Eco Fair

Note: I meant to post this last Saturday, but got interrupted during the middle of it and didn't think about it again until yesterday.  Sorry that it's so delayed!

***********

On Tuesday, September 28, Williams Baptist College hosted an Eco Fair, which was geared toward the middle school children of the surrounding towns.  I was surprised at first: I thought it was only for WBC students.  But it was certainly designed for younger children!  I did enjoy walking around and looking at the various tables, but the main event of the Fair was for the children to go to the five (I believe) tables with activities and complete them in time to turn in their papers for a raffle ticket.  I mostly enjoyed getting out into the beautiful evening and walking around.

There were some tables set up for people besides the ones for the crafts.  Some different businesses from the community came in to discuss their products.  There weren't nearly as many as there were at the First Fair, however, and all the ones who did come had some kind of green/ecological bent.  This fellow I talked with is part of a business which makes bio-diesel from different kinds of oils.

Another business that I found interesting was Small Farm Fibers.  They go through the process of making yarn all the way from shearing their sheep to selling the finished product.  I would have loved to have bought some, but it was very expensive (and I didn't have any cash on me anyway...).

There was also a petting zoo section, with a cat, a cow, and a horse.  The cat was the biggest cat I have ever seen!  Mrs. Rhoads told us that it is perfectly normal for this breed; they are bred to be that big.  He (I think his name was Frankie) was beautiful, but I'm not sure I would want a cat that big...  :-)

I'm fairly sure that the cow they brought was a beef cow.  If you ask me, it doesn't look like the kind that you would milk.  It looks like a hamburger on legs.  :-)

The pattern on this horse was very distinct and -- at least in my opinion -- attractive.  I don't think I've seen a line through a horse's color pattern that was as thick as this gray line was.  That was not drawn onto the horse: it is his (her?) natural coloration.

This was the only activity in which I participated.  I had gone earlier to walk through the tables, but had forgotten my camera, so it wasn't until I went back that there were so many children.  The experiment that these two students exhibited was amazing.  Apparently you can really make electricity from lemons!  They had two pieces of metal, one copper and one zinc, that they had stuck into the rind of a lemon.  Then they attached wires in the proper way and managed to get up enough electricity to put some numbers on their little meter.  It took 3 lemons to do it, but I was still amazed.  I never knew that the acid in lemons could work that way.  

 This activity didn't work out very well, unfortunately.  They were trying to use solar power to roast marshmallows in a box lined with foil, but the sun kept going behind the clouds.  They also had a car that runs on solar power and a fan that was supposed to turn.  Too bad...  I think the kids enjoyed the marshmallows anyway. 

The college students could also enter the raffle, so I did, but as I stood there while they were calling out numbers I realized that my chances of winning anything were very slim.  I had one ticket, but all of those kids had 6 or 7 tickets each.  But winning isn't everything!  :-)  It was pleasant just to be outside.  Also, I ended up standing with two of my Speech classmates, and after the raffle was over we went back to the dorm to one of their rooms and worked on homework together.  That was a Good Thing (as A.A. Milne would put it).  :-)