On Wednesday 21 August Science Alive visited. Our focus was "Chemistry" and we got to use chemistry to solve a mystery. Some supplies had gone missing from the local store and we had to find out who had taken them. The only clues were some white powder on the floor and some white powder on the door handle and a ripped note that had been wet by the rain. We tested 4 types of white powder until we worked out what the 2 powders were that were found. Then we tested 3 of the suspects pens to find out who was responsible.
It was lots of fun solving the mystery. We got to wear white lab coats and safety glasses like real scientists.
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We did this fun experiment and you can try it at home. What you need: milk, 4 or 5 different colours of food colouring, 2 cotton buds, dishwashing liquid and a shallow plate. What you do: Pour milk onto the plate so that the bottom of the plate is covered. Put a drop of food colouring (each colour) in the centre of the milk. Give a little stir with one cotton bud. Dip the other cotton bud in dishwashing liquid. Dip the cotton bud into the milk and watch what happens. What happened: The colour moves away from the cotton bud and makes colourful swirls. How does it work? Milk is mostly water but it also contains vitamins, minerals, proteins and tiny droplets of fat. (We used full cream, blue top milk.) Fats and proteins are sensitive to changes in the milk. The colour bursts result from the chemistry of that tiny drop of dishwashing liquid on the cotton bud. Dishwashing liquid weakens the chemical bonds that hold the protein and fats in the milk. The fat molecules move away from the soap, and during all this the food colouring molecules are bumped and shoved everywhere, making it easy for us to see what is happening. Phillip's Mum brought in some lovely Spring flowers. On Friday we put them in 4 different coloured dyes and left them over the weekend. On Monday when we got to school the flowers had soaked up the dye and had changed colour.
We have been learning about Fractions. At the end of our Fractions unit we made these cute penguins using whole circles, halves, quarters, and more.
This term we have been a bit OWL-trageous with OWL goal setting. We give a HOOT about achieving OWL goals! |