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.)

Ranger for the Day

Even on the holidays the students from EHS are out enjoying science.  Who did I spy on display at Nga Manu Nature Reserve but Harry and Ollie  - who had been Rangers for the day.  I wonder what they did?

Well done boys!

What does a Pukeko eat?

Yesterday I visited Nga Manu Nature Reserve and got the chance to see some beautiful birds up close.  As I was filming this Pukeko I noticed that they had caught their dinner.  But what is it?

Sensational Slime

My slime was slippery.  The ingredients were Borax, food colouring and PVA glue.  The ingredients were all liquids.  The PVA glue was gooey and sticky to start with.  When I added the food colouring it changed colour.  When we put the Borax in it and mixed it was floppy and it was tun to play with.

By Marisa Y3

Seeing the world up close!

Our Year 1 students have been seeing the world up close through our magnificent microscopes.

I can see my hair.  It looks like string.

I can see the loops in my jacket.

I can see lots of different colours in my hair.

Does it Dissolve?

Sometimes when you mix things with water they seem to disappear.  But where have they gone?

For example - when you mix salt with water you can't see the salt anymore.  We say that the salt has dissolved.

When the water and the salt are mixed together the salt crystals get smaller and smaller.  They dissolve in the water to make a solution.  We can't see the salt but it is still there.

The Year 3 and 4 students did an investigation to find out which substances would dissolve in water.

The tea leaves did not dissolve.  They just floated around in the water.

The drink powder did dissolve.  We couldn't see the little crystals anymore.  They water changed to a green colour.

The sugar mostly dissolved.  Some of the crystals took a long time to dissolve.

Magnets Are Magnificent

Over the last 3 weeks our 5 year olds have been investigating magnets.  They learnt lots of things.

• Magnets can only stick to metal.
• Magnets can stick to other magnets.
• Magnets can push other magnets away.
• Magnets can work through things but only if they are strong enough or the object is thin.

Look at D1's amazing blog to see what they did with magnets.  D1 Dragons.

Silver Beet Smoothies!

The unappetizing, sickly green gloop looked up at us. We decided to risk a sip... The silver beet smoothy was surprisingly delicious!

Each desk group in G4 had made their own smoothy recipe (but the main ingredient HAD to be silver beet), we all used the silver beet grown in our class garden and fruits from home. Our ingredients had been prepared earlier in the day

In our smoothy we included silver beet, kiwifruit, strawberries, bananas and a bit of water to blend it together. We watched in excitement as our smoothy got beaten together. We watched the solids liquify in the blender. When the smoothy was mixed we each poured some into our cups.

It was a wonderful experience that we all enjoyed! Many of us liked the smoothy so much we promised to try it at home!

By Jessica

To make a silver beet smoothy you will need:

Silver beet leaves
Fruits that you love e.g. bananas, mangos etc
A blender
A chopping board and knife
A cup
A good attitude

Hot and Cold Reactions

This activity is an old favourite and always works well so today I tried it again with a new group of Science Club kids.

Here are the instructions:

 The students observed what was happening and wrote the following notes:

• There was a chemical reaction between the ingredients.
• The plastic bag puffed up so a gas must of been produced.
• The mixture fizzed and bubbled which also shows a gas must of been produced.
• The first mixture went really cold.  This is an endothermic reaction.
• The second mixture went really hot.  This is an exothermic reaction.
• Reaction 1 - we mixed a base (baking soda) with and acid (tartaric acid) so the reaction produced carbon dioxide.
• Reaction 2 - we mixed 2 bases so why did it fizz and bubble and produce gas???
• The water helped to mix the 2 powders together.
• Some of the bags popped when they filled with too much gas.

Carefully lowering in the water.

The mixture fizzes and puffs up the bag.

Watch out - It's going to explode!

Making a Fossil

Something strange is happening at EHS this week.  Time seems to be speeding up and fossils are forming in 1 hour instead of millions of years.

Well - not really.  We have been making models of fossils.  A mould fossil to be exact.

A mould fossil occurs when a bone, shell or footprint has left a print in the rock where it had been.  The bone or shell is no longer there because it has dissolved or rotted away.  All that remains is the space where it once was.

To make our own mould fossils this is what we did:

1. Choose a shell and cover it with a thin layer of petroleum jelly.  This will stop it sticking.
2. Choose a small container that the shell will fit into.  Smear a thin layer of petroleum jelly inside the container.  A plastic cup works really well.
3. Next you have to work quickly.
4. Mix up some plaster of paris with cold water until you get a gloopy plaster mix.
5. Add a spoonful into the bottom of your cup and tap the cup on the table to get a smooth surface on the plaster.
6. Now gently lower the shell on top of the plaster.  Don't push it down too far or it will be hard to remove later.
7. Leave the fossil to set for at least 1 hour.  
8. Now it is time to uncover the mould fossil.
9. Carefully tap the plaster from the cup and take off the shell.
10. You will be left with a mould in the shape of your shell.

The Three States of Water

 

The Year 3 and 4 students are learning about the States of Matter.  Matter is something that takes up space and can be a solid, liquid or gas.

We found out that water can be a solid, a liquid and a gas and can change from 1 to the other.

Look at this diagram above to help understand what happens.

• When you cool down water this is called freezing and the water turns into ice (which is a solid).
• If you heat up ice the solid melts into liquid water.  This is called melting.
• If you heat up water it turns into steam or water vapour.  This is a gas and the process is called evaporation.
• If you cool down steam or water vapour it changes back into liquid water.  This is called condensation.

We had to work really hard to learn these tricky scientific words.

We had to observe carefully when the water was heated up and saw the steam rising out of the pot.
Miss Harrison carefully held a plate above the steam and we could see that when the steam hit the cold plate it cooled down and changed back into liquid water.  The plate was all wet.

We had lots of fun when Miss Harrison challenged us to work out the fastest way to melt an ice cube without touching it.

I lay my ice cube on the warm ground so the heat from the ground would melt it. 

Science Inspires Poetry

After learning about fossils a year 6 class wrote poetry inspired by the fossils they had seen. Here is an amazing poem written by Hazel.

The past, trapped in castings of stone.
Bars of rock block my way, jail of the underworld.
My body is being compressed ever so slowly down to the depths of the earth.
Memories of the past come rushing back as I am unearthed.
Preserved secrets finally unlocked stare with eyes full of wisdom back at me.

Fossils are Fantastic

We have been looking at some fossils and trying to work out what they are.

What do you think?

A big thank you to Rex for loaning us these fossils.

Today the Year 5 and 6 classes were lucky to be visited by Julian from GNS Science. He spoke to us about Fossils and some of the most important finds in NZ.

Joan Wiffen wasn't a scientist but she was interested in rocks and fossils. She was the first person to discover that NZ had dinosaurs when she found a bone from a dinosaurs spine in Hawkes Bay. Before that scientists didn't think that there had been dinosaurs in NZ.

You can read more about Joan here.

Julian also told us about the dinosaur footprints that have been found at the top of the South Island. You can read more about this in Julian's blog.

Investigating in Science using a Model

We wanted to find out how pumice is made. We knew it was an igneous rock that comes from a volcano but not how it was formed.

Sadly it is too dangerous to visit an actual volcano while it is erupting so Miss Harrison said we could learn about pumice by creating a model to replicate what happens.

Luckily for us the model taught us things as well as tasted good!!!!!

We got to make Hokey Pokey because it is formed in much the same way as pumice.

First you boil up some sugar and golden syrup. This is like the hot magma under the ground.

Then you add the baking soda to create the eruption.

The baking soda creates a chemical reaction with the hot liquid to produce a gas called carbon dioxide. The gas makes the mixture expand and puff up as it fill with lots of air bubbles.

When a volcano erupts the magma explodes out as lava and also there are lots of volcanic gases. If the lava mixes with the gases it puffs up and expands.

As the hokey pokey cools the air bubbles are trapped in the mixture.

This happens to the puffed up lava too. It cools really quickly and traps all the air bubbles. The rock that forms is called PUMICE. That is why pumice is really light and can float - it is filled with lots of little air bubbles and holes.

When you observe pumice carefully it looks a lot like the hokey pokey.

Can the electricity get through?

This week the Year 2 students have been learning about making a simple electrical circuit using a battery, bulb and wires. They then tested whether electricity can go through different types of materials.

What they found out

• Electricity could only go through the materials that were made from metal.
• Electricity could not go through metal that was painted.
• Electricity could not go through objects made from plastic, wood, rubber, glass or fabric.

An object that lets electricity go through is called a CONDUCTOR.
An object that does not let electricity go through is called an INSULATOR.

If you want to play some electricity games then check out the links on the right.

Forensic Science - Fibres

This term in Science Club the students will be Crime Scene Investigators as they try to solve the mystery of the disappearing girl.

Each week they will learn a different forensic technique that is used to solve crimes.

This week they investigated fibres and fabrics.

A criminal will always leave a trace of themselves at a crime scene in the form of hair or fibres from their clothing. Forensic scientists examine these samples and match them to where they have come from.

Today we used our microscope to view a range of fabrics. We then looked at magnified pictures of the fabrics and had to match up the fabric to the picture.


Some examples of what we saw under the microscope:

The Amazing Life of Rocks

Wow - rocks are amazing. Did you know that there are 3 main types of rocks?

Sedimentary - Igneous - Metamorphic

The different types of rocks all have different features.

Sedimentary Rocks are formed when layers of sand, mud or small rocks form under the sea. Over millions of years it turns into rock.

Igneous Rocks form when magma cools under the earth or when lava erupts out of a volcano.

Metamorphic Rocks are formed in the earth when other types of rock are heated up and put under lots of pressure.

Rocks can turn into different types of rocks through the rock cycle.
Watch this Study Jam to learn what happens in the rock cycle.

This week the Year 5 and 6 students have been learning to identify different types of rocks. They used their eyes and microscopes to view different rocks.

Using the Proscope microscope to have a close look at the rocks features.

Carefully studying the rock.

What paper is the best to wrap a parcel?

The Year 2 students have been learning that different materials are used for different jobs.
For example - We use glass for windows because we can see through it. We use metal for a hammer because it is hard. We use fabric for clothes because it is soft and can bend around our bodies.

We thought about the different types of papers there are and that some would be better for wrapping a parcel than others.

Foil Paper Newspaper Tissue Paper

Each class looked at different types of papers and had to test which would be the best to wrap a parcel to post to a friend.

We decided that the paper had to be strong and waterproof.

To test which paper was the strongest we made a handle out of the paper and loaded the cup with marbles. The paper that held the most marbles was the strongest.

To test which paper was the most waterproof we used a dropper to put water on the paper. The paper that held the most water before it started to drip through was the most waterproof.

In this class the strongest and most waterproof paper was the foil so we decided this would be the best to wrap a parcel.

The students had to be scientists today by observing, testing, measuring, counting and recording their results.