Category: Science

GRANDPARENTS

I think that grandparents are important because they have very important jobs like a baker or knitting things for people but they aren’t that important. Some people think that there important because they give them sweeties.My grandparents aren’t special because all they do is sit in there house watching how to cook because they cant cook. They’ve never been able to and they never will. The first time my gran dad tried to put the TV on it blew up. My mum thinks there important because there her mum and dad. My dad doesn’t think there important either because.

Car Racing

In the afternoon of 16th of march primary 4-7 all made cars to race and do obstacle courses.  Each car had to race, and avoid obstacles.   Each group had to do a presentation on what they have learned throughout the week.   The winning group that came first in all the races were Daniel’s group.

Science

It is science and engineering week so p4/5 and p6/7 are doing science all week.  Our aim is to be able to successfully make a car by the end of the week. We are also trying to know Newton’s three laws off by heart, the first one is when forces acting on an object are balanced,it will remain at rest or move in a straight line at constant speed, the second rule is force=mass x acceleration and finally the third rule is every action has an equal and opposite reaction. On Monday we had science activities in groups to complete my group is Daniel Ewan Izzy and I . My favourite activity was buoyancy!:)

JUNIOR SALTIRE UPDATE

Our Science Club has spent some time now considering all aspects of wave power design and have done really well to come up with some innovative designs to enter for the competition.  Building them may prove a little more tricky, but we are looking forward to giving it a go.

Some of the issues we had to think about;

Floating and stability- Did we need weights to make our designs more stable in the water? Should we use wave breakers to keep it in position?

Electricity generation- How often does the magnet need to pass through the coils?  Friction of the magnet on a surface, lining the magnet and coils up.

Wave movement- How does the way waves move affect design?  Will all designs work, or does it depend on direction, height and frequency of waves.

Next week is National science week and we are doing lots of exciting things to do with movement.  Hopefully we will have time to blog and tell you all about it.

Celebration Of Science and Engineering Awards Glasgow

I know this happened last year, but it was so much fun I thought I would include the blog written by the children who took part.
On 9th June six of us from Port Ellen Primary School; Scott, Ewan, Jason, Emily, Ellen and Eilidh, went to Glasgow Science Centre for the Celebration of Science and Engineering. On the journey there we got to travel on the new MV Finlaggen ferry and had a tour round the bridge to see all the shiny gadgets and gizmos. The next day we got up early and set up our presentation at the Glasgow Science Centre along with 53 other primary and high schools from around Scotland. We went to see a science show, where they made things turn invisible, and got to play with the amazing science exhibits, finding out loads of information in a very fun way.
Next we had to present our science project to 4 judges from science industries around Scotland. Our teacher was told “Bye, Bye!” by the judges as she wasn’t allowed to see what we were doing. Our presentation was Mission SOS! Save our seas, and talked about biodiversity, the marine tank we set up in class, oil spills, beach cleans and tidal turbines. We had made a tidal turbine and wired our own electronic quiz on rock pool biodiversity. I think the judges really liked the puppet we made to help present, called Jim the Scientist. We also had videos of the lobster and crab we had in our tank.
Afterwards we had to compete in 5 STEM challenges put on by companies around Scotland. This included a Shell oil change task, a Lloyds Register ship’s ballast test, working with lasers and operating a mini ROV. The challenges were fun and we did quite well.
Finally we went to the IMAX for the presentation of awards to schools. Heather (the Weather) Reid was presenting the awards, along with Fergus Ewing, Minister for Energy. There were nine awards altogether, and we hadn’t entered most of them. Then she announced “And the award for the best presentation of a showcase, sponsored by BT, goes to Port Ellen Primary School.” We were extremely amazed, and our faces showed it! We had to go down and get a cheque for £250 and had our picture taken. At last we got home, having enjoyed the best trip ever!