On one of the last days before school before the bustle of fall activities, 120 children and adults were treated to ice cream and entertainment by the Belmont Council on Aging at the Beech Street Center at their Annual Ice Cream Social and Mad Science’s entertaining program “Up, Up and Away!” The program was aimed at the children, but enjoyed by the adults, as well.
Mad Science’s Jesse transformed an everyday dry cleaning bag into a hot air balloon and explained how it worked. It’s similar, he explained to when you run around – you get hot! If you are air and hot, you rise. And if you are air inside something light, that object rises. Similarly, when the air cools down, it may do so at different rates inside the object and so the object – like our hot air balloon – tips over, sags, and then drops to the ground.
Other parts of the program were equally educationally fun, and sometimes just plain silly, like when Jesse cut a piece of rope and told us how it would come out of his hat – tied. Instead, he pulled out a box of “Tide” detergent.
Dena Ressler is the senior center coordinator for the Belmont Council on Aging.