A quick tour of the Carbon cycle

Year 7 have just finished their exams and my set used the Carbon Cycle game to help learn in a kinaesthetic way. Just what you need after sitting in exam rooms for the last three days.

 Starting off as carbondioxide in the atmosphere

You throw your dice to see what happens to you 

 First you get photosynthesised into a plant leaf

Then you might go up the food chain 

 Or get burnt, respired decomposed or fossilised

But eventually you will inevitably end up back in the atmosphere starting the cycle again

How dense are 7C?

Doing a bit of work on density with 7C and so they did a quick bit of revision of some Year 6 work, density in solids.

 First regular objects

Get the ruler out 

 then find the mass

 Then they did irregular objects

using water and measuring cylinders with Archimedes Principle to find the volume

Some objects floated so that problem had to be overcome. 

After that they found the density of water and then air. Tomorrow carbondioxide!

 

How do tiggers work?

"Their bottoms are made out of springs"

6S were investigating the extension of springs in the lab today

 First set up your equipment

 Make sure the ruler is the correct way round

 Set the springs on the clamp

 Add masses one at a time

This increases the load on the spring 

 Measure the length carefully

Keep adding masses and measuring 

 Writing down the results each time

 Calculate the extension

then we will do two srpings in parallel and then series 

And finally plot it all on a graph

5W have a lightbulb moment

Year 5 have been learning about materials. They were testing different substances to see which ones will conduct electricity. They clipped materials into a circuit and watched to see if the bulb lit up. 

Which antacid medicine is best?

7C investigated antacid remedies and tried to work out which was most effective.

 First take the maximum adult dose

Add water 

Test its pH with UI solution or paper 

Add acid and test the pH again 

Keep adding acid bit by bit testing it each time

 Once the solution turns red its not neutralising the acid any more.

Boots sodium bicarbonate was best. It neutralised the most acid and was cheapest.

How much energy is there in a pringle?

 If you burn a pringle

and use it to heat a known volume of water 

then you can calculate the energy given to the water 

providing you know the start and finish temperatures 

 and can do a lot of complicated maths stuff

 sometimes you have to check your results

 and think about where the energy might get wasted

but 40ml can rise by 30 degrees or so with only one pringle

Impressive temperature rise. 

 

Year 5 test materials

5L have been learning about useful properties of materials. They have been putting this knowledge into action in an experiment.

They tested materials to answer a number of questions.

How big is it?

Is it reflective?

Is it flexible? Is it strong?

Is it waterproof?

How hard is it?