“A scientist knows everything that is interesting!”

Our “me” small group met recently.  You might recall that when we met last, there had been some discussions about x-rays…

“So we could learn more about the body!  X-rays helps us see inside of the body.” -Spencer

Although the idea was to have x-rays to look at, for this meeting we took some time to look at some very large and interesting books specifically about our brains and bones.

“A human brain?! Oh!  A brain is like that.  If it’s half, it looks like that and if it’s whole, it looks like a round piece right here, all the way to the other side.” -Britton
“It’s skin, bone, brain and then…” -Spencer
“Spedjagles.” -Britton
“Yeah, spedjagles.  Spedjagles are all the pipes around the neck.” -Spencer

“That’s the inside of a brain?!” -Britton
What do you think that photo is telling us?
“That we have rainbow stuff in our brain.” -Maddy

“That’s the sun making your brain warm.” -Britton
“No!  That’s…when you’re awake your brain’s hot and when you’re asleep your brain’s cold.  When you’re awake your brain looks yellow and when you’re asleep, your brain looks blue.” -Spencer
“No!  It doesn’t!” -Britton
“It does!  It actually does cause my momma told me that.” -Spencer
“Ah!  Why haven’t we met a scientist?!  A scientist knows everything that is interesting!” -Britton

“My momma told me that in your brain, that colorful stuff goes in your mind when you close your eyes because it comes from your brain to your eyes.  When they’re closed which is imaginary lines.” -Spencer

“Whoa!  Did someone kill the skeleton and the skin?!” -Britton
Hmmm, good question.  How did someone take this photo?
“X-ray!” -Callen

We next explored a series of MRI images of the brain.

“Oh, what is that?  Here is the brain.” -Britton
Can you see where there might be eyes?
“Right here!  Cause they’re round but you can’t really see the color of eyes.” -Spencer
They’re different.” -Britton
“This looks like bacon!  Oh, the nose!” -Spencer
Why do you think we see so much red in these photos?
“Cause it’s blood!  Blood is red.  When I had a boo boo, the blood was red!” -Britton
“The brain looks bigger.” -Spencer (noting last image)

We moved onto another book showing photographs of x-rays.

“Hands!  One, 2, 3…(counting the separate parts of each finger bone).  See the cuts right here?” -Britton
What do you notice different about the foot x-ray versus the hand x-ray?
“That your hands are like this (shows her own hand with thumb pointing out) and your foot’s like this (showing with thumb tucked in.)” -Maddy

After discussing the different hand x-rays and feeling a bit silly about the two-year-olds’ hand being “puffy” (top image), we moved onto drawing something that was interesting or surprising for us in exploring these books.

"I'm drawing the thing that was so puffy. Cause it was puffy and it was big. Did that surprise you? "Yeah, cause a 2-year-old hands' is actually not puffy in the outside. It surprised me!" -Britton
"I'm drawing the thing that kinda looked like bacon. Look at the break. That kinda...it's not bacon, it's really the tongue." -Spencer
"But look! There's blue under your tongue!" ..."My tongue looks like this!" -Callen
"The eyes." What was interesting about the eyes in the book? "That they look small but they're actually big." -Maddy
"So that's the hand. There's one long hand and one tiny hand (pointing to his own fingers and their height difference) and this one only has 2. Two tiny bones (pointing to thumb)." -Callen
"Remember 3! Three bones in your finger!" -Britton "I made this kind of bone." -Callen "On the thumb there's only 2. See? One, 2." -Britton "One, 2, 3,4,5..." -Callen (counting fingers) "No, that's the thumb. See, it only has 2, see? One, 2 and the rest have three." -Britton