Well it is almost the end of 2018, which means it is time to take stock of what this year has brought The Party Elements! In our first full year of business, we ran 59 events – that is more than one event each week on average. These events included lots of birthday parties (our specialty), and also included library programs, cub scout events, vacation day programs, and even a family reunion. The youngest group of children was the group that joined us for a Mom’s club event, a

OK merry Christmas to all Christmas-celebrating readers. For those of us who are not celebrating, though, what are we supposed to do all day long with our children? It is a little cold outside for extensive outdoor play, although for some reason kids never get as cold as adults under the same conditions. Why is that, I wondered? It turns out that science can explain this too – kids generate more body heat naturally because they are so much more active than adults. However, th

Most wonderful time of the year....or most stressful time? It turns out that visiting family members over the holidays can be super stressful for large fractions of the population, and that this stress can result in excess drinking and drug overdoses, car accidents, violence, and lots of other nastiness that is definitely not in the holiday spirit. What does science think about this? Well, science recognizes the stress of family, and notes that the fact that family-related st

I decided to learn to code using Python. Now, this may not be a big deal in the life of people who actually know how to code, or in the lives of people whose computer knowledge extends beyond shutting the computer down and starting it up again in the face of any challenges. HOWEVER, since I have never taken a computer science class in my life AND since I tend to resort to a forced shutdown of the computer whenever it makes me cranky enough, I decided it was time to learn. Als

Did you know there is a Thomas the Train exhibit currently underway at the Boston Museum of Science? 2/5 of the science family is planning to be there, because the other 3/5s of us are heading off to Florida for the National Scholastic Chess Tournament. Why go to Florida to play chess? I am not really sure, to be honest, but I am not the one playing chess. I am merely the chaperone for two highly competitive, fully engaged elementary school aged boys who are going to play che

So I got in the mood today to electrocute a pickle, and figured it would work as an exciting demonstration for some of my students. After much optimization in terms of the electricity necessary to do this, I am proud to say that we were successful and did in fact electrocute a pickle. We also tasted the pickle afterwards, and it turns out, it just tasted like a warm pickle. But for real, why would I electrocute a pickle? And more importantly, how can you do the same thing in