Countdown to 400 - #7: Experimental

Zac is my little scientist in the making. And he has been since he was born. Since he was little he has loved nature and science. He has been collecting rocks since he was old enough to pick them up. It used to make me crazy and I used to try and discourage his rock collecting. Then the older he got, the more interested he became. When he was 6 years old he could tell you all about rocks. He would say things like, "This is a sedimentary rock because...blah, blah, blah.....I say blah because I have no idea what makes a rock sedimentary. A rock is a rock to me and I could care less about how it was formed. I decided that it was very bad of me to try and squelch his natural love for things such as that because I could be discouraging him from his future career. I mean what kind of kid at 6 years old tells you they want to be a geologist, and can actually give you reasons why?

He also loves to read. One of his favorite things to read is Encyclopedias. Really. When he was about 5 or 6 we were at the library and they were selling one of their sets of encyclopedias. I think I paid like $10 for the entire set. And it was probably the best money I ever spent. He has been reading them since he could read. I regularly find him late at night in bed with a flashlight reading all about things that start with the letter L.

A few of the other books on his shelf include: Safari Animals, Rainforest Animals, Prize Winning Science Fair Projects, Lost Civilizations, Smithsonian Earth, Illustrated History Of The World, and most recently acquired from the library is The Book Of Popular Science volumes 1-9. And he reads them and re-reads them. I would be bored out of my mind.

Being the little scientist that he is, he is always conducting experiments. He has been since he was like 2 years old. These really drive me crazy, make a huge mess, and I do not feel bad putting a stop to those. But he still continues to do them. Here is one of his most recent experiments.