Winter is prime time for weather lesson at LS library

It’s the topic of conversation everyone defaults to at some point, and one that is especially on people’s minds with the recent snow and ice. Eleven kids gathered at the Lee’s Summit branch of the Mid-Continent Library Jan. 21 to learn about the weather.

“I just thought winter was a good time to do one on the weather,” said Jodanna Bitner, an early literacy associate for the library. “Weather’s something that has always fascinated me. You get a lot of snow; you get rain. You see a lot more of that happening in the winter, and it’s really interesting to learn what makes it happen.”

Bitner said she does research online to find fun activities to illustrate the STEAM concepts for the kids. She especially likes the ideas she finds on a blog called “Show Me Librarian,” written by a professional in Skokie, Ill.

To illustrate how clouds have to be full of moisture in order to release rain, Bitner gave each child a cup of water, then sprayed a clump of shaving cream on top. The kids counted drops of food coloring as they dribbled them onto the shaving cream and observed how many it took for the food coloring to reach the water underneath their “cloud.”

The result looked like a colorful ice cream soda. Once the colors started leaking into the water, the kids got inspired to start adding new colors, bringing together art and science in this STEAM project.

“Making a mess is always fun, and it’s funner when Mama doesn’t have to clean it up,” said Megan Ward, who brought her two children, Eliana and Aiden, to the program.

Other parents shared the sentiment.

“I like the messy science projects somewhere not at home,” said Carrie Lakey of Lee’s Summit, whose four children attended the weather program.

Sticking with the cloud theme, the next activity had kids mixing up dough to sculpt their own cumulus clouds using flour and oil.

“It looks like I’m about to make a cookie,” said 6-year-old Harper Cobb of Kansas City.

Some of the kids opted to squash their dough flat instead, creating stratus clouds that matched the gray skies outside.

“I like the cloud dough, because it doesn’t make me look like a Smurf,” said 8-year-old Westlee Rhodes of Lee’s Summit, as she showed off hands stained with blue food coloring.

Bitner also shared with the kids a tornado maker she constructed by connecting two two-liter bottles together and filling one with water, glitter and food coloring. The kids took turns upending it and swishing the liquid around to create a funnel inside.

Harper said it reminded her of the one in “The Wizard of Oz”.

For Bitner, the Kid STEAM programs at the library are a way to get kids more engaged with commonplace science concepts.

“You can hear about the weather, but I think it’s interesting to see how science affects us every day. When you start to notice things like, ‘What do clouds look like?’ you can see on your own what’s about to happen,” Bitner said.

“It makes the mystery of it make more sense to them. It gets them more engaged in why that stuff happens. Maybe we’ll have some future meteorologists that come out of it.”