The Phases of The Moon

1st October 2024Laura Hamill

To continue Case Study 1, we have looked in more detail at the Moon and how it orbits Earth. We learned that the Moon is 239,000 miles away from Earth and that it takes just over 27 days to orbit the Earth. Did you know that we only ever see one side of the Moon? Amazingly, we learned that the Moon doesn’t actual have it’s own light and that we only see it because the light from the Sun reflects off the surface of the Moon. As the Earth orbits our planet, the amount of the Moon we can see differs and this splits into eight phases – New Moon, Waning Gibbous, Waning Quarter, Waning Crescent, Full Moon, Waxing Gibbous, Waxing Quarter and Waxing Crescent. We learned that when the Moon is in the ‘Waxing’ phase, the amount of the Moon we see gets bigger and when it is in its ‘Waning’ phase, we see less of the Moon. We then worked in mini crews to recreate the phases of the Moon using Oreos! We even got to eat them afterwards!

The Movement of The Earth

1st October 2024Laura Hamill

To kick start Case Study 1, we looked at the movement of Earth in relation to the Sun and Moon. We did a lot of research by watching and interactive video that gave us quiz questions throughout, testing that we were paying attention and taking in all of the facts. We then came together as a crew to make a video that detailed everything we learned. Our main facts were:

  • The Earth moves in two different ways: 1. It rotates on its axis. 2. It orbits around the Sun.
  • It takes the Earth 24 hours (1 day) to rotate fully on its axis.
  • It takes the Earth 365 and a quarter days (1 year) to orbit the Sun. 
  • When we are facing towards the sun, we get day time.
  • When we are facing away from the sun, we get night time. 
  • The Sun appears to move across the sky but it doesn’t. 
  • The Sun stays where it is and Earth’s rotation makes it disappear.

You can see our video by scanning this QR code:

Building Background Knowledge – Movement of the Planets

24th September 2024Laura Hamill

Today, we began building our background knowledge on our solar system and how the planet within it orbit (move around) the Sun. We worked in mini crews to make notes as we watched videos that detailed each of the 8 planets and how they each orbit the Sun. Every time we watched something new, we changed the colour of our pen to build upon the knowledge we had already gained from the previous video. We are going to use this knowledge to write a paragraph of what we now know about how the planets move in our next expedition lesson.

Materials

13th September 2024Lauren Marsh

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.

Blasting into immersion week

1st September 2024Hannah McLoughlin

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.

Wonderdome

30th August 2024Laura Hamill

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!

Do all liquids evaporate at the same rate?

18th June 2024Ruth Shields

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.