As part of this year’s Roanoke County Public Library Summer Reading Program “Adventure
Begins at Your Library,” the Vinton Library hosted a visit from Kids’ Square on July 12, putting
children on a mission to explore. Kids’ Square is a much-acclaimed museum which encourages
hands-on learning, located in Center in the Square in downtown Roanoke.
Executive Director Felicia Branham and Associate Director Veronika Geier brought a room full
of STEM-related interactive activities for children and their families to enjoy.
This year’s STEM program covered polymers, refraction, air currents, earthquakes, air pressure,
patterns, weights, measures, electrical currents, orby gel balls, and more.
Branham conducted a riveting experiment to explain Bernoulli’s Principle using a leaf blower
and a roll of flying toilet paper, making a toilet paper blaster. Here’s the concept, apparently easy
for children, less comprehensible for adults—the faster air flows over a surface, the less it
pushes on that surface which means it has a lower pressure. The moving air from the leaf blower
flows over the top of the toilet paper creating a lower pressure than the surrounding air pushing
upward on the bottom side of the toilet paper. The toilet paper is lifted because there are a
sufficient number of air molecules striking the lower side of the paper to overcome the
downward pull of gravity and the lower air pressure on the upper side.”
Airplanes fly because of Bernoulli’s Principle. Air rushing over the top of a curved airplane wing
exerts less pressure than air moving against the flat, underside of the wing. So, the relatively
higher air pressure beneath the wings provides the upward force, or lift, that enables airplanes,
birds, kites, and sail planes to fly. Who knew?
There is still time to join the Summer Reading Program. Sign up at www.rocolibrary.org or at
the local library; read, win prizes, and attend more delightful events (register early; there is often
a waiting list). The program ends on August 10.
To complete the program, babies and toddlers must read 10 books and school age children, teens,
and adults must read three books to earn the completion prize. Participants are encouraged to
keep reading after they have met their personal goal to help meet the community reading goal for
summer 2024 of 30,000 books—so far, the total is 20,499.
