Our Final Session for the year.

 Today was our last session of Junior Science TAG. If you had finished your Inquiry question/s you got to watch a movie in the staffroom . The movie was Cloudy with a Touch of Meatballs.

It is all about a Scientist/Technology Expert/Inventor who invents something ... that then goes wrong!!!!! 

Luckily he knows about grit and perseverance and doesn't give up when the world needs him the most!

We did lots of talking at the end about the ethics of science - Just because you can do something - should you? Is getting famous or making money the most important thing or should you do things to better the world?

We also talked about why we are called "TAG"

 - How it stands for Talented and Gifted.

The gift is the potential we have passed on in our genes (like a present) while talent is having the grit and perseverance to make the most of that gift and turn it into a talent!

Time to investigate our individual Inquiry questions.

 We are each exploring our own questions by using either Google Chrome or Safari.

We have to read through all the material that comes up and only take notes on the things we understand that actually answer our questions... this has taken some practise and lots of crossing out!

We know you can't just copy straight from the internet - you need to put bits together from lots of sites and try to use our own words if possible.

Sometimes we asked other questions to get more information and several people have had to reword their questions a few times to get exactly the answers they needed. 

Once we have taken notes in our notebook . We can decide if we want a bibliography to list the sites we used.

Then... 

We are writing a Google Doc or making a Google Slide and sharing with Mrs Maw (and others) so that she can either cut and paste onto out blog or do a  hyperlink to our original document.

Juniors busy challenging each other... and the office staff!

Mrs McCloy loved playing Chess against these guys... everyone had so much fun.

 

Sprinkler Experiment by Grace

Here we are warming up our brains playing challenging games against people from other rooms. 

Grace brought along a water bottle fitted with a straw for her Sprinkler Experiment.

She had cold water inside the bottle and then sat that bottle inside a jug of boiling water.

Grace hypothesised that as the pressure inside the bottle heats up as the water gets warmer... the water will come out the top of the straw like a sprinkler.

When she first did the experiment nothing happened but Aliyah told us all to have some patience. As we waited the cold water inside the bottle slowly heated up and the water started to drip out of the top of the straw. 

We kept waiting and watching... it didn't actually start to spray out like a sprinkler but the longer we waited the more the drips speed up.

We think the heat acted like a catalyst to speed up the drips. The hotter the water in the jug the faster it would heat the cold water in the bottle.

Thanks Grace. Mrs Maw has been so impressed with the way everyone has self managed this activity.

The only person we are waiting for now is Blake. He will bring his experiment ( or a video of it) with him to TAG in Term 4.

Aaliyah's Water in a Bag Experiment

Aaliyah brought along an experiment that used a plastic bag filled with water and some pencils.

Her hypothesis was that if she poked pencils through the bag no water would leak out because there would be friction around the holes which would seal them around the pencil.

She did the experiment and only one hole leaked a tiny bit.

An excellent experiment Aaliyah!

We are looking forward to Blake and Grace's experiment next time!

One experiment and one scientist - Thanks Margo and Georgia !

 Margo brought along an experiment with lots of scientific equipment she could teach us the names to.

She had a beaker, a test tube, a pipette, a drip tray, a scoop.

Her hypothesis was that if she combined vinegar and baking soda there would be a reaction ( explosion) and gas and liquid would bubble up out of the test tube over into the drip tray.

She was right!

She repeated the experiment in a larger container with more baking soda and vinegar and she hypothesised that the reaction would also be BIGGER - she was right again.

We talked about how after an experiment the things in the experiment have changed and aren't still vinegar and baking soda... so you couldn't reuse the vinegar and pour it in with the unused stuff or it would not work.

We also talked about some ways to speed up an experiment - stirring, shaking, heating up or adding a catalyst because Margo tried stirring the leftovers to make it speed up and it did work.

Wow that was lots of science words!

Georgia has studied a famous scientist Rosalind Rosevelt.

Rosalind took the first photo of DNA  which showed its structure and found out all about it.

Georgia had prepared an amazing powerpoint which she had timed exactly to her words.

She also had colour photocopies of the structure of DNA for us to look at up close.

We thought we learned flash words with Margo... then Georgia taught us Deoxyribonucleic acid!

Bradley also tried his experiment at home before he shared it with us.

Here are his results

Press this link to see his PowerPoint https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1xmiKFQWOIGTcRKIqvE8PbFwBw9t3lo_DTM86XEBz2JQ/edit#slide=id.p1

Middle TAG Questions

Now we have almost finished our experiments or investigations into  a famous scientist we can start on our inquiry questions .

We just need Aliyah on the 22nd Sept then Blake and Grace 29th Sept and then we are done.

Questions

Denise - What are butterflies wings made out of and how did the scientists find out?Do different types of butterflies have different wing structures? Hyperlink to Denise's answers here

Harper - 1. What makes glasses lenses so strong that it makes it easier to see?  Hyperlink to Harper's answer here

Zara - How does the sun and water make a seed sprout?  Hyperlink to Zara's answer here

Georgia - Who made the first lightbulb and what did it involve? What sort of life did he have? 

Hyperlink to Georgia's answer here

Margo - How did plants get here? - where did the first plant come from? Hyperlink to Margo's answer here

Blake - How is a rocket that can get to the moon made ? What fuel does it use? What was the first rocket  that got to the moon ever?  Hyperlink to Blake's answer here

Grace - How did we evolve from other animals? Hyperlink to Grace's answer here

Aaliyah - Who was the first ever scientist and what did they first invent or explore?  Hyperlink to Aaliyah's answer - Here