Young Scholars

We had close relatives visiting us yesterday. The family included two brilliant girls who attended a good school in Bangalore. We baked a chocolate cake and planned something for the kids to do and have fun learning.  However, it is difficult to surprise Bangalore kids! I told them they were going to learn about Artificial Intelligence and they were going to play with it. They liked the idea, but the older one, who was in the 5th grade at school, already knew about Artificial Intelligence. "AI," she said, adding, "Example: Alexa!" Where did this kid learn that? I found out later that the family gave them something special - a perfect learning environment at home. Both the parents work and commute long hours, but the grandparents take excellent care of them. In particular, they talk a lot to them, so the kids are very articulate.  The parents, who are techies, spend whatever time they can with the kids to ensure that the kid's curiosity is stimulated. The kids ar

  Do you know where beautiful butterflies come from? Yes, they do come from tiny butterfly eggs. But if you watch carefully, when a butterfly egg hatches, what comes out is the ugly caterpillar! The caterpillar eats a lot of leaves and builds itself a cocoon. After about two weeks the cocoon bursts open and out flies a butterfly! Click on the link below and see a nice video from Free School. https://youtu.be/TvmQiWpgX5c   The video calls the cocoon as chrysalis. You can click on the following link and see as many as 300 other videos from Free School. https://www.youtube.com/user/watchfreeschool Srinivasan Ramani 20-Sept-23

Photo Credit: Pixabay, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons Spring will be here in a few months and plants will start growing as the land warms up! Have you thought of plants you can plant at that time?  We bought some shelled Sunflower seeds to eat last week. They are tasty and give us valuable protein, vitamins and minerals. We will buy some unshelled Sunflower seeds in a few months to plant!  Srinivasan Ramani                     

Photo by: Andreas Weith, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons Drop a cube of ice in a bucket of water and see if it sinks. It will not, because ice is less dense than water. In comparison, rocks are more dense and they sink in water. The fact that ice floats is very good for the fish and us. If ice was denser, lots of it would have sunk and gone to the bottom of lakes and the sea. In many places it would not have melted in that case and would have made the bottom of lakes and the sea very cold. Luckily for us ice floats and melts as soon the air gets warmer in spring.   Srinivasan Ramani 

  Utahcamera at en.wikipedia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons We say dogs and cats are mammals. That tells us a lot about them. That they have four legs. Mammals give birth to young ones and feed them with milk. They don’t lay eggs like many non-mammals do.   Birds and insects are not mammals and they lay eggs. After many days, the young ones that grow inside the eggs break them and come out. They find their own food even on the day they come out of the eggs!  Now a question: are squirrels’ mammals? Yes, they are. Are squirrels’ rodents? Yes. They are also rodents. What does this mean? Rodents usually have short limbs, small bodies and long tails. They mostly eat plant-based food like nuts. Their front teeth never stop growing.  So, they keep gnawing something or the other to keep the teeth becoming too big!  Srinivasan Ramani

  ICMA Photos, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons Suppose your daddy has brought two toys for you and your sister. You want to choose what you like most. Your sister says, “No! I will choose. You can have the toy I do not choose”. Your mom may say, “Let us make a fair decision. We will toss a coin. If it comes out “heads up” you will choose. If it comes   “tails up”, your sister will choose”. What is this coin tossing? Learn how to toss a coin and what is “heads up” and what is “tails up”. Srinivasan Ramani