Yesterday's Nature Group Meeting

We had another fun group meeting yesterday with some fun projects.

We made an air pressure gauge, a rain gauge and a bird feeder.

The rain gauge was straight forward, a plastic tube, which we marked at 1 inch intervals, then we taped on a popsicle stick to help hold it upright in the ground.

The air pressure gauge was a wide mouth jar with a balloon wrapped tightly over the top (tight enough to bounce a penny on), then wrap a rubber band around it to help hold it in place. To get the balloon to wrap over the top, cut off the neck of the balloon. We did some other stuff with a straw and then you put a board behind it to mark when pressure was up and down (the straw moves up and down), but it was a bit complicated and we were told to use crazy glue and it stuck mostly to our fingers. I think, just putting the balloon over the top is enough. It was neat to see it go up when we were inside a nice warm room and be sucked into the jar when it was cold out.

My most favorite was the bird feeders. Take a toilet paper holder. Use a hole punch to punch two holes on one end that you can run a string through to hang the hanger from. Then take a knife and pierce both sides of the tube on the other end. Later on you can push a popsicle holder through and it will act like a perch. Pour honey onto a plate (or you can use peanut butter), roll the tube into the honey, getting it nice and sticky. Then roll the tube into bird seed...let it get cold so the honey crystallizes. Insert string and popsicle stick, hang up and watch the birds come in flocks!