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Our recent cold spells and wintery weather are bringing a flurry of new classes and animal action to the Natural Science Center.

Winter/spring programs for after school and home-school kids are just getting started with a lot of great hands-on programs to choose from.

Our youngest explorers can join Nature Tots, a series for ages 2-4 with an adult. We see parents, caregivers and grandparents sharing this special science hour and making a morning out of a science center visit.

After school classes for ages 4-6 and 7-10 let inventors discover the physics of toys as they create and understand gizmos and gadgets. Or become an outdoor explorer and watch as winter yields to spring life.

Home-schoolers grades first through sixth have two options this season. First, investigate winter in a special January/February series. Then, find out why earth science rocks in our spring series that samples geology, weather, soil science and even paleontology.

Our ever-popular Legos workshops blend engineering with fun as students create simple and complex machines in three different age groups. Beginners (ages 6-7) make moveable machines. Early classes (ages 8-10) work with partners to create more complicated machines and can choose simple computer programming or pneumatics classes. Our robotics classes (ages 11-14) work to create and program robots that are challenged with a course of obstacles and jobs.

All of our classes are listed on the Science Center Web site, www.natsci.org.

Whether you have kids or are young at heart, here are a few fun science experiments you can try at home.

For some winter magic, try suspending an ice cube in a glass of water. Take a piece of string, lay it across the ice and try to pick up the ice with the string. It won’t work.

Lay the piece of string on the ice again and sprinkle a pinch of salt over the string. Count to 10 and lift the string. Magic . . . it sticks!
Ice is irresistible for kids to touch and you can make it an experiment by freezing a metal baking pan with an inch or so of water, then sprinkling one side with any kind of salt — street, kosher or table — leaving the other half plain.

Give it a few minutes then you’ll start to see and feel the difference. Salt lowers the freezing point of water so you’ll see the water melting around the salt crystals.

Want to hang some permanent snowflakes in your window? Cut a white pipe cleaner into three equal sections. Twist together to make a six-sided flake. Tie string from point to point to form a pattern or use it to hang the flake from the middle of a pencil.

Fill a wide mouth jar with boiling water. Mix in Borax one tablespoon at a time (about 3 tablespoons per cup of water). Stir until most is dissolved.

Insert the snowflake in your solution, totally submerging it. Rest your pencil on the top of the jar, letting the flake suspend freely in the solution.

Wait overnight and the next day you will have a snowflake covered with crystals that can come out and dry.

One more treat for a cold day is a treasure ice-cavation. Use the largest pan that will fit in your freezer (or outside if it is going to freeze). Fill the pan with water, glitter, marbles, plastic dinosaurs and animals, sea shells, rocks and, finally, some ice cubes to help get it freezing.

Freeze the pan and its contents until the edges, bottom and top are really solid but some water remains inside. Give kids a chance to use a rubber mallet with a dull chisel or old screwdriver or a small hammer to excavate the ice. Doing this outdoors is also great for your budding paleontologist.

Q: What was Tyrannosaurus rex’s favorite number?

A: Eight! (ate)

It’s time to bone up on your dinosaur facts. This is opening weekend for our newest a-maze-ing exhibit. Dino Maze takes you on a Jurassic journey with a twist as you learn about both favorite and little-known dinosaurs of the time.

There is fun at every turn for all ages whether you look for dino footprints throughout the maze or learn about dinosaurs from our own Indiana Bones and his nemesis, Dean O. Sauer.

If you dig dinosaurs, stomp over before the exhibit goes extinct.
With February just around the corner don’t forget to mark Groundhog Day. Our own Woody the Woodchuck will give his annual prediction at 10 a.m. Feb. 2 at the science center.
And instead of buying roses this Valentine’s Day bring your loved ones to the science center.

Feb. 14 is also Chinese New Year. We are pleased to welcome 2010’s Year of the Tiger by highlighting Greensboro’s own handsome pair, Axl and Kisa.

From 1 to 4 p.m. Feb. 14, children can make tiger masks. The center will offer special tiger enrichments all week as you get to know these big cats better.

We look forward to your visit to the Natural Science Center. Visit www.natsci.org to learn more about the center, as well as follow our happenings on our Facebook fan page.

-- By Martha Regester, community programs curator at the Natural Science Center.