The Slow-Cooked Sentence

Cure for cancer is somewhere,
but not in this room

Rachael Conlin Levy

This week was the science and technology fair at my youngest’s elementary school. Ivan’s project was chlorophyll cookies. He tried to turn chocolate chip cookies green by replacing tahini with sunflower seed butter, which when mixed with baking soda or powder sometimes turns baked goods green. The experiment failed, but we enjoyed his seven dozen cookies.

Here are my family’s favorite posters from this year’s event.

Design a tennis shoe that won’t squash a worm. Plan: Glue kitchen sponge to the sole of one shoe. Shape play dough into worms. Walk on the play dough. Result: The sponge shoe left fewer tread marks on the “worms.” Worms are great!

What vegetable will my four pugs like best: carrot, squash, cucumber or green beans? Answer: one pug liked the green beans, most liked the carrots because they were crunchy, colorful and sweet, while my pug Hilda gave me sad puppy eyes when she ate the cucumber because it looked like a snake and it was bitter.

What has the most bacteria: door knob, toilet handle, phone, my lunch box, the inside of soccer cleats? Answer: my cleats.

Design bumpers for my blind dog “Papa” so it will no longer walk into walls. Shape a swim noodle into a “C,” wrap it around the front of Papa and attach it to a belt around Papa’s middle.

Which rodent is better at finding food in a maze — a rat or a mouse? Steps: Get rodents (couldn’t find a rat), so the experiment was conducted with two mice — Hank and Trisket, the snake-food mouse. Conclusion: I’m pretty sure a rat would be better than a mouse, so my results were inconclusive. To improve this experiment, I would find a rat. Fact: Hank ran away.

What plant will grow better, one grown in an east-facing window or a west-facing window? Hypothesis: The plant in the west window will be larger because the sun is slower in the afternoon. Conclusion: The plant in the west window was larger which proves the sun is slower in the afternoon.

What should you wear when there is a rainbow? Step One: What makes a rainbow? (No answer given.) Step Two: Pick your outfit. (Crayon drawings of a swim suit, a princess dress, and rain gear in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple.)



4 responses to “Cure for cancer is somewhere,
but not in this room”

  1. Denise says:

    All wonderful, but “What should you wear when there is a rainbow?” has that extra something special. 😉

  2. Agreed, though worm-saving shoes was a close second for me.

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