Category Archives: Science

STEM week

This week  some of the parents at our school have come into class to discuss their jobs in the STEM industry. We learnt about what a statistician and researcher does which was fascinating! We asked lots of questions and found out that subjects like maths and science are really important for these kinds of jobs.

Later on in the week we continued with our science topic on forces by developing our scientific understanding of static electricity. We learnt about electrons and atoms which is how electricity flows and what happens to cause static electricity.

“We now know that static electricity is caused when an electron is knocked off course and creates a positive atom and a negative atom. This means the opposite atoms attract and cause static electricity.” Liam

We explored this through a range of balloon activities such as bending water, moving an object, sticking the balloon to the wall and making hair attract to the balloon. We can now scientifically explain why these things were happening with the balloon and enjoyed developing our knowledge of static electricity.

                 

Testing Gravity and Air-resistance

This week we went to the science lab to learn about gravity and air resistance.

We planned our science investigation by deciding to investigate if the length of a spinner (helicopter blade) affects the speed its falls. Pupils planned the investigation by choosing a variable  to study (length), writing a hypothesis and stating the method as well as how they will keep it a fair test.

The class then went out to the hub, which they decided was the best place to drop the spinners. Once all the spinners were dropped and timed, the results and averages were calculation. Finally, pupils were able to conclude and evaluate their investigation.

“the spinner with the shortest blade fell quicker because  there is less surface area for the air resistance to slow the fall of the object” Hadi

“we kept the test fair by only changing one thing, the length of the blade. Next time we could test a different variable like weight by adding paper clips to the spinner” Jake