Primary two learned about the characteristics of water. They learned that water is the only substance on earth to exist in three states within the range of temperatures found on Earth, as solid ice, liquid water and gaseous water vapour. They also learned that water is a good solvent as it can dissolve many other substances. They conducted an investigation into which substances will dissolve in water and which won’t. Here you can see the photos taken during the experiment.

As part of our Eco Schools litter topic, Primary 6/7 went on the hunt in the local area looking for graffiti, which is a form of litter. They used survey sheets to record the locations and descriptions of the graffiti and photos of the graffiti were taken. The Eco Committee will take this forward, by reporting the graffiti to Glasgow City Council, so a team can be sent out to remove it.

This Eco Week, the pupils of St. Albert’s Primary have been learning about the problem of marine litter pollution and its effect on ocean wildlife. The pupils have learned that even litter that is dropped in a city can make its way to the oceans as it is washed down the drains into rivers and out to sea.

Our Eco Committee took action on this issue. Primary 5 and the Eco Committee recently travelled to Prestwick Beach to take part in a beach clean and nurdle hunt. Although they  didn’t find any nurdles, they still managed to collect 8 Kg of mainly plastic litter from the beach. They may have helped to save some sea creatures or birds from choking on plastic rubbish.

Primary 6 have been learning about the properties of different materials in the Science class. They conducted an experiment  to make density columns to see that different fluids have different densities. They poured a layer of treacle, then water, then oil into a beaker.  These layers remained separate on top of each other and even after being stirred, they settled back into 3 layers with the most dense liquid at the bottom and the least dense on top. They then added small classroom objects to the beaker and noted how far they sank as an indication of their density. Metal objects were most dense and sank straight to the bottom of the beaker while light plastic objects stayed in the top layer.

Primary 4 have been learning all about the human skeleton in Science. They learned why we need our skeletons for support, movement and as protection for our inner organs. In these photos you can see them building skeletons and matching up the bones to their names.

The pupils in P4/5 were involved in various sound experiments in these pictures. One group made bottle chimes. They were exploring how sound changes with different levels of water in bottles when you strike the bottles. Another group were making glasses sing by wetting the rim of the glasses and using the correct pressure, making the glasses vibrate by rubbing around the rims. This produces a high pitched noise. Others were involved in making water whistles to  investigate how the pitch of the sound varies as they blow into a straw and raise and lower the straw.

Do you like running, jogging or even just walking? If you do, there is a brand new free, immersive running app for mobile phones for British Science Week. It is called Run to the deep. As you run over a 10K distance, the app works to take you on a journey from the sea surface to the Marianas Trench, the deepest part of the world’s oceans. The narrator tells you stories of amazing seascapes, strange creatures and human exploration as you travel to the seabed.

The website www.runtothedeep.com is already live for sign-ups. The race will then be available for anyone in the world to download for free and run during British Science Week (09 – 18 March 2018). Runners will be put on a leaderboard for participants to track their performance against one another.

As it is British Science Week we will be asking our pupils and parents to take part in a Citizen Science project online. The project is named ‘The Plastic Tide’ after the charity that is running it. Plastic Tide is  an organisation  made up of ocean, science and technology enthusiasts committed to  working out ways to clean up our oceans of marine litter and plastic. Ocean waste is having a huge impact on wildlife, as many of our  sea creatures are eating litter and plastic and getting trapped in plastics, which is harming them and the food chain – which could even include us!

The project  works by asking members of the public to tag images of the coast that contain pieces of litter. During British Science Week, we want you to help  tag some of 250,000 images. You only need to spend 15 minutes  clicking on pieces of litter in beach  images to help the project. This will help to create a machine learning algorithm that can automatically detect, identify and monitor marine litter in images supplied by armies of drones surveying beaches.

To get started, go to: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/theplastictide/the-plastic-tide 

or you can access the Citizen Science project on The British Science Week 2018 webpage. You will need to register to take part, choosing a username and password which you will need to sign in, before you tag the images. Instructions are provided on what to do and how to identify the different types of plastics.

Each tag you provide will help the algorithm to detect thousands, even hundreds of thousands more litter items. This algorithm will be  freely available for scientists, companies, governments, beach clean organisations, to understand where, what type and when litter builds up on our coastlines. This will help millions of marine animals.

Thank you for taking part.

Miss Brooks

British Science Week runs from 9th-18th March this year and our school  is involved in this. Pupils will be taking part in British Science Week experiments in class. The pupils are also asked to take part in a poster competition on the theme of exploration and discovery. This can be done as a Science homework activity. They can make their poster about anything to do with exploration and discovery and their poster should include pictures and words.

For example, this could be about everyday inventions that have made our lives easier, discoveries in medicine, space or deep sea exploration, advances in technology such as artificial intelligence or discoveries made in archaeology or in nature.

There are three age categories for taking part: P1-Early years, P2-P4 Infant and P5-P7 Junior. Pupil’s posters will be judged in their  own age category. Pupils should add their names, ages, age categories and school name to the back of their poster. If pupils wish to create a group poster all their details should be on the back and the poster will be judged in the age category of the oldest child in the group.

There are many Science related  prizes to be won such as books, experiment sets, magazines and more.

The five best  posters from our school will be sent off along with entry forms, to be judged by The British Science Association. The poster should be 2D and completed on one side of an A4 or A3 white paper.  No templates should be used to create it. Parents can assist pupils to find relevant ideas online or in books but the poster itself should be the pupil’s own work. All posters should be handed in to school by  the 23rd March to allow us to send the final entries in for the 6th April.