Toy energy

In Friday's lesson year 8 had to identify the energy changes in a number of toys. 

Who says science can't be fun

Sealife

On Friday Year 6 went to the Sealife Centre in Brighton to study marine adaptations

They learnt about many different classifications of creatures and saw how these different species cope with their environment. 

There were octopi from the mollusc group. 

And lots of fish

Our guide was very informative

And allowed us to get close up to many creatures

Especially around the rock pool 

The underwater tunnel was a highlight. 

And all finished off with a picnic on the beach. 

7M discover the starch test

Testing a leaf for starch has to be one of the all time classic science experiments and this week 7M mastered the technique

The leaf has it's chlorophyll extracted with ethanol

The ethanol turns a deep green colour and is disposed of carefully.

The leaf is now decolourised but is very brittle so it needs washing to soften it

It is then spread out on a Petri dish

And iodine dropped onto the soft decolourised leaf

The leaves turn black if they contain starch

Mission accomplished

Maggots don't like light

Year Six applied their recent MRS NERG lesson to some maggots. Are they sensitive to light, was the question

First select you maggots

Then test them with a light on the left

Do they hate light or just like turning right! Test with a light on the right.

Now see what happens with the light overhead

Repeat the tests to check for reliability

Keep the blinds closed and the lights off so it's a fair test.

Keep a note of the results

And you have a fully fledged scientific investigation

It's good to do rigerous science

Reptilian visitors

Today year four met our most recent visitors a family of slow 

Christopher told us that slow worms are not really snakes but legless lizards.

Most of the year four pupils knew that they were reptiles

The family consisted of a mum and her babies 

They all live in a vivarium

The babies are very cute and get really wriggly when they warm up in your hands

They don't feel slimy at all but have a dry while still kind of slithery touch.

IRP

Year 3 work out what is where

The children tried to work out the location of their body organs. They drew around each other so they had life size templates.

 

Any doctors needing a refresher course on organ location please apply to 3G

Glucose testing

Year 5 have been testing food for glucose. 

First they selected a food to test and then they added some Benedict's solution. 

Then they placed the boiling tube into a water bath for three minutes and observed any colour change. 

Year 8 energy investigation

Today the year 8 classes used the Slomo app on the iPads to help measure how high our smiley pop-up toys jumped.

The idea was to see how much elastic potential energy they had in their springs.

The toy was primed

And the flight captured using the iPad's camera on the Slomo app.

The flight could then be reviewed in slow motion, even frame by frame, to see exactly how high the toy flew.

This gave us a very accurate figure. Then the mass was taken and converted into newtons

The energy can then be calculated by newtons x metres (although this does not allow for losses from air resistance or the noise it makes.)

Interestingly Josh discovered that by putting a primed toy on the electronic balance the reading would increase by about 50% when the toy jumped. He couldn't see this without Slomo-ing the screen as the increased was only shown briefly.

This could be one you could try at home by jumping on the bathroom scales! Do let me know your results if you have a go.