Term Three Catch Up post

Suddenly a term has passed and all of the exciting things happening in our science and technology room have not been shared on the blog.
Time to sort that.
As usual, the science room continues to get busier and busier.  Firstly, the juniors had an opportunity to use their imagination and construction skills once again.  This term classes tried out a range of tasks.  Year Two worked really hard to construct their own kaleidoscopes, it was pretty tricky getting the little shiny bits in the right place so that they fell and created the interesting patterns as they turned their tubes.   We had varying success so I decided to try something else with Years Three and One.  Our whole school were working on an inquiry based around Nature - Our Greatest Teacher.  We decided to give nature a little helping hand, and using ice block sticks and a few sticks gathered from the gardens, all the boys made their own bird feeders.  These turned out great!

As part of Year Four's inquiry, I helped them to construct egg shell people which they filled with seed raising mix, added some small greens seeds and then let them grow until they were ready to harvest.

Towards the end of the term, Year Five completed an investigation into milk, its production and products. The website, Rosie's World introduced them to a range of information.  This is a great New Zealand based site that has all sorts of interactive features, movie clips and fun stuff.  Throughout the unit, the boys investigated how to turn milk into butter, cream and cream cheese, how to make casein and then use it to make buttons and glue, and the final session saw the boys making their own ice-cream, easily the most popular science session!

Kitchen Chemistry is always a popular unit of investigation with Year Six and it was the same again this year. Boys learnt about acids and bases by using red cabbage indicator and indicator paper.  They also completed experiments into dissolving, evaporation and condensation.

We also experimented with salt and learnt how to make a saturated solution.  It was great to have the opportunity to use our new microscope and the boys were fascinated to see the shape of the crystals under the microscope.

And as it was called Kitchen Chemistry, the final experiment looked into tasting a range of common things found in the pantry, mixing them together and then tasting the final product, Sherbet Fizz!!  The teachers did enjoy watching the boys tasting the tartaric acid!

In Year's Seven and Eight, all of the classes enjoyed participating in the chemical change experiments.

 Anything that fizzes, explodes, slimes or squelches is instantly appealing to boys!  So, to make our science fun, the boys got to investigate the best combination of baking soda and vinegar to make the largest reaction, how to make their own silly putty, and their final experiment was learning about the chemical and physical changes that materials undergo when they are heated and result in hokey pokey!  We had a range of success with that experiment, from the totally perfect crunch and taste to the oh so terrible, awful burnt brown mess! 

The Year Eights also got to finish their bird feeders which they had started at the end of term two.  They were very successful and I've even had reports that they are hanging in gardens around Wellington and birds are enjoying feeding from them!