Purdue News
Purdue News
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April 6, 2004 Spring Fest offers educational fun from A(stronauts) to Z(oo animals)WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Bricks and jelly beans, astronauts and zoo animals are among the hundreds of fun and educational attractions at Spring Fest 2004 to be held the weekend of April 17-18 across the Purdue University campus.
Traditional and traditionally unusual activities will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, April 17, and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, April 18, involving more than a dozen Purdue schools and departments. Many events are interactive. The events are free and open to the public, with parking available. Events that are offered both days, and participating schools include: • The School of Agriculture, Cooperative Extension Service, 4-H, Indiana Council for Economic Education and International Programs in Agriculture joined together to offer a variety of activities including learning about flight and food, nature and animals, and opportunities offered by Purdue Cooperative Extension Service. Visitors can pet a rabbit, celebrate 4-H's 100th birthday with distinguished 4-H alumni, have economic fun with the Indiana Council for Economic Education, talk with students about campus life and opportunities in the School of Agriculture and learn about the university's international programs in agriculture. • The Boiler Barnyard, sponsored by the animal sciences department, will feature live animals for petting and watching, working dog demonstrations, horse demonstrations, sheep shearing and a pig ultrasound. The schedule is: Saturday - sheep shearing at 10:15 a.m., 11:45 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.; cow milking at 11-11:30 a.m., noon to 12:30 p.m., 1-1:30 p.m. and 2-2:30 p.m.; Sunday - sheep shearing at 11:45 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.; cow milking at 11-11:30 a.m., noon to12:30 p.m. and 1-1:30 p.m. There also will be sheep dog demos throughout the day Saturday and Sunday. • The Department of Entomology's 14th Annual Entomology Bug Bowl includes free workshops for elementary through high school teachers, cricket and cockroach races, an art contest, a honey bee exhibit including honey tasting, an insect petting zoo and a butterfly exhibit. An insect cake-decorating contest will serve the needs of those with culinary as well as entomology interests. Most Bug Bowl events will be in the entomology tent in front of the Agricultural Administration Building and in Smith Hall. The cake-decorating contest entries will be on display in the Agricultural Administration Building with the caterpillar canter on the front lawn. Cricket spitting will be from 9-10:30 a.m. and noon to 3:30 p.m. Saturday and 10-11:30 a.m. and noon to 3:30 p.m. Sunday on the Memorial Mall. • Plants and microbes in action, sponsored by the departments of Botany and Plant Pathology and Agronomy, will allow visitors to discover how agronomy, botany, plant pathology and weed science impact their lives. Attractions include a plant maze that visitors can walk through and exhibits that show how microbes attack roots, why some plants are healthier than others, how worms build soil and how people interact with the environment. Visitors will be able to paint with soil, shell and grind corn before eating it, and learn about soil texture. • The biological sciences department will sponsor demonstrations in the lobby of Lilly Hall of Life Sciences. Visitors can meet faculty and undergraduates and also visit a tidal pool and handle sea urchins, starfish and sand dollars, watch as a single cell begins its journey to a multicellular organism, observe chicken and sea urchin embryos, learn how a fly's eye develops and receive an electrocardiogram. • Landscape architecture and horticulture students will combine humor and irony with familiar plants and everyday materials in a display of a witty and whimsical approach to gardening, sponsored by the Purdue chapter of the Associated Landscape Contractors of America. • The Purdue Horticulture Society's 91st Annual Horticulture Show features landscape tours, gardening ideas, water gardens, the use of ponds and waterfalls in landscaping, and a plant sale with houseplants, hanging baskets, annuals and perennials. • The School of Consumer and Family Sciences will sponsor economics-related activities including the grand prize game in which players earn pretend money to spend on creepy-crawly prizes. Visitors also can have souvenir milk-mustache photos taken or participate in a milk-bottle ring toss, body fat measurement, a jelly bean taste test, proper hand-washing technique lessons, waiter races, infants' and toddlers' story time, and buggy craft making. The CFS Student Council also will sponsor a moonwalk for children. Visitors can dine at the hotel and tourism management department's Fountainside Café or buy snacks including bug juice, pizza and cotton candy. • The School of Liberal Arts is "Tying It All Together" with dance performances, speech and hearing demonstrations, improvisation and Shakespeare. Visitors will be able to become a part of Purdue Theatre's make-believe world, hear sounds people don't normally hear with the help of the Department of Audiology and Speech Sciences, receive a set of ear plugs, participate in a dance demonstration, test their knowledge of Shakespeare, play English and Jewish studies history quiz games, listen to live music and watch an improvisation group performance. Dance division students will perform a variety of jazz and modern dance works throughout the afternoon outside the new visual and performing arts building. • Purdue Press will give visitors the chance to read juvenile adventure series book titles, play games for prizes, learn historical facts, enter raffles for books and enjoy special photo opportunities. • The Purdue Alumni Association will offer instructions and materials to make bug rubbings and will give information on the Purdue Alumni Kids Club and the services and programs offered to alumni and friends through the association. The alumni association's Gala Week is taking place in conjunction with Spring Fest. For information, see Gala Week web site. • Purdue Galleries will present the 14th biennial small-print exhibition "60 Square Inches," featuring North American artists. This contemporary printmaking exhibit fills both the Robert L. Ringel Gallery in Purdue Memorial Union and the Stewart Center Gallery across from Fowler Hall. • The Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences in the School of Science will have science activities for adults and children. Events offered Saturday only, and participating schools, are: • Astronaut Jerry Ross and NASA food scientist Karen (Pearson) Ross, this year's 4-H Distinguished Alumni, will be guests of Purdue Agricultural Education and 4-H/Youth Department in conjunction with the Indiana 4-H centennial celebration. The Rosses, who are husband and wife, will meet with visitors from 10-11:30 a.m. and 1:30-3 p.m. on the front lawn of the Agricultural Administration Building. Visitors can learn how they can participate in International Programs in Agriculture. • The Department of Forestry and Natural Resources' water, wood and wild wonders, will include animal track identification, learning to climb a tree like a professional, seedling tree sales, wood and leaf identification, a working sawmill, chainsaw carver, live fish displays, tours of the restored Pfendler Hall, Smokey the Bear, and information on careers in forestry and natural resources. • Boiler Brick Bowl IV, sponsored by Purdue's International Masonry Institute, is a contest to see which teams can build the best functional brick mailbox from an original design. In the Brick Bowl tent, participants will receive a 10 a.m. demonstration of proper techniques for laying bricks. The starting gun will fire at 10:30 a.m., and the teams will have until 3 p.m. to complete the construction of their designs. Each team will be given 300 bricks, tools, mortar and a union bricklayer to facilitate the construction of their design. Winners will be announced immediately after. Each mailbox will be judged according to visual quality, durability and overall craftsmanship. • Agricultural and biological engineering will have a classic tractor display, chances to win a children's playhouse that is being built during the weekend, a pedal-power tractor obstacle course for kids to steer through with a free farm safety coloring book at the end, coloring with soybean crayons and the opportunity for visitors to test their sense of smell. • Purdue's Department of Agricultural Economics will sponsor marketing madness with several games including a matching marketing game, a game to match farm products to their end consumer products; the import/export game to test a person's knowledge of where goods come from and others. • Purdue Schools of Engineering will sponsor ENvision, a showcase of the Schools of Engineering organized by the Purdue Engineering Student Council. Many engineering student organizations will have informational displays and hands-on educational activities. • The Food Science Fun Fair will include a variety of food-related educational activities including the opportunity to create a personalized can bank using a real canning press, watch the making of cotton candy or take the mystery drink challenge using the five senses to determine the drink flavor. • The Department of Biochemistry and Biochemistry Club will teach visitors how the body works including how the immune system destroys microscopic invaders, how the stomach digests food, how the five senses work, and how the circulatory, immune and digestive systems bio-chemically relate. • The School of Veterinary Medicine open house, with the theme Helping the Healthy and Healing the Hurt, will include a live animal spay demonstration, a petting zoo and exotic animal exhibit, a demonstration of dogs playing Frisbee, and veterinary medicine and veterinary technology student exhibits. Also taking place are 4-H veterinary science exhibits, veterinary medicine and veterinary technology program admission information sessions, veterinary school lectures and demonstrations, a food tent, and the sale of commemorative T-shirts and dog biscuits. Tours are available all day. Groups of 10 or more can call (765) 494-7893 or toll free at (800) 213-2859 to schedule a tour. For a complete schedule of activitiesgo online. • The School of Education Super Saturday Live will include activities designed to interest pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade students in Purdue Gifted Education Resource Institute Super Saturday classes. Activities include designing, building and launching a mini-rocket, a forensic science investigation of pretend ransom notes using chromatography, learning how to make and use invisible ink to write messages, creating Japanese kanji artwork on rice paper, and building a tall structure with paper and masking tape. • Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP) will have a tent in which visitors can learn one of the technical "tricks" used in producing "Lord of the Rings - Return of the King," learn about a motion capture suit and then proceed to the new Envision Center to see three-dimensional blood cells displayed millions of times larger than life. Writer: Reni Winter, (765) 496-3133, rwinter@purdue.edu Source: Danica Kirkpatrick, events and educational activities coordinator, Office of the Dean, School of Agriculture, (765) 494-9113, dkirkpat@purdue.edu Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu Related Web sites: Horticulture and Landscape Architecture Related releases: Purdue unites fun, family and agriculture at Spring Fest PHOTO CAPTION: A publication-quality file photograph is available at https://www.purdue.edu/uns/images/+2004/sfest-bugbowl03.jpg
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