Orangpples

The total entropy of any isolated thermodynamic system tends to increase over time, approaching a maximum value.

This is a rather depression fundamental truth when extended to its final most absolute conclusion. But for at least the next 6 Billion years or so we don’t have to worry about that fact and therefor actually have much more pressing issues to worry about. But today I wanted to talk about the little localized anomalies to this generalized law otherwise known as human children and how they contribute to a massive increase in entropy through an amazing expenditure of energy.

One definition of entropy is a measure of the disorder and chaos of a system. Energy must be exerted in order for a system to obtain and maintain uniformity and order. Classic examples are a perfectly ordered deck of cards or an ice cube. The chances a shuffled deck of cards that is thrown on the floor and then randomly picked up being in perfect order is much closer to the chance that all the water molecules in my glass will suddenly arranging into the exact formation of ice at room temperature than the chance I’ll get a royal flush. In order to get that perfectly ordered deck or ice cube at room temperature energy must be used because those states are not naturally spontaneous. This means that the deck of cards and ice cube have lower entropy than the puddle of water and shuffled deck.

So what does this have to do with kids. First they are an example of a very low entropy system. What are the chances that the same amount of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous, trace metals and other elements that make up a 3 year old randomly combine in just that way to make that unique and precious human being. So astronomically small that if you measure the economic value of all the complex proteins, intricately made cells, and everything else your DNA codes for and produces you could be worth $47 million, on the other hand if you just count just the basic elements and not the amazing way your body has arranged and uses them then your worth about $5. Second kids, and sometimes humanity as a whole though the final jury is still out on that one, tend to expend large amounts of energy not to create order but to create disorder and wreck havoc.

Now for the example from this weekend that provoked this whole train of thought. From somewhere a few of the kids on my street had scavenged the pieces to make a small push go-cart (I hear you saying Trevor, that’s a perfect example of human ingenuity being used to decrease entropy – please bare with me). The main core of the cart was an old discarded push lawnmower. The back axle on this lawnmower had worn through the plastic body and was falling out. I helped the kids fix it by basically sewing the axle in place with metal wire and pushed the kids around for a while. I took several pictures of the fixed axle and the kids playing with the cart.

The next day when I got back from work I found the cart completely demolished. One day of intense play was all it took. Granted the warranty on this car covered maybe its first 2 minuets of use and it wasn’t meant to last forever, but I figured it had more than a day in it. However, think of all it must have seen in its short existence as a children’s entertainment, and surly it was better than all the Teletuby episodes combined. It probable traveled the length of the street hundreds of times during the day. It was fought over, crashed into, sat on, jumped on, jumped over, pushed, pulled and enjoyed by at least 15 kids on the street. The back wheels probably feel of multiple times before it became impossible to hack them back on and then it was probably used more as a sled than a cart for a while. Once that wore the front wheels off dissecting the remainder of the car became much more of a game than strategically trying to build it up again. I know all this because I was once a kid and remember having jousting matches on the sidewalk with our big plastic big wheels, taking them to pieces in the process when I was 8. Here are some pictures of what the cart looks like now.

If you divide up a systems energy into that which does work, useful energy, and that which goes to wast, useless energy – in the context of productivity, advancement and the capitalist dream or just the elusive perpetual motion machine, than one interpretation of entropy is the useless energy. But think how much energy those 15 or so kids used up throughout the course of the day as they slowly and enjoyably destroyed their cart through natural play. Their play most definitely increased the overall entropy of the situation so what if any useful work did all that energy do. I believe it went into molding and shaping their mind and character. Through the course of a days playing they learned a few important lessons, might understand social interactions a little better, saw the value in having a cool play toy and learned what its like when that toy no longer works. Because of this one day they may grow up to be loving, carrying, socially engaged adult citizens. Who can actually judge the true value and worth of child’s play.

Now for a total change of subject on our current theme. As many of you may know my bike was plagued with a terrible case of increasing entropy. At last count the breaks didn’t work, it had no peddles, the gears wouldn’t shift into low gear with out me kicking the shifter while riding, the chain fell off frequently in high gear, and it was to small for me. I’m quite happy to report that I bought a new bike on Sunday. My host uncle owns a truck and took me to the mall in Nelspruit and the bike shop. The guy in the store tried to sell me a really nice bike with disk breaking, locking rear and front shocks and a host of other pretty nice things that also happened to be way out of my price range. I talked him down a few models by explaining I only needed this bike for another 17 months, wasn’t going to ride any races, and would only use the cash I had in the envelope in my backpack. Needles to say I am enjoying the new bike very much and hope to do a nice trip up the back roads in Barberton’s mountains soon. I’ll post about it when I get back, and I’ll probably tweet from the top.

Schools started back up this week after a two week hiatus between first and second terms. So much has happened in the last three weeks that it seems like almost half a year ago when I ran the Longtom marathon.

The week after the marathon was the science camp I’d been planning. For about half of the month of February and all the month of March organizing this camp was my main focus. The primary goal of the camp was to excite 7^th and 8^th grade students from around the Circuit about science and math. I invited 72 students from 10 different schools that span Barberton and Emjindin asking each school to nominate the students most interested in science. This was one of the best decisions I made because working with highly motivated curious students made it much easier to introduce concepts like centripetal force, inertia, or density. But most importantly I wanted to make the camp as hands on and interactive as possible to show that science isn’t words in a text book or memorized facts but a way of interacting with the world.

The last two months were a long bumpy road as I attempted to urge the initial idea for the camp into a reality. I went to countless local businesses proposal in hand trying to get some support. I made extensive list of supplies we needed but hadn’t collected any. I’d come up with over 25 lesson ideas and assigned them to other volunteers but still needed 5 more. Planning a project like this is rather like jumping off a cliff with the leap of faith that you can build the parachute on the way down. Its like jumping of a diving board; once you make that initial commitment there’s nothing you can do about it – your going to hit the water. The only option you have is to decide if its going to be a giant belly flop, messy cannonball, smooth dive, or spectacular reverse three-and-a-half somersaults tuck.

It wasn’t until the last two days before the Longtom marathon that I felt the camp might actually be not belly flop. My friend Steve had come to town to help me print over 80 activity books, I’d gone with my supervisor to collect equipment from participating schools, and the circuit office’s drive had driven me around town to buy supplies. But even then I had no idea if any kids would actually show up the next Monday, the first official day of their break.

The camp was scheduled to start at 8am and myself and the four other Peace Corps Volunteers that came into town to help showed up around 7am to start getting ready. Already there were a few small groups of kids waiting around. In the next hour and a half, right through a mild rain, we registered 74 students for the camp. It was a hectic mess of kids and paper, but finally we had everyone in a large circle ready to do some ice breakers before breaking into small groups and starting some science. Through out the week attendance went up and down. Some kids didn’t come back, others brought friends – this is Peace Corps after all, got to have some spontaneity and randomness. In the end, on Friday we passed out 78 certificates so if numbers were all that mattered the camp was definitely a success.

But numbers aren’t all that matter. Quality is often much more important than quality. I mean I’ll give the first person who asks 1,000,000,000,000 Zimbabwean dollars. We wanted to make sure the students had fun and were exposed to advanced concepts in an interesting and engaging ways. And by that measure I’d say the camp was also a success.

As expected there were some lessons that completely flopped (I was really excited about making and using abaci – turns out their not that exciting to 13 and 14 year olds). But the majority of activities were pretty good and some really really great. Here’s a list of some of my favorite.

• Mento’s and Coke – Almost as good as soda bottle rockes and always great fun. Turned this into an experimental design simulation by doing three different experiments with different independent variables.

• Egg Drop – 12 pieces of paper might have been to much though, we had to dig pretty deep to find some groups eggs.

• Surface Tension – I remember putting drops on pennies way back in 6^th grade and thought it would work well on the 10 cent coins here.

• Scale model of the solar system – Did this in 8^th grade and the incredible amount of space between planets has always stuck with me.

There were lots of good activities and I’m starting to think of more so I can hopefully do this again as well as give ideas to other volunteers. If anyone has great science activities that can be done with very minimal equipment please pass them my way.

One of the side effects of working with over 76 teenagers for a week is that I can’t go anywhere in the township now with out people calling out my name (at least it’s my name now and not “Hey Malungu”). Almost every day over the week after the camp I would run into students who attended the camp. They would ask

“We want the camp this week too. Why isn’t it happening again?”

“Because I didn’t plan it” I’d say.

“Well, why didn’t you plan it on Sunday” they’d replay.

That always made me laugh, but I didn’t feel like explain the month and a half of work I’d put into that one week. I’d also get kids who would come up and say they wanted a camp in July “But this time make it a sleep over camp, and have more kids.” I’m really glade they liked it but I’m not sure I can come up with another weeks worth of material, and even if I could I’d have qualms about targeting the same group of kids when there are over 1000 kids at some of these schools and over 40 schools in the Circuit.

I’d love to do another science camp sometime in the next year and a half. That one week was one of the most rewarding of my Peace Corps service so far. Plus I learned so much from doing this one that it should be much easier and much better if I do it again. But for now I have two other big projects I want to focus on that will hopefully reach more students and teachers. I’ll try to share them here over the next few weeks as they develop.