On Aisle 42, Universe Components: The Atomic Marshmallow Project

May 26, 2017| cometary| 0 Comment | 12:12 am

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View looking down of supply kit: pink powder (gelatin) in a white up, water in a clear plastic cup, a round red plate, two wooden skewers, two marshmallows, four small candies in a small container. — The Atomic Marshmallow Kit

Now that you have all of your supplies ready, it’s time to guide your group through the construction of a model atom.

Start by handing out the marshmallows and ice-cream topping pieces. With younger participants, it can maintain focus if you mention that there are extra supplies for snacking on afterwards.

Start with the marshmallow. Most of an atom is empty space. And most of a marshmallow is nothing but air frothed into sugar. So this marshmallow represents the “empty” space of an atom. For older participants, you can encourage them to think of the sugar of the marshmallow as representing not only the energy that permeates what we call “empty” space but also the forces that hold the atom together.

For a very long time, the atom was believed to be more-or-less of uniform density, an amorphous mixture of tiny negative particles called electrons swirling around in a positively-charged “pudding.” In 1911, Ernst Rutherford and his team completed a series of experiments that shocked the physics community by revealing that most of the mass of an atom is concentrated in a tiny, central nucleus containing all of the positive charge. For our model, in honor of Rutherford, we’ll build a helium (He) atom, which has a nucleus containing two protons and two neutrons. (Much of Rutherford’s research focused on the alpha particle–which happens to be exactly the same as a helium nucleus.)

Let your dark-colored candies be protons and your light-colored candies be neutrons. (It doesn’t really matter, but textbooks often draw protons as dark dots and neutrons as white dots.)

Assorted small candies in various colors, blue, green, purple, white. — Candy Nucleons

Two dark and two white little candies (close-up) — Candy Nucleons

Using the wooden skewer or toothpick, drill a small hole in the side of the marshmallow. Now use the same toothpick or skewer to push those nucleons (a word which here means “candy pieces representing protons and neutrons”) into the center of the marshmallow.

Close-up of marshmallow with hole poked in center, showing marshmallow-covered tip of wooden skewer. — Pathway for the Nucleus

Close-up of marshmallow, with one dark candy visible inside hole in center, and two white and one dark candy waiting on top. — Pathway for the Nucleus

This is a good time in the activity to stop lecturing and instead gather suggestions from the participants and sketch their ideas on a board if you have one, or to gather around some sketching paper for discussion purposes. You can expect to see pictures that look much like a planetary system, because that’s the way the atom often (still!) is drawn in textbooks. You might have a knowledgeable participant who’ll shout out something like, “Shells! The electrons are in shells!” or “They’re in the Cloud!” Regardless, during the discussion, build on these volunteered suggestions to reach a description of the electrons as whirling around the nucleus in a cloud, going so fast that you can’t really tell exactly where they are, only that you know roughly how far they are from the nucleus.

At this point, we have a positively charged ion, because we haven’t added any electrons yet. A helium atom needs two electrons, negatively-charged particles, to balance out the two positively-charged protons. Once it was established that the positive charge is concentrated in the nucleus, where did researchers decide that the electrons belong?

Our helium atom’s two electrons do indeed share an electron “shell”, a layer of electrons a known distance from the nucleus. So let’s put a very thin, energetic, sparkly shell around our atom.

Before setting up the shell supplies, pause to demonstrate the procedure. If you’re working with younger students, you may need to stress that everyone will get their turn. If the “mess” part of the activity is an issue, set up a protected area where the messy activity is OK and let the participants queue up to build their atoms in assembly-line fashion.

To create the “electron shell” skewer the marshmallow firmly on the wooden stick, then very briefly dunk it into the water, then tap off any excess water into the water container. Tapping off excess water is important, because otherwise the marshmallow can get soggy, which makes for a less-attractive candy atom.

Marshmallow on skewer dunked into clear plastic cup half-full of water. — Dunk

Wet marshmallow held by skewer on edge of plastic cup of water, drops of water dripping off. — and un-dunk.

Each group needs a container with about a cup of water in it and another container with a packet of dry gelatin mix emptied into it. (For fun, choose a gelatin color in keeping with whatever events are ongoing, or a local sports team’s colors…anything to drive interest.)

Finally, gently swirl the damp marshmallow in the gelatin mix.

Marshmallow on a skewer, being rolled in pink gelatin in a round white bowl. — Adding the Electron Shell

Set the decorated marshmallows aside on a sheet of waxed paper or a plate.

Two gelatin-coated marshmallows, on skewers, set to dry on a round red plastic plate. — Two Finished Helium Atoms

As time permits, participants can make other atoms…stuffing different numbers of protons or neutrons into marshmallows and adding a shell of electrons.

Books Make the Best GiftsBooks Make the Best Gifts

A group of authors affiliated with the San Francisco chapter of the Women’s National Book Association got together earlier this month to celebrate our pandemic-time publications. Oh, my goodness, what a variety! What awesome works.

Are you shopping for friends and family who aren’t as committed to science fiction and fantasy as you are? Need some hot tips for books that will surprise and delight them with your confidence in stepping out from your own genre?

Here’s your directory, so you can jump to satisfy your target gift recipients’ desires. Each cover photo links to the relevant Amazon page. If you prefer to buy elsewhere, head for the author’s website.

Historical Fiction

Thrillers and Mysteries

Short Stories and Contemporary Fiction

Memoir

Poetry

Books for Children and Parents

Nonfiction and Self-Improvement

And we’re off!

Historical Fiction

COver for Betrayal on the Bayou, showing a broad pool with tall bayou trees leaning over the water and casting reflections.

Hungry for a story with deep African American and French connections? Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte’s Betrayal on the Bayou plunges the reader into 1854 Louisiana, where a young Parisian widower “sets off a twenty-eight-year chain of events that reveal the brutal truths of inequality, colorism, and betrayal.” Sheryl’s blog is here. You’ll find she also teaches writing.

Book cover for What Disappears, with the Eiffel Tower rising above a cityscape.

Russian history? The delights of Paris? Ballet? Does your gift recipient love any of these? Meet up with long-separated twins at the Ballet Russe, and hold your breath as to what will happen next, in Barbara Quick’s What Disappears. Visit Barbara at her website.

Thrillers and Mysteries

Cover for What Jonah Knew, with silhouettes of a small boy and a young man superimposed on one another.

How about a deep, soul-searching, thriller….head for Barbara Graham’s What Jonah Knew, on the surface a story about mothers and sons, but one that delves into “metaphysical questions about life and death—and what happens in between.” Follow Barbara on her website.

Cover for Detours, with a young woman gazing from the cover, pale, wide-eyed and serious.

From mothers and sons to a mothers and daughters, come to Sheri McGuinn’s newest book, Peg’s Story: Detours, which answers questions raised by the first book in this series, Running Away. Discover links between the stories as you follow Peg’s escape to a new life—only to see her mistakes spiral “into a life-changing series of events.” Catch up on Sheri’s website.

Contemporary Fiction

Cover for What Is Possible from Here, with title words on a cardlike field, with clusters of pink flowers behind and around the edges.

Do you want to share stories of real people finding their way through ordinary life? Stories set all over the country? Try Cynthia Gregory’s What is Possible From Here, a collection exploring “the nature of friendship and love, and the myriad ways we endeavor to make meaning in an unpredictable world.” You can also find her nonfiction book, Journaling as a Sacred Practice, through Cynthia’s website. If you’d like a hardcover copy of her collection, you can find it online at Barnes & Noble.

Cover for Begin Again, with a wide landscape of golden hills rising to rough brown hills and a deep blue-clouded sky, with a rainbow falling to earth.

Looking for grounded contemporary women’s fiction? Consider Kimberly Dredger’s Begin Again. This novel takes you on a young widow’s journey, “as she struggles to re-enter life, enduring more loss and sadness on her way to ultimate empowerment.” To expand your collection, you might also pick up Kimberly’s anthology of essays, stories, and poetry, starting on her author page.

Memoir

Cover for Dancing on the Wine-Dark Sea with a woman in a long dress twirling as she wades ankle-deep at the edge of the sea, with a sunset glowing in the sky and on the water.

How about a fabulous feminist travel memoir? Diane LeBow’s Dancing on the Wine-Dark Sea: Memoir of a Trailblazing Woman’s Travels, Adventures, and Romance takes you “dining with Corsican rebels and meeting a black stallion in a blizzard on the Mongolian steppes to assisting exiled Afghan women and savoring a love affair with an elegant French Baron.” Catch up with Diane on her website.

Full disclosure: I WON a copy of this book in the event giveaway, after listening to Diane give us more details about her story. Can’t wait until it arrives, so I can follow the whole adventure.

Cover of Loving Before Loving, with an old black-and-white photograph of a couple smiling together--a white woman with close-cropped hair, and a black man with a short hair and a short-trimmed moustache.

For a blend of social justice history and memoir, look for Joan Lester’s Loving Before Loving: A Marriage in Black and White, which takes the reader back in time. You’ll find a deeply personal story exploring racism, sexism, and marriage, through the lives of one couple: a memoir of love and life in the midst of the civil rights and women’s rights movements. Get to know Joan through her website.

Cover for The Red Sandals, with a graphic of a plant bowing down against a red background, with a black and white photo of a small Chinese girl in a white dress with white ribbons in her hair, her hands clasped together.

For an unflinching look into life in Mao’s China, and the impact on one girl, pick up Jing Li’s The Red Sandals: A Memoir, in which she shares her personal story of being the unwanted girl in a poverty-stricken family, her scholastic journey within the Chinese system, her transition to America, and growth as a teacher and writer. Learn more about Jing and her story here.

Cover for Promenade of Desire, with broad color slashes in yellow and blue and red, over a partially-concealed photograph of a young woman with her arm lifted, in a seemingly-seductive pose.

Through her dramatic memoir, Promenade of Desire—A Barcelona Memoir, Isidra Mencos uses her own story of learning to free herself from repression through books and salsa dance, to create a “sensual, page-turning coming-of-age story: Isidra evolves from a repressed Catholic virgin to a seductive Mata Hari.” Learn more about Isidra and her journey at her website.

Cover for Brown Skin Girl, a graphic design with an artist's representation of a young woman in a long skirt, her long dark hair sweeping out to form a background for the books's subtitle, with shapes of flowers, leaves, and birds woven into the background.

For a heartwarming story of one person’s escape from the abuses of family and culture, follow Mytrae Melania. In her Brown Skin Girl: An Indian-American Woman’s Magical Journey from Broken to Beautiful, she shows how her journey…through many trials…brought her to “freedom, love, and the magic that finds you when you follow your heart.” Find more about her mission at her website.

Poetry

Cover for Birds of San Pancho, with a golden-breasted bird perched on a twig, with blurred greenery in the background.

Shopping for someone who loves poetry? Travel? Birds? Lucille Lang-Day’s Birds of San Pancho and Other Poems of Place deploys Lucille’s wordsmithing to unveil her “vast curiosity, an intimate knowledge of flora and fauna, and a keen appreciation for the things of this world—travel, food, weather, the manifold creatures, love.” Follow Lucille at her website.

Cover for Deeply Notched Leaves, with a background of green leaves and one bright yellow daisy-like flower.

For “a merry-go-round of life experience in story-poems and social commentary full of spice and wisdom,” take a whirl with Dr. Jeanne Powell’s Deeply Notched Leaves. This 2021 collection will set your head spinning. Find more of Jeanne’s literary work at her website.

Books for Children and Parents

Cover for The Strider and the Regulus, a seascape with octopus/squid tentacles rising from the sea and curving through the letters of the title.

Looking for something fantastic for a young adult reader? Tricia Wagner’s The Strider and the Regulus is the opening salvo in a three-volume series. “A starry-eyed boy. A cryptic map. A mythical treasure. What perils await in the chasing of dreams?” Get to know Tricia at her website.

Cover for The Smugglers, with an old-timey suitcase covered with stickers about aliens and space and spaceships, sitting in a long metallic hallway that looks like part of a space structure.

My own 2022 release, The Smugglers, falls in this category. This LGBTQ-friendly story centers on an adolescent alien who’ll face changes in his world—and herself—as they rush to the rescue of an escaped animal. Written for children (middle grade readers and up) and their parents, the story shows us both the mother’s and the child’s point of view through this adventure.

Cover for The Peddler's Gift, wtih drawing of a man in a long coat and rond hat, with several villagers behind him.

Need a storybook for a young person…or do you just love those old traditional-style tales and beautiful illustrations of life in the Old Country? Maxine Schur’s The Peddler’s Gift, illustrated by Kimberly Bulcken Root, is a new edition of the “wistful, moving tale of a boy who steals a toy from a foolish peddler only to discover he’s not so foolish after all.” Find more of Maxine’s books, including Finley Finds His Fortune, at her website.

Cover for Treasure Hunt, with three children peering standing in a large cardboard box, with a pinwheel shape of yellow and green behind them.

Young readers (the 3-8-year-old set) on your gift list? I used to set up treasure hunts for my little brothers…so much fun. Here, Stephanie Wildman’s Treasure Hunt, with art by Estafania Razo, takes three siblings on a search for wonders In their own home. For grownup reading, find Stephanie’s website to discover her book on the perils of privilege in America.

Cover for Sun and Moon's Big Idea, with a cartoon sun and moon, smiling at each other above a cartoon city.

Another something sweet for the 8-and-unders, Karen Faciane’s The Sun and the Moon’s Big Idea, illustrated by Sierra Mon Ann Vidal, brings together the two most prominent “lights” in our sky… to celebrate “the uniquely, wonderful person you were born to be.” Keep up with Karen on her author page.

Nonfiction

Book Cover for Chakra Tonics, showing two glasses filled with a purplish mixture topped by raspberries and blueberries with sprigs of mint.

It’s that time of year, when people are looking for paths to self improvement, for personal well-being and creating moments of calm in this crazy world. Try out Elise Marie Collins’ Chakra Tonics, Essential Elixirs for the Mind, Body, and Spirit. Yes, finally, a “lively information packed recipe book filled with positive life lessons based on the ancient Indian spiritual system, known as the Chakras.” Catch up to Elise via her contact tree.

Book cover for Make Every Move a Meditation, with wavelike shapes in shades of red to gold rolling under words about mindfulness, mental health, and well-being.

Here’s more nonfiction for personal wellbeing: Nita Sweeney’s Make Every Move a Meditation: Mindful Movement for Mental Health, Well-Being, and Insight. Do you imagine meditation is all about sitting still or following strict formulas for movement? Nita teaches ways to understand meditation more deeply: “What if lifting weights, dancing, or walking across a room counted? What if you could make every move a meditation?” At her website, you can pick up a free handout.

Rain(man), Rain(man), Go AwayRain(man), Rain(man), Go Away

This isn’t so much a blog post as a paper. There are footnotes and citations. Bear with me.

Have you had this experience? Someone in a group discussion notes that April is Autism Awareness Month. Then someone else says, “Oh, remember Rain Man? I watched it again recently! Isn’t that a great movie?” And then everyone has a lovely chat about movies. Unfortunately, this kind of response is what gamers call an Epic Fail. Let’s walk into April with some better awareness.[1]

So, what is autism? What isn’t it?

Photo Credit: Nina from Australia, Rain, Rain, Go Away (CC BY 2.0) via Wikimedia Commons

What it is

Autism is a set of neurological characteristics found in as many as 1 in 50 people [2,3] that can lead to difficulties with social interactions, repetitive behaviors, or intense engagement in special interests. Not necessarily all these things. (So, you know 100 people? Well, you likely know a couple of autistic people.)

Nobody knows what “causes” [4] autism, although probably there are combinations of genes that are more likely to yield autistic characteristics. (It may run in families, like other polygenic characteristics, such as height.) Autism presents on a spectrum, so its current designation is Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)…though many autistic people will counter, “there’s nothing disordered about me!”

What it isn’t

Autism has absolutely nothing to do with vaccines—that absurd idea was generated by publication of fraudulent research, a real-world hoax that has harmed untold numbers of people [5,6,7]

Autism is not Rain Man. Dustin Hoffman did his best, and the film made a positive difference at the time, but that was over thirty years ago. The movie is now woefully out of date, and most autistic people find it discomfiting, stereotyping autism, families of autistics, and the way the world perceives them.

Autism is not sociopathy/psychopathy/other-mispercepathy. The number of mysteries or thrillers or police procedurals in which the murderer/terrorist/stalker is a shifty-eyed, unempathetic, twitchy weirdo whose speech patterns and movements and sometimes specific labelling code them as “autistic” make my hair curl. No, the autistic people of the world are not spying on you, plotting the perfect murder, or designing weapons of terror. Instead, as a class, they are the kindest people you know.

Autism is not the strange child. The vast majority of autistics are adults. Autism doesn’t go away when you grow up. Why don’t you notice? Those whose difficulties with the world are great still live in relative isolation. As for the rest, they’re “masking.” This isn’t a lighthearted improv exercise. It is a progressive modification of behavior—often unconscious, in ways learned over many years—to appear more like you, because they’re pretty sure you won’t accept them otherwise. (So, maybe this should be Autism Acceptance Month.)

Masking isn’t perfect; you probably think of your autistic friends as ‘the little-bit odd one’ or the ‘cute, quirky one.’ You may not see them around as much as your other friends—because keeping up masking is hard work. The older an autistic person is, the better they can be at masking—but then, it’s harder for them to change that. Also, be aware that if you realize a friend is autistic, it doesn’t help to tell them to stop masking. It’s a difficult process, and they’ll let you know when they’re ready.

Photo Credit: Dietmar Rabbich (CC BY 4.0) via Wikimedia Commons

Unfortunately, old movies like Rain Man leave the impression that all autistic people are weird geniuses, can’t take care of themselves, and suffer extreme difficulties with life. Yes, some are in that boat (and a rare few are even geniuses). It’s important to be sure everyone’s properly supported in life—can we simply agree to support autistic people with needs just as we support neurotypical (NT) people with serious life issues?

A few thoughts to keep in mind, no matter what type of neurons you’re thinking with:

Autistic people are, as a group, extremely honest. This presents complications—because most autistic people don’t react in conversation in quite the exact way that neurotypicals expect. For instance, if someone doesn’t look you in the eye all the time—a favorite behavior of NT’s—they’re perceived as “dishonest”. That’s unfortunate…which is why ambitious autistic adults work hard to make eye contact, even though it may be enormously stressful to do so.

Autistic people are empathetic—and have all the same emotions you do. They may express their emotions a little differently, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have the exact same feelings you experience. Your autistic friends may even be more likely to notice how you’re feeling and to empathize with you, because they are observing you and working to figure you out, all the time. So they’re not just in possession of that deep, humanizing characteristic, they’re actively working at it, every day.

This doesn’t mean that autistic people are all perfect, wonderful, nice, diligent, hardworking, or what-have-you and are somehow better than neurotypical people. Everyone has shortcomings—and autistics don’t need to become the next perfectionist minority. It’s just that the stereotypes (weird, twitchy, untrustworthy) are contradictory.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably part of the reading/writing community. Here’s another thought for you.

Well. Ummmm. YOU might be autistic. Nobody wants to think of themselves as “different,” but writers—whether they’ve gone the publishing route or not—draw heavily from a well of “difference.” Lots of us grew up feeling like we were “on the fringe” or “the odd one out.” We dive deep into the special interests that drive our work. We can go on and on and on about a character or a situation or a plot point—whether in a story we wrote or in one of our favorites. Heck, some of us can sit down and hammer out 50,000, 100,000, a million words. That’s hardly what nonwriters would call “typical.”

If you’ve secretly, quietly wondered if there’s something you don’t know about yourself that maybe you should, here is one easily-accessible book to read: Cynthia Kim’s Nerdy, Shy, and Socially Inappropriate is a clever, affecting story of one woman’s journey of self-discovery. Some terminology it uses, unfortunately, became outdated the year after publication, with the elimination (for very good reasons) of the problematic term Asperger’s [8,9], but the self-realization content still holds up.

A cautionary note: take with gigantic doses of salt anything coming from the group Autism Speaks. They will be rather shouty during April and their old puzzle-piece logo will be cropping up all over, but this group is widely derided by autistic people as not speaking for them and, worse, actively spreading misperceptions about autism [10] and promoting [11] the application of abusive ‘therapy’ [12]. Many autistic people therefore consider Autism Speaks to be a hate group [13], but even without that label, their role in the politics of disability is subject to serious question [14].

Ready to raise awareness a little (or a lot) more?

Below are a couple of helpful, easy-to-access resources. You can find deeper reading by continuing to the Notes and Citations section.

Ask Autistic Adults is my current favorite website for quickly-accessed on-point information on what grown-up autistic people feel you should know: labels, appropriate language, effective support, fake/abusive “therapies,” and more.

The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism is a web-based organization that provides a broad array of resources and connections to useful information for autistic people and their allies.

To catch up on the current zeitgeist in the autistic community, try the hashtag #actuallyautistic. To some extent, outsiders have tried to co-opt it, but the hashtag has withstood that pretty well so far.

Now, have a very happy Autism Awareness Month, everybody!

Below the blue umbrella: Notes and Citations

A bright blue umbrella floats upside-down

Photo Credit: Tom Mrazek, An Umbrella In the Dark, (CC BY 2.0) via Wikimedia Commons

Yes, lots of notes and cites. Because a blog post needs to be brief, but the topic is complex!

No one person speaks for all people in any marginalized group. I make no claims that my perspective, or those of the autistic individuals I’ve cited here, is more worthy than that of any other member of the broadly-defined autism community. This essay cannot be perfect, but I will update it as necessary, and I welcome honest, fact-based critique.
“U.S. Autism Rates Up 10 Percent in New CDC Report” Bloomberg School of Health. Johns Hopkins. 26 March 2020. (Accessed 29 March 2022) https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2020/us-autism-rates-up-10-percent-in-new-cdc-report#:~:text=Researchers%20at%20the%20Johns%20Hopkins,2016%20(or%201.85%20percent).
“Rising rates” of autism do not reflect changes in the incidence of autism; rather, reports like the Johns Hopkins article reflect how wider application of diagnosis reveals that more people are autistic than was thought previously. This article in particular highlights a progression over time, as researchers began attending to this data and improving their diagnostic techniques. I linked to this article because it is quite readable and provides links to the academic papers and data, for those who are interested. The choice of a headline in a public-facing news presentation can be misleading—remember to read more than headlines.
Autistic people, by and large, dislike using “cause” to describe the mechanisms underlying autism. It makes it sound like a disease, something you can “cure,” and that detracts from attending to what can truly help autistic people thrive in a largely non-autistic society, understanding what “therapies” are harmful bunk, and listening to what autistics think. However, it’s the term that’s easiest for a casual reader follow in the context of a (supposedly) brief article like this one. As a reminder, this is a note to a sentence stating clearly that the mechanics are still unknown.
“Wakefield’s article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent” British Medical Journal (BMJ). 6 January 2011. BMJ 2011;342:c7452. https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452
Wakefield’s horrific piece of hoaxery was published in the Lancet in January of 1998, and its awful effects have flowed into every corner of our medical landscape—even influencing vaccine resistance during the current pandemic. By the time the journal retracted the piece, the damage was done and the evil thought-virus of ‘vaccines are scary’ had spread too far to eradicate it.
Eggerston, Laura. “Lancet retracts 12-year-old article linking autism to MMR vaccines” Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ). 9 March 2010. Accessed via National Institutes of Health, 29 March 2022. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831678/
Hans Asperger, the man after whom the so-called “high-functioning” side of the autism spectrum was (temporarily) named, is now known to have been a eugenicist, Nazi-assisting child-hurter, and all-around guy-you-wouldn’t-invite-round-to-dinner. The article below [9] is an accessible read and includes references.
Juntti, Melaina. “It’s Time to Stop Calling Autism ‘Asperger’s’” Fatherly. 9 December 2021. https://www.fatherly.com/health-science/aspergers-vs-autism-and-hans-asperger/
Lutterman, Sara. “The biggest autism advocacy group is still failing too many autistic people” Washington Post. 14 February 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/14/biggest-autism-advocacy-group-is-still-failing-too-many-autistic-people/
I’m not going to glorify this page with a detailed citation. This cite is here to prove that the organization supports this kind of treatment. https://www.autismspeaks.org/applied-behavior-analysis/
Ira. “Why ABA Therapy Is Harmful to Autistic People” Autistic Science Person. Accessed 29 March 2022. https://autisticscienceperson.com/why-aba-therapy-is-harmful-to-autistic-people/
Sequenzia, Amy. “Is Autism Speaks a Hate Group?” Autistic Women and Nonbinary Network. 19 August 2014. https://awnnetwork.org/is-autism-speaks-a-hate-group/
Ne’eman, Ari. “Autism and the Disability Community: The Politics of Neurodiversity, Causation, and Cure” 1 February 2017 (Initially presented at Emory University in 2013). Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN). Accessed 29 March 2022. https://autisticadvocacy.org/2017/02/autism-and-the-disability-community-the-politics-of-neurodiversity-causation-and-cure/

Walking to Pluto: Step 2Walking to Pluto: Step 2

Step 2: The List of Requirements:

Don’t worry. This is one of the least expensive major science projects you’ll put together.

You’ll need:

I found a sunny yellow ball for my Sun.

1) Any ball roughly 8” (19mm) in diameter—a basic playground ball is likely to work, as will a standard soccer ball. FIFA size 5 works for the English-units model; the SI model is slightly smaller, so a youth-sized FIFA size 4 is appropriate—but don’t get bogged down in the details. Visually, when compared with the planet models, all of these ball sizes look the same. It’s most likely that you already own or can borrow a ball for this project; if you simply must buy a ball, you should be able to find one for under $10.

2) A set of eleven objects to represent each of the eight planets, our Moon, and two of the dwarf planets:

Mars or Venus

Pluto or Ceres

a) four pins (two pin heads represent Mars and Venus, two pin points represent Ceres and Pluto),

The Moon Is Made Of Green Candy

b) one tiny candy nonpareil (cake décor or “sprinkle”) for the Moon

Earth Gets Spicy

c) two peppercorns or allspice seeds for Earth and Venus

Having a Ball with Jupiter

d) one jacks-size ball (Jupiter)

This jellybean could be Uranus or Neptune

e) two jelly beans (or coffee beans) for Neptune and Uranus

Saturn represented by a large swirly peppermint

f) and a ¾” (19mm) “shooter” marble or a big round piece of candy (also 3/4″ or 19mm) for Saturn. (It’s just so nice to have something extra-cool and colorful for our most spectacular planet.)

Total cost: less than a dollar US; ideally, rummaging about an average home or allowing participants to bring contributions should turn up most of these objects for free. To splurge, pick up a whole jar of fresh peppercorns for around $5 and share them out among the students.

2) Eleven inexpensive holders for your objects, with the object names written on them. Empty clear yogurt containers or plastic drink cups work very well (see photos), as the pins can be pushed through the cups and others attached with glue to the cup bottoms…such that the cups then serve as mini-pedestals for the model objects. However, don’t feel bound by guidelines here—a set of index cards will do the job if that’s what you have handy. It does help to secure each object to its support. However, be sure that students can see the actual object clearly so that everyone has a feel for the scale. Cost: as much as 10 cents

3) A few signs printed on regular-sized paper to leave with objects that will be waiting for your return, such as: “Please Leave This Experiment Undisturbed — (Teacher’s Name).” Cost: 10 cents

4) Weights to keep each sign from blowing away in a breeze—anything from a handy rock to a water bottle to an actual sports-field marker from your supply closet. Cost: negligible

5) Your basic first-aid kit and/or other equipment required by local protocols for a field trip.

6) Water as needed (Up to $10 if you need to buy each student some bottled water; negligible if students can bring refillable water bottles.) You may choose to make the walk as short as a half-mile (kilometer) or as long as twice that. For a short walk, you should only need modest supplies; for a long walk, snacks and water will be welcome.

7) A printout of your “Cheat Sheet” for either the English-units or SI-units version of the project Walk to Pluto, Miles or Walk to Pluto, km (Just click to download the desired document) Whichever measurement system you’re using, it’s just one sheet, front & back, and includes short comments you can make as you take your trek. Cost: 15 cents, if your printer ink is expensive, because it does have colors.

Total cost of essential supplies: normally about a dollar, assuming most items can be gathered at home or borrowed. For bottled water, if needed, budget an additional 50 cents per student

If you purchase all new supplies, you could spend as much as $40 for a brand-new soccer ball, a jar of nonpareils, a jar of peppercorns, a packet of pins, a jacks game, a bag of marbles with a shooter, and a package of jellybeans.

Interested in more details about the project calculations? Here are copies of the complete worksheets: Walk to Pluto Databank, miles and Walk to Pluto Databank, km

(For workbook copies in Excel format, ready for editing, I can send you a copy via Facebook messaging. Just connect to one of my pages, Pixel Gravity or Cometary Tales. Say, while you’re there, “like” the page. Either way, you’ll receive the file in a return message. The beauty of this approach is that you don’t even need a copy of Excel to use the workbook—Facebook will prompt you to choose whether to open it in Office Online or to download it. The alternative is to email me via cometary@cometarytales.com.)