House Video
HOUSE is the first in a series, "Where, Why, & How: a Child's Guide to the Origins of Everyday Stuff", developed for grades 4 to 6. The series is intended to help children understand the links between raw materials and items in their daily lives.

HOUSE is told from the tree's perspective as it grows in the woods, travels to the mill and job site, and becomes part of a new house. Story ends with seedlings being planted to replace those harvested. Lively pace with age-appropriate humor, enjoyable. Produced by Pyramid Film & Video Company, Santa Monica, CA.

Rock Stars
this will be a demonstration of the strength of wood in bending. A sample of wood will be loaded by suspending a bucket from it and then rocks of known weight will be put in the bucket until the stick of wood breaks. Participants will be challenged to guess the weight at which the stick will break. There will also be a demonstration of our mechanical testing machines and a description of how the strength of wood in the houses we live in are determined.

Wood You Look at That!
this will be a demonstration of how a light microscope works. We will look at and discuss magnified images of termites, leaves, and wood composites.

Making a WOOD Sandwich
this is how plywood is made from thin wood pieces that are glued together. The idea will be compared to making a toasted cheese sandwich where the bread is the wood veneer, the cheese is the glue, and heat is applied to melt the cheese and hold the sandwich together. Several students will participate in making the plywood.

The 3 R's
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. This will be a presentation on reuse and recycling of wood products, specifically wood pallets and containers; we will show how wood products are recycled and what products are eventually made from the recycled wood materials

Tommy the Termite
We will explain how termites live in and eat wood, how to prevent them from attacking and destroying wood, and then explain how we can race termites. We will race termites down a track and guess who will win.

You can do CHEMISTRY with wood
We will do an experiment that shows how to find the colors hidden in tree leaves

Daily wood
an active discussion, questions and answers, about the many ways we use wood in our lives everyday; where the wood comes from and reforestation activities; we will also talk about the different types of wood and some of their features

Wet elbows
All students will get wet up to their elbows making their own sheet of paper from wood fibers.

Bubbling bazookas
We will show the trick for telling the difference between white and red oak; each person will be given a piece of oak and some soap bubbles to dip the end into, then we will have a contest to see who can blow the largest bubble stream with their wood piece.

Tree Planting
Each student will participate with us in planting tree seeds as a remembrance of their visit to the Wood Magic Show at Virginia Tech

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