Last week we went to a dairy farm, a worm farm, and the Rochester Museum and Science Center. At the dairy farm on Saturday, we pretended to hop over a jump with a fake horse. We went to a petting zoo, and there were two brown bunnies. I felt that I could stay there all day. We saw thousands of cows getting milked. There were tubes that carried the milk to big tanks. The workers washed the cows’ udders before and after milking. On the cows, there were yellow or green bracelets that made sure the cow is healthy. The bracelets could tell if the cow had a sickness by taking measurements and readings on a computer. The computer could tell how the milk was doing. The computer could tell how long the cow had been laying down that day. If the cow wasn’t giving enough milk, one gallon in 30 seconds, then it meant the cow was tired or maybe sick. It was interesting to watch, but it smelled in the barn. A worker said they play Mexican music in the barn because Mexican people work there at night. If the cows don't hear the Mexican music playing, then they won't go in the barn. Cows like schedules and the same thing to happen every day. We took a hay ride from the dairy barn to the worm farm. The farmer takes the cow manure, squeezes the water out, and then mixes it with compost. Then the worms eat the compost, and leave worm poop, that is great for gardens. They use big cutters to cut the bottom part of the worm poop off, and the worms stay on the top of the compost and don’t get hurt.
On Tuesday, we went to the Rochester Museum and Science Center again. We’ve been there at least ten times this year. I heard there would be a new exhibit called Aliens and Andriods there. I asked my mom if we could go. It opened the end of September. I remember the one time we went to the museum and the exhibit wasn’t there yet. We finally got to see it. We saw an ugly creature at the entrance to the exhibit. Ironman was also there. They talked about how scientists can now replace body parts, like in the movie Ironman. Doctors can now replace hearts. There are now metal bone replacements. We saw C3PO and learned about Robotics. Scientists are trying to replace humans with robots to go into space because space travel is dangerous. Then we saw a movie about creatures that leave in the deep, deep ocean, near hot springs. Before, Scientists thought any life needed light. They look like dinosaur plants. They had roots and stem, but they looked like old fossils of crinoids. We saw the solar system and how planets move around the sun. My favorite part was the movie about the Rover “Curiosity” that landed on Mars last year. There was only seven minutes to slow the thing that held the Curiosity down from thousands of miles an hour to zero, so that it could land without crashing. First, the Scientists launched the ship. When it entered Mars atmosphere, they released the heat shield. It is 65,000, or maybe 165,000, degrees. We can’t remember exactly. Then a parachute went up. It was the largest and strongest and lightest parachute ever made. That slowed the ship to 200 miles an hour. Still too fast to land. Then there were jet propulsion to slow down the ship. After the ship was hovering above Mars, a crane gently lowered Curiosity down onto the planet Mars. They didn’t want to land using jet propulsion because it would cause a big dust storm and run Curiosity. All this happens in seven minutes, but the Scientists don’t know about what happened until fourteen minutes after it already happened. They had a lot of tests on Earth. They didn’t want to fail because they would lose millions of dollars. Curiosity has solar panels so that it can get the energy from the sun. Curiosity gathers information about Mars. There are canyons on Mars and Scientists think there was water there. But what if there is a dust storm? Will Curiosity get caught in one of those? The wheels are specially made to go over high rocks. The wheels are smaller than I thought. Smaller than car wheels.
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