Balloon Vehicles

Last week in Science Club we learnt about Newton's 3rd Law of Motion when we made water rockets.  This law says that ...

For every action there is an equal and opposite re-action.

Click on the great link above to find out more about this law.

This week Miss Harrison challenged us to use this idea and make a balloon vehicle that would travel along the ground.

We were given these pieces of equipment to use:

• meat tray
• egg carton lid
• piece of cardboard
• 2 straws
• 1 balloon
• 3 ice block sticks
• sticky tape
• scissors

Take a look at this video that shows our making process.

As we were making our vehicles we tested them and made changes to get them to move faster.

We got so excited when testing our vehicles that we forgot to video them moving.  Some moved really well and some not so well.  The overall winner was Miss Harrison - but she had done this before.  Maggie, Rose and Maya were very close behind.  The furthest their balloon vehicle traveled was 149cm.  Wow.

Sustainable Energy - Futureintech visitor

 During Energy Week were were really lucky to have Shane from Aurecon came and talk to the Year 5 and 6 students.  Shane is a Sustainable Energy Engineer and his main job is to work on Wind Farms investigating the best places to put them and how much energy they will produce.  In his spare time he is really interested in Solar Panels and talked to us about the Solar Air heater he has built at home.  This uses the suns heat to heat up air that can then be pumped into your home to heat it for free.  Pretty cool.

The students enjoyed having an expert talk to them and learnt a lot about a job you could do if you are interested in sustainable energy.

Thanks Shane for giving up your time to talk to us.

Energy Week

Last week at EHS was Energy Week.  The whole school celebrated our commitment to renewable energy sources and especially our Solar Panels which we have had now for 2 and a half years.

Classes learnt about different types of renewable energy such as solar, hydro, wind and wave power. They investigated how solar panels work and how much energy they can produce.

Some classes planned investigations to see why our solar panels are black.  They put chocolate chippie biscuits on different coloured pieces of paper and placed them in the sun.  The biscuits on the black paper melted faster and the students concluded that black absorbs the heat and light from the sun better than lighter colours.

A8 made some amazing Sustainable houses which include solar panels, water tanks, windmills, clothes lines for drying clothes instead of clothes driers, insulation in the walls and roof and vegetable gardens.   Hopefully when they grow up and build their own houses some of these ideas will be used.

Classes read Kiwi Kids Discover the Sun to find out how solar panels work.

You can see how much energy Eastern Hutt's solar panels are producing right now by viewing EHS Solar Panel information.

We had a whole school Energy Saver Assembly planned and hosted by our amazing SOLAR KIDS.  Part of the assembly was the Who Wants To Be An Energy Saver? quiz show hosted by Kate Sunshine.  Would you know the answer to these questions?  (The music at the start is a bit long but you get to the questions eventually so keep watching.)