Super Science Swap

Super Science Swap on PhotoPeach

Super Science Week

Brother and sister explore cabbage magic potion.

This week was National Primary Science week in NZ. At our school we had lots of activities happening including:

• Young Scientist Awards - student brought in science activities and experiments from home to share with their class. It was great to see how many parents got involved in doing science with their children.
• Class Science Quiz - Each syndicate got a science quiz to answer.
• School Science Swap - 1 afternoon all the children in the school got mixed up into groups to work with a different teacher doing a science investigation. Some of the thinks they did were Tie Dyed Milk, Cabbage indicator, water rockets, fizzy rockets, acids and bases, magic raisins, magnets, Flubber, exploring senses, balloon rockets.
• The teachers also had a chance after school to explore lots of different science experiments.

Chemical reactions

Density of salt water - can you make an egg float?

It was a fantastic week and the students were buzzing about all the amazing science they did. Hopefullly we have encouraged some students to do further science study and become scientists when they leave school.

How does a candle burn?

Do you know what happens to make a candle burn? Well the Year 5 and 6 students and teachers thought they did. But we had to change our minds once we learnt what actually happens.

Most of us thought that the wick was burning and that the job of the wax was to hold up the wick and slow down its burning.

But this is actually what happens:

Burning a Candle
By Sarah - Year 6

It all starts with friction between the match head and the strip on the match box. This will make a flame. When you transfer the flame to the candle the heat starts to melt the candle wax. When the wax is melted it forms a dip in the candle, kind of like a crater. A tiny bit of the wax soaks up into the wick and travels upwards. This is called wicking up. When the wax gets to the top of the wick it turns into a gas. When the oxygen and the was gas combine it is a chemical reaction. This keeps the candle burning. The rest of the melted wax drips down the sides of the candle. As the candle wax gets further away from the flame it gets harder and harder until it solidifies. When you blow out the candle a whole lot of smoke rises from the candle letting off all the left over wax gas.

The Burning Candle
By Jesaiah - Year 6

I think the candle burns when the match melts enough was to be sucked up by the wick for the already burning flame on the wick to use as fuel. I think the oxygen in the air acts as a secondary fuel to keep the flame going. I know that when the flame melts the wax, the wax forms a crater-like pool. When the excess was in the pool flows over the edge it solidifies as it gets cooler down the candle. The wax also acts as a structure for the wick. The heat from the flame separates the molecules into a liquid by making them hyperactive. I think that as the molecules move further away they become a gas, which is what goes up the wick and fuels the flame. I know that the flame starts when the gas-wax has made it to the top of the wick then when it hits the oxygen the flame is the result of a chemical reaction.

We also observed the flame carefully and noticed that there are lots of different colours.

Picture from - http://www.educationalelectronicsusa.com/c/fuels-VIII.htm

Investigating Electrical Circuits

This week the Year 3 and 4 students have been investigating how electrical circuits work to make a bulb light up.

The first challenge was to use 1 bulb, 1 battery and 1 wire to make a circuit.

Then a second wire was introduced and students had to work out how to make a circuit, without the bulb touching the battery, using the 2 wires.

Image from: http://www.can-do.com/uci/lessons99/electricity.html

The circuit couldn't have any gaps otherwise the bulb would not light up.

It was quite tricky for the students to figure out what to do but once they worked out that the electricity had to flow around in a circuit from 1 end of the battery, through the bulb and back into the other end of the battery they soon had lights glowing.

Plants need food too

Today in science club we have been learning about nutrition for plants. Plants get nutrition by soaking up water through their roots. The water travels through the veins in the plant up to the leaves.

We set up an experiment to show how water travels in plants We put food colouring in water - 1 red jar and 1 blue jar. Then we split the celery stalk in half up the middle and put 1 end in the blue water and one end in the red water.

We observed that the red water travelled up the stem through the xylem tubes to the veins in the leaves. The blue was only just starting to show.

We also went for a walk to gather different sorts of leaves. We grouped them into categories by looking at their shape, texture, size, veins and edges. We noticed that the veins in leaves look different. Miss Harrison told us that leaves can be grouped by the pattern of their veins.

Palmate leaves - have several main veins that branch out from the base of the leaf.
Pinnate leaves - have 1 main vein running down the leaf.
Parallel vein leaves - have all the veins running in the same direction.

By Caitlin

Exploring Refraction

When light passes through an object, it slows down a little. It also bends, or changes direction. When light bends we call this refraction.

A straw in a glass of water appears to be broken because of refraction. I looks like the pencil is broken because the light bouncing of the pencil refracts, or bends as it goes in to the water.


We also had fun playing with lenses.

A convex lens is shaped like this.

When you look at things through it they look bigger.

A concave lens is shaped like this.

When you look at things through it they look smaller.

Look at our funny faces through lenses.

2 Mirrors are better than 1

This week the Year 3 students made Kaleidoscopes. They learned how a kaleidoscope works and tried to explain it in their own words.

You need light to sine onto the blank piece of paper and then you can see how many little triangles there are. When I looked into the kaleidoscope I saw 7 of them. The beads can make a different pattern if you turn it. You need mirrors inside to reflect the pattern. (Rebecca, Year 3)

When you make the kaleidoscope move the beads inside it make a pattern because there are 2 mirrors inside of it. You have to have light and beads and also 2 mirrors. If you put your hand over the paper on top of the beads then it gets really dark. (Shadin, Year 3)

The mirrors help to reflect the beads. When you put your hand over the cellophane it becomes dark. When you turn it in different angles you get different shapes. (Dev, Year 3)