Family Matters’ youth had the opportunity to attend Northwestern University’s Take Our Sons and Daughters to Work Day on Thursday, April 24th. Three students shared their reflections of the day:

From Arin Afolabi, 5th grade

We started out with a light breakfast of bagels and apple juice. There were only about 11 of us from my after school program, Family Matters in Rogers Park, but there were hundreds of kids from all over. When we got there they split us up into different groups of about 12-15 by our age so I was the only one in my group from Family Mat- ters. At first this made me nervous but it was actually pretty cool because I got to meet new kids and make some new friends.

The “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day” at Northwestern on April 24, 2014 was about showing kids about what you do at work,and explaining to them about how things work. Some things that we experienced were science, writing, and social networking.

My favorite parts of the day were the all you can eat lunch and being in the science lab. While in the science lab, I thought the hoods were creative. The hoods are where they kept things they did not want germs to get into, and prevented that by using the AC to keep germs flowing. I also found the machine where they tested DNA interesting.

The news article was very fun because we got to write our own news articles with our own creative ideas and put in many details and incorrect facts that in the real world we couldn’t do. Overall, the day was fantastic and I would like to go again next year.

From Adun Afolabi, 3rd grade

At the Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day at Northwestern University, I made concrete. I learned how to hula hoop. I learned to juggle. I liked the food. I met a friend. I saw students. I am happy I got to go because it was fun and I met new people.

From Patrick Conlon, 3rd grade

Did you ever see a yellow glowing pickle? Neither had I before I went to the Science Day themed “Bring your child to work” day at Northwestern University (NU). Although the day was mostly for the kids of NU employees the Asso- ciation of Northwestern University Women (ANUW) sponsored kids from my after school program, Family Matters, in Chicago.

This was a fun day of touring parts of the NU campus and learning about science. This all day event had us in three locations around the campus.

In the first location we learned about spacial reasoning and Mobius Strips. A Mobius Strip is a skinny strip of paper that you twist 1 time and then tape together into a loop. The cool part about it is you can draw on both side without lifting up the pen! Then there are cool tricks like if you cut it a certain way down the middle then you end up with a bigger loop. If you cut down the middle again you end up with a kind of chain. This Mobius thing is supposed to be important in math and science and engineering. It makes a cool trick too.

In the second location we played with crystals, learned about microscopic cells and did that yellow glowing pickle thing that I mentioned earlier. They took a pickle and put wires into it on each end. Then they attached the wires to electricity. (Don’t try this at home!!) Guess what happened. The pickle glowed yellow and sparked in the dark. This works with pickles because pickles are packed in salt (sodium) and sodium is good for moving electricity. Don’t eat pickles in a lightning storm.

The third location was the NU Power Plant where we learned about how they keep the campus of NU run- ning. Basically the campus is like a city. It’s even bigger than some cities. We learned about how they take water from the pond then clean/filter to supply campus with water, and how they have sensors to tell if any pipes or electric places are broken. The power plant is a very loud place. We had to wear special headphones and hard hats.

We finished up with lunch in the cafeteria. This was definitely one of my favorite parts of the day. I have never seen so much food altogether in one place! There were hamburgers, pizzas, hot dogs, macaroni, rice- you name it. There were tons of desserts, too, like ice cream, pies, cake, cookies, rice crispy treats and brownies and more.

There was a raffle that was a lot of fun with lots of prizes. Although I didn’t win I really enjoyed the emotions and excitement about maybe possibly winning. One person from my after school program won so that was pretty cool.

All in all this trip was really fun. The campus is really cool and everyone was so nice. Maybe in 10 years I will be a student at Northwestern University and help give tours to kids.