This morning we welcomed S6 STEM Ambassadors Lily and Emma into our P4-7 classroom.
The young ladies delivered four fun Science activities.
The first activity was testing our peripheral vision. The boys and girls attached string to a protractor to create an arc with which to rotate an object into our field of view. We were using our rod cells to sense objects. There are fewer rod cells at the periphery of our retina. This is why we could not determine what the object was until it was more directly in front of us.
Then, the children used their sense of smell to determine whether they could smell as well as a shark. The pupils had to sniff vials of varying strengths of water/perfume from zero, 20ppm, 200ppm and 100ppm. They then ranked them in order of weakest to strongest.
Next up, the pupil had the very enjoyable activity of making slime like a slug by creating a mixture of cornflour and water . The children explored the properties of this substance – what force needed to be applied and how this linked to the movement of slugs.
Finally, the pupils engaged in a brain challenge. They read colour words written in a non-matching colour e.g. the word pink written in green pen. The children had to try and say the colour word and not the colour it was written in. This isn’t easy! Most people find it easier to say the word rather than the colour as the word has a strong influence on the brain. The class worked in two teams to see who could conquer this tricky task!
The STEM Ambassadors held a Q+A session at the end and took feedback from the pupils.
It was a great learning experience – thank you Lily and Emma!
