What's the Time Junior Syndicate?

This term, the whole school is about to embark on an inquiry based around time.
Tying in school wide themes, this term the juniors have to complete a technology unit.  What better time than now, to make their own clocks?  And of course, I'm sure we'll make a bit more time for some science in there too.

Starting with Year Three, the boys each had to decide on a shape that they would like their clock to be.  We had to discuss lots of things to think about during the design process eg would it be easy enough to cut out?  Will we be able to fit the numbers onto the clock face?  What shape would be interesting for each boy?  Once they had an idea in mind, they began to draft their shape.  Making sure it was the right size was tricky for some and after a number of drafts, all of the boys were ready to transfer their plan on to wood.  Then it was the fun part of using the scroll saw to cut out their shape.

Saturated Solutions and Separating Mixtures

First week back and the science room has been busy with boys using different science techniques.

After firmly deciding that dissolving does not involve disappearing, boys got to make a saturated solution.  They experimented using cold and hot water and looked at the rates of change.  We've saved some of the saturated solutions to see what happens to them over the next week.

They also got to work in groups to decide what would be the best method to separate mixtures of
*  Sand and sawdust
*  Iron filings and sand
*  Soil and water

Once they had decided, in their group they experimented with their agreed method and then carefully observed what happened and made conclusions on the best methods to separate these mixtures.

It's been great to see all of the boys enjoying science and applying their problem solving and reasoning skills in science.

School Holiday Science

Looking for something to do these holidays?
This looks interesting but you do need to book.

Click on the link for more details.

The Chemistry of Light Show

Visit to the Petone Mindlab

On Friday, a group of 11 year 7 and 8 students visited The Mindlab in Petone.

We went along to see what it's all about and have a session with their robots. Boys were either in pairs or worked on their own.  The robots and programming was quite different to the Lego Mindstorms at school and the boys enjoyed the challenge of learning a new programme and thinking in a slightly different way to what they are used to.

After the robotics session, Malcolm showed us around the rest of the Mindlab.  The boys got to check out the 3D printers, the sets for the stop motion animation and they heard about the augmented reality and MaKey MaKey.

The boys had a great morning and really enjoyed their visit.
We're already looking forward to our next trip back - thanks very much Mindlab for having us!

Hutt STEMM Schools Challenge

Last Thursday I took four students to the Dowse Art Gallery to compete in the very first Hutt STEMM Schools Challenge.  It was a quiz for schools to compete in their knowledge about science, technology, engineering, mathematics and manufacturing.
Andrew, Toby, Sam and Max were up against nine other Year 7 and 8 teams from various schools in the Hutt Valley.

Four of the rounds consisted of a range of questions from 'How many bones are in a shark?' to 'What does H2O stand for?'  The boys did really well and it was a close race between them and one other school.  One other round involved the students using a range of skills.  They had to mix hot and cold water to as close as 37 degrees possible without using a thermometer, they had to cut a length of paper to as close to one meter without using any measuring device.  Andrew had to stop and start a blacked out stopwatch to as close to one minute - he did pretty well with a time of 59.83sec.


In the end the boys won the competition by just three points.  All the students from all of the schools looked like they enjoyed themselves and it was great to be in a room full of kids having fun with science.
The boys won a lovely cup and much to their excitement, a box of chocolates and some vouchers.

Thanks to Hutt Science for organising the quiz.