable thing ever. Pretty much in a STE(A)M story time, we -- actually we forgot to mention, the first thing we do in a STE(A)M story time is we sing a welcome song because that's what you do in story time. We thought we'd sing it for you here. I'm sorry, my voice isn't very good. It is called the "more we learn science" and it is ? the more learn science the ? the more that we learn science the happier we'll be ? we'll know things and do things ? and explore many new things ? the more that we learn science the happier we'll be ?? >> Then after our welcome song -- in this case I ask things like what is outer space? What's is out in outer space and what is it like in outer space and get a feel of where they are at. They may need prompting on the questions. Some may say is it hot in outer space or noisy and they will say, oh, no, it is not. All of the songs and books and rhymes are centered around concepts related to the science, like the function of the sun or astronauts or the order of the planets. And if you go to the -- this link in our blog, there's a picture of machine net flannels that I made which are beautiful, to me, because I'm not very crafty and I love them. So I did make those for that purpose. And then afterwards we had three stations. The one on the left, the little girl is making a rocket ship out of squares and triangles. Each square represents one letter of her name. So she will write her name on the rocket after she is done assembling it. The one on the right is just paper cutouts of the planets, which the kids are supposed to put in order on the construction paper and they can color it or not. It is a boring thing but whatever. And then the most amazing part is the middle picture in which the kids get to visit the moon. The moon, in this case, is a big sheet that we spray painted to look like moon, surfacey, with craters and everything. We balled up newspapers under the sheet to make it bumpy. The kids decorated a space helmet, which is a paper bag, and they got giant sponges, rubber banded to their feet and went on the moon surface and touched "moon sand," which is baby oil and flour and had a generally great time. It is outstanding and a lot of fun. Great pictures as well. >> Nice. The next story time, which she finds rather appropriate because it is germs. We're sharing germs, for seasonal. We did a germ story time and again, before our story time centers around books, and flannel boards and talking about germs than spreading of germs. We did a brainstorm of what they are, what they can do, how to prevent them. When we pick non-fiction books often times we pick books where we can stop an talk about pictures and things they are looking at and stir discussion that way. One thing that made this program so much fun is in the midst of the story time we will do a relevant science activity. In this case we decided to do an activity how germs spread by doing a great -- if you do story time you know they love it. In this case you did the big ah-ah-choo! And when you go choo you throw the confetti at the kids which are the germs that with come out of your mouth. The kids went crazy for it and I had to do it like five times because they all wanted to be hit by my germs. Some of the activities pictured here. We like to encourage creativity. You see the boy on the left is designing his germ and he had a story about what the germ does and what it causes. The middle boy because we had the excellent why germs spread if you don't cover your mouth, made a craft activity with his hand print and a tissue and little rhyme that said "please cover your mouth when you sneeze." And then they got rid of germs on a mouth, which is in our sheet protector and dry erase markers and then used a toothbrush to scrub it and we had a sink and had washing station and posted songs while they washed your hands because if you wash your hands for a certain amount of time you get rid of germs. It is perfect they are the winter story time. >> To address Susan's question, it is ages 3 to 6 is the general kind of guidelines we have for STE(A)M story time. Sometimes we will get older and younger siblings in there, as well and they come with parents. So the last STE(A)M story time we want to talk about is the first one I did which is rain. It's perfect for the springtime. Where we find water, lakes, puddles, oceans or whatever and then we talk about the water cycle. After the story time ends, we have four stations. They were a little too much. A rain stick craft is too labor-intensive but fun to take home. And absorb or repel station and they had eye droppers of water and had baggies of sponges, aluminum foil or waxed paper or whatever and they would predict what would happen when they dropped the water on those pieces of material. >> Before we move to the next program, a few questions I wanted to address. These are offered monthly. They are special story time. We still do the regular story times every week. We tend to do these in the evening because they work best for our participants. Now to the next age group, which is Science Explorers Jr. These programs are more demonstration based with easier experiments. Our junior qualifies as first through third graders and you can see we have kids surrounding the librarians as we do demonstrations and it is the best feeling in the world. Like you are a magician or rock star. We will tell you about three of our favorite programs and I think we will speed up a little on the program details. Keep in mind every single thing we are talking about is on the blog in even more detail than we have time to tell you. And you are free to use everything, the songs, the rhymes, the books. All of it is there for you to use. So the first thing is the infamous paleontology program. For this program we have 25 kids attend. We partnered with a local community college that has paleontologists on their staff and they Skypeed in a visit with us and the kids got to ask what it was like to be a paleontologist and they kindly sent us sample tools and 3-D printed objects of fossils, which was really great. Then we thought it would be super fun to reinforce that aspect of excavation site and we gave each kid their own excavation pit which is cornstarch and water dried with plastic dinosaurs dried in them. Cornstarch plus water makes a mess. Extraordinarily messy but the kids had a blast. We would do this program again in a heart beat but outside. >> Or just cover the room with painters tarp. >> It was extraordinarily messy. It took forever to clean up but every kid left with huge smiles and every parent, no joke, loved it. They didn't care their kid was covered head to toe in cornstarch. They thought it was the best thing ever. >> Balance is an easy program to do inside and outside of the library. Pretty much what you see here. Two different projects, you can do one or both of them. One is giving them robot temp plates on card stock and ask them to balance the robot's chin on a stick and if they don't it you give them two penny and they are thrilled to death to keep the two pennys. Thief figure out how to put the weights. It's like magic. Over here you will see the actual balance, not the terrible example balance from earlier but the balance I landed on which was coat hangers and cups and string. That was much easier. Just about their speed. >> The last favorite program is surface bridges. This one is just an example of how amazing and easy a science program can be. They spent an hour building bridges for toy animals out of nothing but stick and it is based on a book, a true story on how they tested the Brooklyn bridge by having circus animals walk across it. Fun, amazing and super good time. The details are on the blog. We are getting short on time. We will give you the highlights." Tween Science Explorers. >> They learn the fundamentals of programming by writing directional arrows on how to build cup structure and guide each other through a tape maze on the floor. >> Who doesn't like to walk through a tape maze? It is free and extraordinarily popular and easy to do. DIY roller coasters. We talked about velocity and how roller coasters work. There is a great song on our blog that talks about acceleration. >> No it is kinetic and potential energy. >> It is a tango and amazing and the kids look up wide eyed but we loved it. And it is insulation tube cut in half and they can use whatever they want to get a marble. >> You can put a bunch of supplies in a bag and say okay, make something that moves and that's it. It will eat up 90 minutes an they will come up with amazing thing. You see a marionette, a pendulum, and he didn't even know what it was. >> But leave the caveat that it can't poke somebody's eye out. . >> Next is Science Explorers for teens. One is crash test dummies which is a new way of thinking of the classic egg drop experiment. In this case instead of an egg it is a water balloon. We use a variety of different supplies for them to build a contraption to protect the water balloon and subjected it to high velocity by throwing it against the ground or the wall. It was great. They really loved it. After that, it is Arcade Champions. This is where we game them freedom. I gave them simple instructions for building an extension arm. They could follow the instructions or they could design their own. The main goal was they had to build some sort of crane device to grab candy. A big part of the program is feeding them an they loved it because they were trying to get as much candy as possible and the designing were incredible. Last is Family Science programs. We started to do them because the parents kept looking longly through the program window wanting to join us so we decided yes, you can join us. >> These are excellent vehicle for doing more complicated projects. If you want to do something complicated invite the parents to do it with kids. It is awesome. >> One thing we two at least twice a year is fun family science. It is five or six activities for families to do together. We provide the materials and instruction and they just do it. It is a great family time. They do things like making mini volcanos, bouncy balls and it is a great program the parents enjoy because they are activities you see on Pinterest or Facebook and you know parents are going, I should do that, but except to do that they have to find the time, buy the materials and clean it up. We eliminate two of those things for them. We get the material and clean it up and even have the instructions. It is a win-win and these are the best programs we do because they are great interaction with the families. >> And remember how we said that structures are the best thing ever? Adults love it, too. We did a science for family that was all structures. They had to build large and small cup towers, marshmallow and toothpick towers and even structures out of tinfoil and it was amazing. These are only some of the structures they did. It was outof the world. They had a blast and we had to offer it twice because the registration was so high. And also also super affordable. >> Everything fails, everything goes wrong. You can say it is just an people because it is science. Just remember when the kids are looking at you and they are sad because something didn't work. It is an experiment. Yay. >> Yay! So now, I see -- oh, wait, final reminder, everything is on our blog, everything we talked about. Hope we don't sound like a broken record. >> STEMinlibraries.com. >> Now our favorite part because we are librarians and we love this, questions! >> Excellent. >> Fantastic and don't forget to mention the penguins. I love it. >> We got to pet a penguin at the Denver zoo. Best thing ever. >> Highlight of your career, I can tell. >> Definitely. >> Thank you so much for all of this great inspiration. There are some good questions. One I know you mentioned something about registration, a lot of questions around how many people you have at different sessions, but can you talk a little bit about the registration process and how that helps you plan? >> We tend to do our programs for no more than 25 kids at a time because we find, at least with one librarian, more than 25 is just too much. Registration, I know at my library we open it two weeks beforehand. Anyone can sign up. I should note all of our programs are free. We don't charge -- I saw somebody ask if we charge, we don't charge anybody for any of our programs. >> I saw a couple of people ask about attracting teens. You guys seem like you have built up a reputation in your community. Do you have trouble attracting teens, or have they gotten the bug? >> Teens are a hard demographic to reach. Honestly, for us, it is advertising. Like the crash test dummy, the reason we had a good turnout is because we called it crash test dummies. Sometimes just play with the name and we promote it everywhere. >> I'm curious, do you publicize outside of your library's website and social media for some of those unique age groups? >> We do, at least at my library, we do big summer reading presentations to all of our schools and we do highlight the science program. For the teen science at my library we tend to do them only in the summer because the teens are too busy. We take advantage of the presentation to the school to advertise. >> All right. Let's see. There was a question about the materials. If you have issues storing materials that are larger? That's a good answer. [ Laughter ] >> The kiddie pool that we often use is stored at my house because there's no room in the library. >> A lot of us store things at our house because there's no space. >> Okay. All right. >> And then there was a question about the timing for your family programs. You mentioned the evenings for the story time even. Do you -- go ahead. >> For family, I've found, at least in my community, I do them all on Sundays at 2:00. I do one at 2:00 and one at 3:45. 2:00 and 3:45, the programs run for an hour and 15 minutes each. The Sunday time slot seems to be just about perfect. I'm getting really great numbers for it. >> Sunday works really well. I agree. >> Okay. And then there is a great question, do you do any S.T.E.M., STE(A)M programs for toddlers? >> Not beyond 3 years old. I know some of my colleagues have started a a Tiny Tinkers program. But personally I do them 3 and up. >> Excellent. I think you answered most of the questions. If anyone has outstanding questions, feel free to type them in and we can circle back round with the heather and get any other feedback but I want to thank you so much for your enthusiasm. It is infectious. >> Well, good. >> I found myself yelping a couple of times out loud here and I notice you have your lyrics for your story time song on the program idea page. Glad to know I can go back. Let me ask this one question, do you all do any sort of fandom at your library and if so do you incorporate S.T.E.M. and STE(A)M work? >> I think both libraries have done comic con programs. Not intentionally but it is an interesting idea. >> We have built structures that they have had to break down. And the teens -- we do have a sphere and we brought that out. You find a lot of times you can bring STE(A)M in to all sorts of programs. And you might be doing STE(A)M already and not even know it. A lot of our craft projects that we do, give one simple science explanation and the sensory jars are all of a sudden about viscosity. >> Great point and a reminder to wrap up on. Thank you so much. I know you will get a lot of traffic to your site after today. Thank you so much for being here and thanks to all of you who joined us today. I will send a certificate within a week for those who attended today an I will also send you a short survey and please take time to provide your feedback to us to our presenters a for their work. Thank you all very much. And everyone have a great rest of your week. Bye-bye.