{"id":1906,"date":"2011-01-22T00:03:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-22T05:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/?p=1906"},"modified":"2013-03-21T00:05:33","modified_gmt":"2013-03-21T05:05:33","slug":"geekmom-kool-aid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/01\/geekmom-kool-aid.html","title":{"rendered":"From GeekMom: Should We Dilute the Kool Aid?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo: Patricia Vollmer<\/p><\/div>\n

When I was little, I remember my mom making Kool Aid. \u00a0I have pictures around of me wearing my token Kool Aid mustache. \u00a0I even had a Kool Aid t-shirt. I remember sometimes the Kool Aid would seem, well, watery<\/em>. \u00a0Did my mom dilute it on purpose? \u00a0Boy, I hope she didn’t. \u00a0Sometimes, I wondered if she was sneakily reducing my sugar and artificial color. \u00a0I do remember telling myself that when I got older, I would never dilute the Kool Aid!<\/p>\n

But guess what? \u00a0While I do my best to make the Kool Aid at home to the recipe, I have to admit I water down the kids’ lemonade and fruit punch at the fast-food restaurant beverage machines. \u00a0It’s just instinct, I WANT to dilute!<\/p>\n

This diluting of the Kool Aid is now a metaphor I’ve been giving to the crime of watering down — or dumbing down<\/em> —\u00a0answers to the questions kids ask. JennT posted earlier this week<\/a> about the incessant “Why? Why? Why?” questions she receives from her kids and in her line of work. \u00a0My kids do the same thing, and sometimes it grates my nerves for sure! \u00a0But sometimes embedded in all of the silly mindless “Why?”s is a jewel of a question that my sons are truly curious about. \u00a0And when my just-as-geeky-as-me husband or I hear such a question we want to stop and give it our full attention!<\/p>\n

And if it’s a science or math question? \u00a0Stop EVERYTHING! \u00a0Break out the props!<\/p>\n

My husband and I had a great professor in college who has a pet peeve about “bad meteorology” to the point he made up a website<\/a> dedicated to debunking several of the most-basic of meteorology myths. \u00a0A quote he said that has stuck with my husband Dave all these years was “Be very careful what you put into kids’ heads because it’s very hard to get it out!”.<\/em> Dave and I take this very seriously with our kids.<\/p>\n

So when our sons ask a question like “Why is the sky blue?”, our approaches to the answer might be a little different than non-geek parents. \u00a0 For a pair of meteorologists with offspring, we waited for that very question with bated breath, as if it were a milestone like learning to walk or ride a bike!<\/p>\n

In our house, though, the question wasn’t “Why is the sky blue?” \u00a0It was “Why are sunsets red?” \u00a0We got it when our oldest son was about 6 1\/2 years old. \u00a0Definitely a corollary to the dream question! \u00a0So I’m now going to share with you how we geek parents approached this subject.<\/p>\n

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Sunset over Lee-on-the-Solent, Great Britain. \u00a9 Copyright Rebecca Altman and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons License. http:\/\/www.geograph.org.uk\/profile\/1963<\/p><\/div>\n

We started with rainbows. \u00a0Jacob knew the colors of the rainbow by this point, so it was easy to explain to him how red is at one end of the rainbow, and violet is at the other.<\/p>\n

Then we discussed the electromagnetic spectrum. \u00a0Enter a basic diagram, with the shortwaves on the left, the longwaves on the right. \u00a0Jacob could name many of the parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, such as X-rays and microwave radiation. \u00a0We explained how red light has longer wavelengths than blue\/violet light.<\/p>\n

Jacob started getting a little glassy-eyed here…uh oh, it doesn’t get any simpler from here!<\/p>\n

We attempted to quickly sum up how the low sun angle at sunset allows sunlight to travel through more of the atmosphere, the color red is able to “scatter” just as readily as the color blue “scatters” when the sun is higher in the sky. \u00a0When the sun is higher, most of the atmosphere’s scatterers are receptive to the color blue. \u00a0This is a phenomenon called Rayleigh Scattering<\/a>. \u00a0I fear we might have lost Jacob by this point, but it was interesting seeing how much he did pick up from the conversation.<\/p>\n

I remember that it generated more questions about the electromagnetic spectrum and I was so impressed with having a conversation with a 6-year-old about how many things in the world around us are traveling in “invisible” waves. \u00a0The music on the radio. \u00a0The remote control (or the 8-billion remote controls in our house!). \u00a0The microwave oven. \u00a0The wireless internet in our house. \u00a0The satellite television.<\/p>\n

Check out these links for other easy-to-understand explanations of sky color.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/spaceplace.nasa.gov\/en\/kids\/misrsky\/misr_sky.shtml
\nhttp:\/\/science.howstuffworks.com\/nature\/climate-weather\/atmospheric\/sky.htm <\/a><\/p>\n

We, as parents, are challenged with teaching our kids the “right things”. \u00a0At least, what we think are the “right things”. \u00a0Sometimes those “right things” are contested topics such as evolution, global warming, the causes of the Civil War, etc. \u00a0I hope to have an open enough relationship with my kids to discuss the varying viewpoints about those more controversial topics and give them the tools to form their own opinions, even if they might differ from mine.<\/p>\n

But when it comes to math and science, I personally feel challenged to push the envelope to teach as much as I can when my kids express interest. \u00a0I hope to never blow off one of their “Why?” questions, although I have to admit that can get tough at times!<\/p>\n

Originally published on Wired.com’s GeekMom Blog on January 22, 2011.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was little, I remember my mom making Kool Aid. \u00a0I have pictures around of me wearing my token Kool Aid mustache. \u00a0I even had a Kool Aid t-shirt. I remember sometimes the Kool Aid would seem, well, watery. \u00a0Did my mom dilute it on purpose? \u00a0Boy, I hope she didn’t. \u00a0Sometimes, I wondered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[203],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ycQ0-uK","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":814,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2012\/04\/my-easter-egg-plans.html","url_meta":{"origin":1906,"position":0},"title":"My Easter Egg Plans","date":"06 April 12","format":false,"excerpt":"Thanks to Pinterest, and a GeekMom who actually tested it last weekend, I will be trying a new approach to dyeing Easter eggs: Kool-Aid! I had written about Kool-Aid while we were living in Nebraska (since Hastings, NE is home of Kool-Aid!) but honestly I don't get it that often.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"easter\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/photo-768x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":838,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2012\/04\/dyeing-easter-eggs-two-ways-part-1-kool-aid-eggs.html","url_meta":{"origin":1906,"position":1},"title":"Dyeing Easter Eggs — Two Ways! Part 1: Kool Aid Eggs","date":"10 April 12","format":false,"excerpt":"This year I let GeekMom.com and Pinterest drive our Easter egg efforts. \u00a0As I'd said over the weekend, we enjoyed coloring our eggs with Kool Aid and a couple of Dave's old silk ties. \u00a0And I had promised some details. Here we go! Kool Aid Eggs This is really easy.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"easter\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/IMG_28901-1024x768.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":435,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2010\/05\/nebraska-discoveries-5-kool-aid.html","url_meta":{"origin":1906,"position":2},"title":"Nebraska Discoveries 14: Kool Aid!*","date":"15 May 10","format":false,"excerpt":"*Yes, you read that correctly! 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