Kids and science

The beguiling ideas about science quoted here were gleaned from essays,
exams, and classroom discussions. Most were from 5th and 6th graders.
They illustrate Mark Twain's contention that the'most interesting
information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then
stop.'

Question: What is one horsepower?
Answer: One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a horse
500 feet in one second.

You can listen to thunder after lightening and tell how close you came
to getting hit. If you don't hear it you got hit, so never mind.

Talc is found on rocks and on babies.

The law of gravity says no fair jumping up without coming back down.

When they broke open molecules, they found they were only stuffed with
atoms. But when they broke open atoms, they found them stuffed with
explosions.

When people run around and around in circles we say they are crazy.
When planets do it we say they are orbiting.

Rainbows are just to look at, not to really understand.

While the earth seems to be knowingly keeping its distance from the sun,
it is really only centrificating.

Someday we may discover how to make magnets that can point in any
direction.

South America has cold summers and hot winters, but somehow they still
manage.

Most books now say our sun is a star. But it still knows how to change
back into a sun in the daytime.

Water freezes at 32 degrees and boils at 212 degrees. There are 180
degrees between freezing and boiling because there are 180 degrees
between north and south.

A vibration is a motion that cannot make up its mind which way it wants
to go.

There are 26 vitamins in all, but some of the letters are yet to be
discovered. Finding them all means living forever.

There is a tremendous weight pushing down on the center of the Earth
because of so much population stomping around up there these days.

Lime is a green-tasting rock.

Many dead animals in the past changed to fossils while others preferred
to be oil.

Genetics explain why you look like your father and if you don't why you
should.

Vacuums are nothings. We only mention them to let them know we know
they're there.

Some oxygen molecules help fires burn while others help make water, so
sometimes it's brother against brother.

Some people can tell what time it is by looking at the sun. But I have
never been able to make out the numbers.

We say the cause of perfume disappearing is evaporation. Evaporation
gets blamed for a lot of things people forget to put the top on.

To most people solutions mean finding the answers. But to chemists
solutions are things that are still all mixed up.

In looking at a drop of water under a microscope, we find there are
twice as many H's as O's.

Humidity is the experience of looking for air and finding water.

We keep track of the humidity in the air so we won't drown when we
breathe.

Rain is often known as soft water, oppositely known as hail. Rain is
saved up in cloud banks.

In some rocks you can find the fossil footprints of fishes.

Cyanide is so poisonous that one drop of it on a dogs tongue will kill
the strongest man.

A blizzard is when it snows sideways.

A hurricane is a breeze of a bigly size.

A monsoon is a French gentleman.

Thunder is a rich source of loudness.

Isotherms and isobars are even more important than their names sound.

It is so hot in some places that the people there have to live in other
places.

The wind is like the air, only pushier.

Clouds are high flying fogs.

I am not sure how clouds get formed. But the clouds know how to do it,
and that is the important thing.

Clouds just keep circling the earth around and around. And around.
There is not much else to do.

Water vapor gets together in a cloud. When it is big enough to be
called a drop, it does.



More kids' quotes about science

Three kinds of blood vessels are arteries, vanes and caterpillers. 

To remove air from a flask, fill it with water, tip the water out, and put
the cork in quick before the air can get back in. 

The Earth makes one resolution every 24 hours. 

The cuckoo bird does not lay his own eggs. 

Parallel lines never meet, unless you bend one or both of them. 

Algebraical symbols are used when you do not know what you are talking about. 

A circle is a line which meets its other end without ending. 

For fractures: to see if the limb is broken, wiggle it gently back and forth. 

To remove dust from the eye, pull the eye down over the nose. 



Kids say the darndest things. Some grade school teachers must agree with
that, because they keep journals of amusing things their students have
written in papers. Here are a few examples: 

The future of "I give" is "I take." 
The parts of speech are lungs and air. 
The inhabitants of Moscow are called Mosquitoes. 
Water is composed of two gins. Oxygin and hydrogin. Oxygin is pure gin.
 Hydrogin is gin and water. 
(Define H2O and CO2.) H2O is hot water and CO2 is cold water. 
A virgin forest is a forest where the hand of man has never set foot. 
The general direction of the Alps is straight up. 
The spinal column is a long bunch of bones. The head sits on the top and you
 sit on the bottom. 
We do not raise silk worms in the United States, because we get our silk
 from rayon. He is a larger worm and gives more silk. 
One of the main causes of dust is janitors. 
One by-product of raising cattle is calves. 
The four seasons are salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar. 
Oliver Cromwell had a large red nose, but under it were deeply religious
 feelings. 
The word trousers is an uncommon noun because it is singular at the top
 and plural at the bottom. 
The blood circulates through the body by flowing down one leg and up the other. 
In the middle of the 18th century, all the morons moved to Utah. 
A person should take a bath once in the summer, not so often in the winter. 
When you smell an oderless gas, it is probably carbon monoxide.
A super saturated solution is one that holds more than it can hold.
Mushrooms always grow in damp places and so they look like umbrellas.
Equator: A managerie lion running around the Earth through Africa.
The tides are a fight between the Earth and moon. All water tends towards
the moon, because there is no water in the moon, and nature abhors a vacuum.
I forget where the sun joins in this fight.
For a nosebleed: Put the nose much lower then the body until the heart stops.
The body consists of three parts -- the brainium, the borax, and the
abominable cavity. The brainium contains the brain, the borax contains the
heart and lungs, and the abominable cavity contains the bowls, of which there
are five - a, e, i, o, and u.
Momentum: What you give a person when they are going away.
The pistol of a flower is its only protections against insects.

The people who followed the Lord were called the 12 opossums. 
Syntax is all the money collected at the church from sinners. 
The climate is hottest next to the Creator.