Category Archives: STEM 2016

Project Planetarium: Mission 2

We are learning to safely observe and recording the sun and moon at various times.

We are learning to describe the patterns of movement of the sun and moon and changes over time.

  • I can safely observe the sun and moon and make recordings of what I see.
  • I can understand the stages of the moon.
  • I can relate these to the length of a day, a month and a year.

This week Primary 4 have been investigating the sun and the moon, we started by watching a video from Glow Science about Day and Night. You can view the video here by using your Glow log in. We then made our own sun viewers so we could safely view the sun. When we went outside to observe the sun we observed that it was in the west.

We then investigated the different phases of the moon by replicating a lunar month by using Oreo cookies and creating a phases of the moon flip book. We self and peer assessed our work using Yammer.

Learning at home:

  • As homework we are recording what the moon looks like each night.
  • Ask us to log into Yammer so you can see our learning and leave a comment with us. We need our Glow log in for this.
  • Take us to the library we can read books and find out information about the sun and moon.

Busy start to our final term!

P7 has got off to a busy start this term.

In Primary 7 we have been learning about Forensic Careers. These jobs are vital in a crime investigation.

The first thing we did was we learnt about all the possible jobs in Forensic Science. Such as a Toxicologist, a SOC (Scene of crime) officer, a Pathologist and much more. We then discussed the job requirements if you were to apply for one of these jobs; we came up with different answers to what we would need in order to work in the Forensic environment. We thought we needed to have good eyesight, curiosity, imagination, be very good with details, have integrity and have the ability to keep accurate records.

After we chose one of the jobs to research and make an advert.

In Science, we completed an experiment to see whether or not an orange would float or sink in water.  First we had to make a prediction on whether we thought it would float with the peel on and then we had to predict whether it would float once it had been peeled. Here are some of our predictions:

‘It has it’s skin on so it is not going to absorb water so it will float’

‘It will float as the peel will make it lighter’

‘The peel has small holes in it creating air pockets, air will fill these making it float’

We discovered that when the skin was kept on, the orange would float, but as soon as we peeled the orange it sunk, meaning that our predictions were correct.

This term we are looking forward to learning all about STEM (Science, technology, engineering and maths), and learning new skills that will help us in the world of work.

As P7’s we have our transition visits to look forward to, our leavers assembly and our final trip as a year group. We are all looking forward to the journey.

 

Miss Anderson & P7

The Great Desert Island STEM Challenge!

7f1fbf801409616b6060d751acedd3ed

This week P2 found out about our new exciting interdisciplinary context which is the Great Desert Island Challenge. We started by listening to a story about a group of sea travelers who were exploring the seas when their ship became wrecked on a desert island. There was only one survivor, Sir Harley Houndstooth III. We now have to help him survive on the desert island and get back to the civilized world. We were all very excited and up for a challenge!

Over the next few weeks P2, P2/3 and P3 will be given a series of challenges in which we will have to help Sir Harley Houndstooth III. We will be developing our skills in group work through carrying out different roles and developing our knowledge of the STEM subjects (Science, Technologies Mathematics and Engineering.)

Parents and carers can help by bringing in materials from the list in your child’s homework jotter. We will keep you posted on the challenges we do,

Thank you for your continued support.

Mr Nelson.