March 31 - Happy Birthday, Robert Bunsen

  Posted on March 31, 2022

This is an update of my post published on March 31, 2011:



This was a guy who liked to blow things up!


A guy who loved anything that spewed from the ground!


A guy who knew his chemistry and made some inventions and discoveries.

Born in Germany on this day in 1811, Robert Bunsen invented the Bunsen burner. This piece of laboratory equipment uses gas to produce a single open flame that can be used to sterilize instruments and to heat or burn substances. He also developed some ways to analyze gas and a method of using a spectroscope to identify elements. With Gustav Kirchhoff, he discovered cesium and rubidium.




Celebrate...

...by burning things or blowing things up—but only if you have an adult and a safe lab or outdoor area in which to do your chemistry experiments!!!

Here are some more great experiments.

If you don't have a safe place and a helping adult, watch some episodes of Mythbusters, if you can find them. Those guys are ALWAYS blowing stuff up! 












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March 30 - Happy Birthday, Francisco Goya and Vincent Van Gogh!

  Posted on March 30, 2022

This is an update of my post published on March 30, 2011:


What a great day for art! Artist Franciso Goya was born in Spain on March 30, 1746...

...and Vincent van Gogh was born in the Netherlands March 30, 1853.



Goya was a Spanish Romantic-era painter who became a favorite of nobles and royals and, in 1789, was made court painter for Charles IV of Spain. Most of the art he produced at that time was portraits, but in his later years Goya experimented with other subjects, making prints of a series called The Disasters of War, for example, and painting pictures of bullfights. Upsetting stuff, for the most part!


One of the most disturbing things that Goya painted, to my mind, is the portrait of the Roman god Saturn devouring his son—partly because Goya painted it straight onto the walls of his own dining and sitting rooms! Yikes! How could anyone eat while staring at that mural????


Van Gogh was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter. He is well known for his use of bright colors and for his contributions to the beginnings of modern art. He is also known for his depression. He severed his ear and even painted some self-portraits with his bandaged ear (he painted 37 self-portraits during his life!), and he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his chest (although he did live two days after he shot himself!).

 
Van Gogh's work include some of the most recognizable and expensive paintings in the world.



And, as far as I know, it was van Gogh's art that was first made into an immersive experience - which is now becoming popular for a variety of other incredible artists' work, as well.


I went to the Immersive Van Gogh exhibit.
Highly recommended!


Celebrate today by painting a picture!

You might like the inspiration found on KinderArt.

Or try these other art-oriented activities:
  • Read some bios, see some paintings, and do some puzzles on the Garden of Praise website. Goya and Van Gogh are both represented. 






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March 29 - That Time the Niagara Falls Stopped Falling!

  Posted on March 29, 2022

This is an update of my post published on March 29, 2011:




What happens to a great big river and a mighty waterfall when ice floes block the water?

The water flow of Niagara River was stopped for a bit more than a day in 1848! Several days of harsh winds had pushed all the ice floes into a jammed-up glob at the mouth of the Niagara River - and that ice-jam became an actual dam. The enormous river was reduced to just a trickle, all the way from Buffalo to the Falls.

A farmer taking a walk around midnight first discovered that the Falls weren't...falling. He made the discovery because the usual roar of the Falls was silent. Mills that were powered by the falling water had ground to a halt. Fish died. Turtles were stranded.


The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers "dewatered"
the American Falls in the 1960s, and this photo
gives us an idea of what people saw on this date
in 1848.

Thousands of people came to the river banks to see...the unfamiliar, bare riverbed! Some people dared to walk out onto that riverbed and recover things such as old tools and weapons.
Even the soldiers in the U.S. Calvary couldn't resist riding their horses up and down the mostly empty riverbed. 

And the folks who ran the Maid of the Mist tourist boats took advantage of the unexpected situation to blast some of the most dangerous rocks in the gorge!

But when the wind shifted, on the night of March 31, the ice dam way up river broke, and a wall of water came downriver and over the brink of the falls! Yikes! Apparently nobody drowned - I gather that nobody was still in the riverbed when the Falls resumed falling. Either the roar of the rushing water was audible for miles, or nobody wanted to continue frolicking on the riverbed during nighttime!

More nature + ice = daring (or foolish) behavior!

This is an "ice bridge"
under Rainbow Bridge.
Apparently “ice bridges” sometimes form on the Niagara River, below the Falls, during really long, cold winters. Until 1912, visitors were allowed to actually walk out on the ice bridge and view the Falls, but in 1912 the ice bridge broke up and three tourists died.


Did you know...?

  • The Niagara Falls are 176 feet high (but there are rocks at the base, so the fall is just 70 feet), and an amazing 150,000 U.S. gallons of water pound down the Falls EVERY SECOND!!!
  • There are two hydroelectric plants that harness power from some of this falling water to make electricity.
  • About 12 million visitors view the Niagara Falls every year.

For more on the Falls, check out the Facts About Niagara Falls website.


To build your own waterfall, try the instructions found here. 













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