My daughter found the glass part of her new thermometer on the driveway today. It must have fallen off the window. When we went looking for the remainder of the thermometer, her brother located something and said that he had found it. We all went to look and found a pile of ash on the pavement. At first, I insisted that it was from our neighbors cigarette, but my daughter said she found a piece of glass in the pile, so perhaps (???) the thermometer caught some sun rays and burned the backing. The jury is still out on that one, but it got me thinking…
I decided that the kids needed to see something lit on fire by a magnifying glass. Why? Because I thought it would be cool, kinda science-y, and I wanted to see if I could. I started off with some newspaper, then tried some dried grasses. The paper did get hot enough to make scorch marks and the grasses did smoke, but no fire. 15 minutes later, I have decided to try again closer to noon and perhaps to seek out a stronger magnifier.
Good thing we weren’t counting on it for survival, LOL.
Growing Free 