Ever tell someone not to look a gift horse in the mouth or describe someone as a bit long in the tooth?
When 10-year-old Kate Badgett’s pony had to go to the dentist, she got an earful about horses, and more specifically their teeth. She learned that people would often inspect a horse’s mouth to determine its health and that a horse’s teeth flattened as it aged, making them look longer.
THE KNOWLEDGE allowed her to add two idioms to her vocabulary — “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” which means questioning the value of a free gift, and ‘long in the tooth,’ which means old.
“That gave me the idea,” said Badgett, who made horse teeth the focus of her exhibit at the Show What Know Expo at Sunrise Valley Elementary School last Wednesday, April 5.
Students and parents flocked to Badgett’s booth, which featured a horse skull.
Animals were popular at the expo. Students had projects about dolphins, bunnies, monkeys, frogs, lizards, sharks, dogs and blackbirds. Er, wait, strike that last one. Jannin Ernst, 8, can tell you all about blackbirds, but not the blackbirds you might see singing on a tree branch. When he says blackbirds, he’s talking about the SR-71, a reconnaissance jet.
“I saw it in a museum and then I really liked it,” said Ernst. And what’s not to like? It’s the fastest airplane in the world, able to cross the Atlantic Ocean in less than two hours. “Also, it’s invisible on the radar,” said Ernst. His exhibit included a computer program that allowed students to test fly the SR-71.
“I can’t believe the diversity of the projects,” said Bonnie Horowitz, chair of the expo, which was sponsored by Boofie O’Gorman and the school’s business partner, Milestone Communications.
Matt Crump, a third-grader, showed friends who passed by how to make and draw comics, a subject he got hooked on after reading one of the funnies, “Calvin & Hobbes.” Incidentally, his favorite superhero is the Flash, “because he’s got a sense of humor,” said Crump.
Kevin Gray, 11, wearing a black and gold hard hat, made it known that he was no Pittsburgh Steelers bandwagon fan. He learned all about the five-time Superbowl champs’ 80-year history.
THE EXPO featured subjects from the obscure to the commonplace. Devi Deoliveira, the six-year-old daughter of two linguists, told her peers about the Russian alphabet.
Star Wars, dolphins and volcanoes were the focus of multiple booths.
While no student took on the age-old question of how many licks it takes to get to the core of a Tootsie Pop, Sierra Scoggin and Casey Anderson did discover the gum brand that blows the biggest bubble: Big League Chew.