By GRAHAM BROOKS / Staff Writer

HELENA–Children who attended the Wednesday, June 13, Helena Summer Reading program learned that what they hear each and every day is all based upon science, thanks to a visit from Birmingham’s McWane Science Center.

With shows at both 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. children had the opportunity to see how sound travels using fun experiments.

Kamal Nelson with the McWane Science Center in Birmingham was in charge of delivering the program and he used a number of different volunteers to help him with the science experiments.

Some of the experiments included demonstrating how sound is created through vibrations, using a slinky to see how sound waves look, using different sized tubes to depict how sound pitches can be high or low and more.

Nelson is an outreach presenter for the summer and said he is excited to see so many community members come out to the library for the summer reading program.

“My favorite thing honestly is that it’s not the classroom and they’re coming out to the library and it’s cool to be able to see the support from the community,” Nelson said. “It’s not like I’m going to the school. I’m seeing parents, grandmas, cousins and they’re having fun and after it’s done they always come up at the end. They still want to do experiments after I’m done so that’s good to me because I get a good feeling because they want to learn and they want to use the library.”

This summer marks the 28^th anniversary of the McWane Science Center and a big part of the center is to travel to various cities and bring the power of science to library programs.

All children who attended the Helena Summer Reading Program on June 13, also received one free pass to the McWane Science Center to use at a later date.

The Helena Summer Reading program will last several more weeks and participants will be eligible for prizes the more books they read. Some highlights of the summer reading program will include “Wizzle’s New Beat” puppet show, a visit with the Helena fire and police departments and the closeout celebration featuring musician Jim Aycock.

The remaining schedule for the summer reading program is as follows:

–June 20– “Wizzle’s New Beat” Puppet Show–10:30 a.m.

–June 27–Visit with the fire department–2:30 p.m.

–July 11–Visit with the police department–2:30 p.m.

–July 18–Summer reading closeout celebration featuring musician Jim Aycock–2:30 p.m.

In addition to the summer reading program, the Jane B. Holmes library will also host Lego fun on July 2 and July 16.