Plankton Poem

A8 has been learning about plankton, food chains and poetry. So Emily decided to write a diamante poem about plankton and sharks.

PLANKTON
Microscopic green
Floating, Sinking, Drifting
Antennae Arms...........Teeth fins
Swimming, finding, chewing
Gigantic grey
SHARK

Marine Ecosystems and Food Webs

This week the Year 5 an 6 students have been learning about marine ecosystems and food webs.

An ecosystem is a group of organisms (plants and animals) living in a certain habitat that interact with each other.

A food web shows how plants and animals depend on each other for food and energy.

Students were given some notes made by a marine biologist about organisms in a rock pool and what they were eating.

The challenge was to use the evidence to develop a food web.

On the food webs the arrows show the direction that the energy is going. For example - when a crab eats some seaweed the energy is going from the seaweed to the crab.

It was hard work and everyone had to think about the evidence they were given. The students were thinking like scientists.

It was easier when students worked together on the task, sharing their knowledge.

Ocean Acidification (Part 2)

These eggs have been in vinegar for about 5 days. As you can see the shell is coming off.
When you touch the eggs they feel soft and rubbery.
Some of the eggs broke open when you poked them because the shell was so soft.

This experiment demonstrates what happens to the shells of animals in the sea if the sea becomes too acidic.

A young scientist

Levi (Year 1) has been learning about sound at school. So he went home and did some science investigations of his own.

He found out that sound vibrations travel along a string and you can make a simple telephone out of paper cups and string.

Well done Levi.

Ocean Acidification

Did you know that the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide from the air?

Well the year 5 and 6 students know this. They also found out that when lots of carbon dioxide goes into the ocean, the ocean can become more acidic. This is bad news for animals living in the ocean who have a shell or exo-skeleton made from calcium carbonate. (eg - shell fish, coral, crabs)

When calcium carbonate is exposed to acid it starts to go soft. This means that the animals shells or exo-skeletons wont grow so well.

To demonstrate this we put an egg into vinegar and watch what happened. (Egg shells are made from calcium carbonate and vinegar is an acid.)

Our eggs are still in the vinegar so check back next week to find out what happened.



We also tested a range of substances to work out if they are acids, bases or neutral.

We tested milk, soap, vinegar, sugar, baking soda, and dishwashing liquid.

To test each substance we dropped a small amount on indicator paper.

Red/Pink = acid
Purple = neutral
Blue/Green/Yellow = base

Lemons were definitely an acid. They made the indicator paper go really red.

Sounds can be LOUD or quiet

Our clever 5 year old scientists found out that sounds can be LOUD or quiet.

To make a loud sound they found out that you had to hit the drum hard and quickly and to make a quiet sound they had to hit the drum softly and slowly.

The picture above shows how an ice cream container was used to make the sound of the rubber band twang louder. This is just like how the body of the guitar makes the sound of the strings louder.

Exploding sandwich bags - well nearly!!!

This week at science club we investigated exploding sandwich bags.

We knew that if you mixed vinegar and baking soda together you get a reaction that produces fizzing, foaming and bubbles. This is caused by the carbon dioxide gas produced during the reaction.

The idea was to trap this gas inside the zip-lock bag, stand bag and watch it pop.

But....

The bags did expand when they filled with the carbon dioxide gas but there was not quite enough pressure to pop open the bag.

Here you can see the bag all puffed up.

So we investigated what the best recipe was to use by altering 1 variable at a time. We tried using more or less vinegar and more of less baking soda.

In the end we found out that more vinegar makes a better reaction and finally we did get at least 1 bag to EXPLODE!