National Science Week

Last week was National Science Week.  One of my favourite weeks.  I like to think of it as an opportunity to show as many kids as possible, how much fun science can be.
This year, I decided to have a focus on dry ice.  Normally dry ice isn't seen at a primary school, but after attending a session at Victoria University, and going over lesson ideas with the experts at BOC, I decided it would be worth having a go, and it would be lots of fun!

We talked lots about what dry ice is, how its made, how it freezes your warts! and where it comes from.

Because of the safety issue and the wide range of ages, I decided to lead the activities and rope in as many helpers as I could.  Dangers and safety ideas explained, we were ready to explore dry ice.  Each boy also got to wear a nifty little pair of $1 gloves - not amazing protection at all, but something to remind them about their hands and not touching the dry ice.  It certainly worked, not one boy picked up the ice.  Well done guys!

With a range of classes visiting throughout the day, we got to try all sorts of different experiments.  The boys also got to suggest trying different things so out came the bubble mix and the food colouring.

We made small bubbles filled with gas, we made big bubbles filled with gas, we made spoons sing, we froze leaves so they cracked and crumbled like chippies, we made our own little fire extinguisher which put out a candle and we experimented with water of different temperatures.  We had fun!

Where did the ideas come from?
Steve Spangler always has lots of fun with science and his website has lots of ideas and links to fun YouTube clips.  How to make a big bubble  and other cool experiments!

Mrs Hawthorne's Science Week Show

I decided to have a go at gathering together a few fun science experiments and having a science session purely for fun (with a bit of learning thrown in of course!).  My aim?  To make the boys go "Wow," "Cool" and "What if?"  And what do boys like to do?  When I asked all eleven classes who came along on Tuesday, the answer was unanimous!  "EXPLOSIONS!!"

So to start the session off with a bang, and with willing volunteers, we made Fizzing Rockets.  I saw this demonstrated at the National Primary Science Teachers Conference in Auckland in the last holidays.  Science in a Van looks like lots of fun and yahoo!  they are coming to Wellington next week and I managed to book their last day so that they can come and visit us.
After my science show I had lots of boys asking me about where to get things and how to do the experiments so over the next couple of blog posts I will try and share all of the experiments.  For Fizzing rockets you need an old film cannister (Alan from Science in a Van said the white ones work the best!) and you can buy Alka Seltzar at your local chemist.  One quarter of one tablet saw the film cannister rocket reach (and touch!) the ceiling of our science room and I'm certain those dents were already there before yesterday!

We all discussed and shared examples of solids, liquids and gases. Boys knew about the properties of solids and so a few boys, after agreeing my white substance was a solid, got to construct a snowman, little did they know that it would slowly 'melt' over the course of the session - and I thought they knew what a solid was!

 I then showed the classes an absorbent ball.  After soaking it in water overnight, the ball had grown to over five times its original size.  It was fascinating to see that when it sat in a beaker of water the ball became invisible!

It was really great to see the boys interested and curious about what was happening.