Kids can be scientists too!!

On Thursday we had some students from Balmacewen Intermediate showing us their science fair projects. They had to decide on an area that interested them and come up with a question to investigate. They then had to find ways to test/answer their question and create a board with all their information. We had 4 students talk to us. Their topics were ( as we remember them):

1) What effect does the swimming pool have on your teeth?

2) How clean is the Taieri River?

3) Do boys and girls see the same things in

optical illusions?

4)Would Dunedin have similar effects from earthquakes as Christchurch due to the kind of ground underneath us?

Here they are talking to Room 2, 3 and 4.

We thought they were pretty clever and they explained their ideas very clearly.

We have started to explore bubbles and we had lots of fun on Friday blowing them on the tennis court.

Scientists make observations by using their senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. We made some observations using sight, sound and touch. We decided not to taste the bubbles when Mrs O'Donnell said they were made out of dishwashing liquid -yuck!

We saw....

rainbows in the bubbles

big and little bubbles

bubbles floating up even when there was no wind

clusters of bubbles and bubbles by themselves

round bubbles

We heard....

silence

We felt....

sticky little 'kisses' when the bubbles popped on us

slippery blobs

Scientists ask questions to find out new things about their world.

We asked questions and we tried to use some question words to help us...words like who? where? when? what? why? and how?

Here are some of our questions....

How do bubbles go up when there is no wind?

How big can a bubble be?

What will happen when you put a fire under a bubble?

How do you make bubbles?

We want to try and answer some of these questions. We will think about ways to find out over the next few days.

Keep warm everyone!!

Our Mystery Egg

Last Monday we submerged this egg in a jar of water.

After one day in the water this is what we observed. The egg had some cracks in it. We kept watching each day and showed some photos at assembly on Friday. We had to predict what we thought might be inside. Some of us thought it might be a crocodile...a kitten...a snake.... a tiger... or a dinosaur.

On Wednesday we observed a hole in the top.

Today, Monday, we can see this much of the creature. We think it must be a dinosaur. It looks quite cute. Koby was very glad it wasn't a real live dinosaur as it looks like a Tyrannosaurus which eats meat!!

On Friday we did this experiment to see what would happen. You might like to try it at home. We had a shallow bowl/ plate of milk with some drops of food colouring in the 'corners' as shown in the picture. Then we dropped in a few drops of dishwashing liquid in the middle and we watched what happened. Try it and leave a comment on our blog to tell us what you observed!

Super Science!

We have started the term with some exciting science. Today we had a visiting group of scientists come to work with Room 2 and 3. Their names were Esther, Bianca, Sam and Joe.

They showed us how to make airzookas and straw oboes and talked about how sound is made and how it travels.

We made some straw oboes. We cut a notch out of one end of a straw. Then we had to blow through the straw while pressing down slightly with our lips.

It was VERY tricky but some of us made some strange duck sounds!!

The Airzooka

We had some cardboard tubes.

We cut the neck off the balloon and stretched the round part over the end of the tube. We pulled the balloon back and let it go.

At the other end is a lid with a hole cut in it. A puff of air comes out when you let the balloon go at the other end.

Sounds Travel!

Bianca had a wire coat hangar with 2 strings tied to it. She hit the wire with a fork when we were holding the strings and it sounded quiet.

When we held the strings up to our ears the sound was really loud. The sound from banging the wire travelled up the string into our ears. The wire hanger vibrated and the vibrations went up the string!

At the end of the afternoon Esther showed us how to make icecream. She mixed cream, milk, sugar, berries and chocolate chips together in a bowl. Then while the mixer was going Joe poured in some liquid nitrogen. This is really really really really cold!! It froze the cream mixture straight away and turned it into icecream. It also gave off steam as it warmed up in the room. Esther then put a little scoop of icecream in a cone and we all had one! Yum...this is great science!

We had a great time observing, predicting, and exploring. Over the next few weeks we will let you know of some other learning that we do in science.

Something to look out for is what hatched out of the mystery egg in our classroom....it has to be submerged in water....hmmmm what do you think it could be??