Photos of our Year 5’s recent kayaking trip to Little Water Cay.
Many thanks to Big Blue Unlimited.
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Yr 5 Kayaking Trip
28 June, 2012 Leave a Comment
Yr 5 Explore Renewable Energy
17 June, 2012 Leave a Comment
From ‘Solar Ovens’ to ‘Solar Revolving Airplanes’, Year 5 has been looking at these renewable resource that has been around for years. Solar cooking uses the sun as the source of energy instead of standard cooking fuels such as charcoal, coal or gas. Solar cookers are an inexpensive and environmentally sound alternative to traditional ovens. Year 5 constructed their own solar oven using a shoe box, oatmeal container, aluminum foil, plastic wrap and a wire coat hanger. They placed a hot dog on the hanger and covered their box in plastic wrap to keep out dust and bugs. The completed solar cooker is shown in the pictures below. They placed the cooker in direct sunlight and checked the hot dog every half hour. Their hot dog was completely cooked in 1 ½ hours! Of course the fun part was eating it. [Read more…]
Year Five Build their own Salt Water Cars
2 May, 2012 Leave a Comment
Yes, you have read the title correctly; Year Five at Provo Primary have built their own salt water cars. This term we are studying sources of renewable energy, as our fossil fuels one day will be gone. Did you know that magnesium +salt water + air = electricity?
Each child was given a salt water fuel- cell car kit to assemble and then they added salt water to watch their cars race. After about 10 minutes the cars begin to slow down and all they needed to do was add more salt water and the would start up again.
What a great classroom project to learn about a potentially new way to fuel cars and they could even test different ratios of salt to see which mixture yields the greatest efficiency.
Who knew the solution to our energy needs was a simple as a trip to the beach.
Year 5’s Secret Writing
7 March, 2012 Leave a Comment
Have you ever fancied yourself as a spy? In order to be a proper spy you will need to know how to read and write secret messages. In this experiment, Year 5 learned how to create them.
In the process they learned that iodine can check for the presence of starch and Vitamin C. In a bowl we mixed one tablespoon of cornstarch and a tablespoon of water. Using this mixture, we took a toothpick and wrote a secret message on a piece of paper. We waited for our message to dry to see the results. It was barely visible on the paper. Then we dipped our paper into an iodine mixture to reveal the secret message. “Happy Birthday” appeared in dark purple. It was no longer a secret and a nice surprise for the birthday boy in our class. This proved our theory that iodine reacts with the starch creating a dark purple message. The white paper also turned a lighter purple, due to the small amount of starch it already contains.
In order to make the message disappear again, we would just add lemon juice. When lemon juice is painted over top of the writing, the Vitamin C in the juice reacts with the iodine to make a new colourless compound and the writing disappears.
Year 5 have completed their first course in how to become a Spy. Who says Science has to be boring?
Year 5 – Explore Liquids, Solids and Gases
27 January, 2012 Leave a Comment
Can you think and act like a scientist? Year Five have proven they are real scientists by discovering some of the characteristics of solids, liquids and gases. Through various experiments, they have started to learn how matter can change physically and chemically.
One of our experiments involved finding the boiling point of liquids. Although most students knew the boiling point of water was 100 oC, they did not realize that other liquids have different boiling points. They were surprised to learn that alcohol‘s boiling point was 78 oC, 22 oC less than water. Both substances reached their boiling point within 2 minutes and once they started to boil their temperatures did not increase, no matter how long we boiled them.
Our second experiment involved a chemical change using vinegar and baking soda. We discovered that when matter changes form in a chemical reaction, it looks, smells and feels different. However, it will still have the same mass.
We will be scientists all term long, look for our next blog on how to create secret writing.
Year Five Hospital Visit
19 November, 2011 Leave a Comment
One of our Year Five Science Topics this term has been on the cardiovascular system, where we have been learning about the heart and how it pumps blood around our body. A visit to our recently built hospital was a fantastic opportunity to see how doctors monitor our hearts with a variety of equipment.
The best part of our visit was examining a child’s heart using an ultra sound machine. We could see the four chambers of the heart (atrium and ventricles). We could see the tricuspid and bicuspid valves opening and closing, allowing blood to flow through from the heart to the lungs. The children were able to identify the pulmonary artery, lungs and the aorta. [Read more…]
Parts of a Flowering Plant
15 November, 2011 Leave a Comment
Year 5 have been learning about parts of the flower and their role in the life cycle of flowering plants. We opened up a flower by removing the petals to look at the reproductive organs. We took out the stamen of the flower and wiped it on black paper to look at the yellow dust like material called pollen. The children were surprised to see how much pollen came out of each stamen. We carefully used a toothpick to open the carpel to look at the female organs which contain the ovaries. This is where the seed of the flower is reproduced.