Tag Archives: science

bootcamp, Sciences

Watching the Solar Eclipse

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Today we were learning about the Solar Eclipse. A Solar eclipse is really rare and next time I might see one is when I’m well over 40! Watching the eclipse this morning was AMAZING! It was interesting to find out that in ancient Chinese history, they thought that an eclipse was a dragon eating the sun because eclipse in Chinese is ‘shi’ which means ‘to eat’. We all used our home-made objects to reflect, see and watch the moon as it passed over the sun. We knew we couldn’t look directly at it so we used things to watch it safely. Anton had a special box to look into, it wasn’t so successful but looked really cool! David had a rectangle of black glass which he put over his eyes. This worked really well because you could really see the shape the eclipse was making. It was good because David managed to use it to watch the eclipse safely without hurting his eyes. We all had a turn too, including Mrs Hunter, Mr Sinclair and Miss McCready! Alana and I had two pieces of white paper with a pinhole in the middle of one which reflected the light and allowed us to see the shadow of the sun. The sky slowly got darker as the moon moved in front of the sun and it went really cold. We all really enjoyed watching and learning about an eclipse and hope that we see one again. By Rebecca

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bootcamp, Expressive Arts, Sciences, shareourlearning

Felt Making Tutorial

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During Science Week we were learning about friction. We found out that friction is a force between two surfaces that are sliding, or trying to slide, across each other. The wool fibres are felted or fused together using moisture, friction and heat. As the wool shrinks the fibres interlock and mat together. You may have noticed that if a wool jumper is washed too hot in a washing machine it will shrink and felt! The wool fibres are layered out horizontally and vertically then soap and warm water are applied and the felt is massaged and rolled. It was challenging and very time consuming but we all enjoyed learning how to felt. We are really proud of our felt pieces but had sore and tired arms at the end! Watch Alana’s felt tutorial below for step by step instructions.

Here are some photos of the felting process:

Felting (10) Felting (12) Felting (17) Felting (3) Felting (6) Felting (8)

Some photos of our felted pieces:

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Sciences, Technologies

Watt’s Watt Challenge

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On Thursday Lucy D, Lucy F , Jack and I went to Port Glasgow high school representing Gourock Primary for a challenge called Watt’s Watt. We were put up against other schools for 4 tasks. One that we could do whenever we wanted was to create a poster about James Watt and his improvement of the steam engine. Our second task was to make a steam boat which could go using the force of steam. Firstly we had to saw the wood to make it streamline so Lucy D and I went to the station where the saw was and we cut the wood. Then we went back and started to wrap a copper tube around a glue stick to make it a twirl shape. We had to use metal wire to secure the boat so that we could put a tea light under it. The tea light was for when we put the boat in the water we put a syringe full of water in the tubing and lit the tea light so that it would create steam. We also put another candle at the front to balance the boat.

watt
Our team at the Watt’s Watt Challenge.

The next task was probably our hardest task. We had to make a train that could carry an apple on a monorail. The first thing we did was we went to the sawing station and we had to saw 2 centimetres off of these cuboids of wood so that they would be the same weight and size. Then we put on the turning cylinders on the bottom and on the top of them we out elastic bands so that they would grip on to the monorail. Then because we were only allowed to use one battery pack we had to put an extension cord so that it would wire the other cylinder to turn. It was very frustrating because the wires kept on falling out and when we had to test the train the wire fell out on the one metre mark.

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Our third task was to make light from an apple. The reason why it works is because of the potential difference between two nails going into an apple. What we found was that half an apple will make more volts than one full apple so we decided to cut the two apples and put the nails in as the apple works as a conductor. We put the wires into the nails and it powered the led light. I feel really proud of what I managed to achieve and hopefully we get into the finals. I’m really interested in science and high school science will probably be really fun!

Making light from an apple!
Making light from an apple!