In Crew Marsh we have been looking at different materials. We organised them into different categories – wood, metal, fabric, glass and plastic. We then spoke about what properties each material had. We applied this to our castle learning and thought about what material we would want to use to build a castle – we voted for metal.
This week we have engaged with a range of tasks in order to guess the title and guiding question for the expedition. We have been scientists by exploring our solar system, naming and ordering planets, learning all about forces and to top it off going in the wonder dome, which deepened our understanding. We also painted some beautiful art work of the Sun, Earth and Moon. We researched the artist Andy Warhol, which inspired us to create images with similar techniques and relate to outer space. We used a variety of skills and tools in order to produce these including the use of varying brush strokes, dabbing of a sponge and flicking of a toothbrush to create different elements of our image.
To kick start our expedition, Upper Key Stage 2 were whisked off to the Milky Way within the amazing Wonderdome. We were able to fully immerse ourselves into our solar system, exploring each of the planets and learning in-depth information about the Sun, Earth and Moon. Matt, our space expert, was extremely knowledgable about all things space – past, present and future. We were able to discover that Earth is the only planet that humans can live on as it is in the habitable zone (also known as the Goldilocks zone) where the conditions – temperature, water and oxygen – are just right! We were also taught about the first astronauts to travel into space and land on the moon. Did you know there were THREE astronauts? Interestingly, it wasn’t just Neil Armstrong (the first man to step on the Moon) but it was also Buzz Aldrin, who walked on the Moon’s surface alongside Neil, and Michael Collins, who stayed in the space craft to keep it safe. We were excited to find out that there will be another attempt to travel to the Moon next year, with 4 new astronauts set to orbit the moon!
Last week it was time to conduct our next experiment which allowed us to discover whether all liquids evaporate at the same rate.
Before starting the experiment, we made a prediction about whether we though they would or not. It was great seeing children making reference to the viscosity and how this would impact the rate it evaporates.
Once we made out predictions, we set up the experiment and observed the changes over the next few days.
Today in expedition we started our experiment on finding out which liquid will evaporate the quickest.
This week we have written our science report about how chocolate changes state when heat is applied. As with writing, we have edited and redrafted our work this afternoon before we publish the piece of work. This allows us to pull the skills we’ve been learning in writing through to other areas of the curriculum.
Today in expedition we were looking at solids that turn into liquids when heated up. We found out that it can change shape when it is left to cool down.Before we did our own experiment we looked at what happened to wax when it was heated up.
Today, Crew Hamill conducted another exciting experiment to help us to understand that some things can change state. We began by recapping a previous science experiment from Spring term in which we investigated how temperature effects the rate at which ice melts. We discussed this as we were able to identify that ice (which is a solid) melts into water (which is a liquid) if it is heated. If this is then frozen again, it will return to a solid. We then put this to the test in two ways. To begin, we had a look at wax. We discussed that this was a solid and then placed it into a wax burner which provided heat. We then left this, observing it at intervals throughout the lesson to see what happened. The block of wax disappeared before our eyes and turned into a liquid! We then switched the burner off and watched as it slowly cooled and returned to a solid. Whilst this was happening, we worked in mini crews to investigate chocolate. We placed solid chocolate into a bowl and heated it over a pan of boiling water. We watched as the chocolate melted and then placed this melted chocolate into moulds. We left this melted chocolate to cool in the moulds and are excited to see our results tomorrow when we pop the chocolates out!
In Crew Haddock, they were looking at how the marble would react when put into different liquids.
Crew Hamill have LOVED their first science lesson for Case Study 2 today. We recapped our sticky knowledge of solids, liquids and gases from the things we learned during hook week and took this knowledge forward to conduct an experiment about whether states of matter behave in the same way simply because they’re the same state. To begin, we made predictions on what we thought would happen. Once we had looked at the different liquids – water, oil, cornstarch and honey – we decided that they would behave differently due to some liquids being thicker than others. We predicted that they would move differently, with the thicker consistencies moving more slowly, and that if we dropped a marble in them, it would fall more slowly in the thicker liquids as they are stickier. We then poured each liquid into a glass container and made observations on what happened. We were correct in our prediction: the thicker liquids did pour more slowly into the container. After this, we dropped a marble into each liquid and observed what happened. As we’d predicted, the marbles dropped much quicker through the liquids that weren’t as thick – the water and the oil – and they moved slower, with some resistance, through the thicker liquids – cornstarch and honey. You can see if the videos below how this happened:
