In 6.22, we have started our first block of Mearns Masters – Designers! In our first lesson we discussed the advantages of modern, renewable energy and investigated how solar panels produce energy which can power houses. We then decided as a class that we would like to design our own eco-friendly home as our project in order to help towards building a more sustainable community.

First we had to design what we thought an eco-friendly home should look like, then following some research all of the groups changed our designs when we learnt about the wide range of houses that have been developed in recent years. These range from a rotating solar panel dome, to Earth covered houses to environmentally friendly treehouses!

After our period designing our houses, our class learned about the problems of unsustainable housing and why it was important that we solve these issues through our eco-homes. We voted and decided that reducing CO2 emissions was the biggest problem that we want to solve during our Mearns Masters.

We can’t wait for our next Mearns Masters where we will be investigating different types of structures for our homes and outline our design process ready for our build!

This week we had a chance to check how important it is to wash our hands properly.  After rubbing some Bug Lotion on our hands, we have checked how germs would spread- our hands glowed under the UV light. We then split into two groups to test what is more effective: washing hands with soap and water or hand sanitising. The results were clear… Wash your hands with soap and water whenever possible.

We created a mind-map of the maths activities we planned to do during Maths Week 2020, and created a video of our work (unfortunately it’s too big to upload here, but you can view it on our Google Classroom, if you have permission to access it).

We have enjoyed experimenting with the Spheros . We are now working on our co-ordination and navigation  skills using the Play App on the iPad to control the Sphero. We have been using the joystick tool to guide the Sphero around a range of courses. Our next step in learning will be to use our coding skills to program a route for  the Sphero.

.

We have enjoyed many, varied experiences over STEM Fortnight! Thank you to all the providers who came to work with us and to the teachers on the STEM group for organising all of these experiences for us.

Here we are in a workshop with Kaliq’s Mum who is an engineer. She reminded us of the importance of working together in STEM learning and problem solving. Thank you Kaliq’s Mum.

We had a great time getting muddy with Matthew from The Fabulous Cob Oven Company. We helped to build our new cob oven and can testify that the freshly baked pizza  was buonissima! Thank you to Mr Rodgers for inviting us to sample it today.

We worked with Masterchef Gary Maclean to make Courgette Risotto. The main focus was learning to use the induction hob safely. Ask us about the ingredients we used. Thank you Gary!

‘K’ has been working very hard at his sparring and patterns in Taekwondo. Have a look at these medals that he earned in competition.

Congratulations ‘K’!

‘S’ has had a very successful skiing season 2019/20.

Have a look at his list of achievements!

Oct 2019 Scottish Schools Autumn Dual Slalom – M.P.S. 1st Place Team

Nov 2019 Glasgow Ski Racing Blues League – 2nd Place Team in Division 4

Nov 2019 Scottish Schools Skier/ Boarder Cross – 11th place out of 34, Team 7th

Jan 2020 Glasgow Ski and Snowboard Under 9s – 1st Place Male

Feb 2020 Scottish Schools Alpine Races – Glencoe – 5th place, M.P.S. Team 5th

Phew, what a long list! Well done ‘S’!

Our Science topic is Electricity. We are investigating circuits – complete circuits and incomplete circuits. We have enjoyed ‘tinkering’ with batteries, bulbs, crocodile clips, motors and wires.

We are learning to create electrical circuit diagrams. We love drawing in our class. At first, we wanted to display our circuits like this –

Compare this with Lilly’s diagram of the same electrical circuit –

We are now going to use the scientific skill of making a prediction. We will predict whether a circuit is complete – the bulb will light. We will predict whether the circuit is incomplete – the bulb will not light.