"WOW" Science Moments

Check out some of the AMAZING Science that has happened at Senacre!

Science in STEM Week 2021

EYFS

In Oak class this week, we have had lots of opportunities to explore how different materials change, observing the changes first hand. Although the weather has been a bit chilly, we have got our hands stuck in with ice play! We came in after lunch to see that some of our toys had been frozen in massive ice cubes! Miss Heard gave us some hot water and some salt. With this, we learnt that continuously touching the ice would help it melt slowly, but by pouring warm water and by rubbing salt onto the ice, it would melt it quicker.

Oak class were also getting stuck in with experimenting what objects sink and what objects float. We had a selection of toys and natural objects, including letter stones, pinecones, plastic blocks and boats. We learnt that the heavier items sunk, and the lighter objects floated on top of the surface.

Year 1

In Year 1, we had so much fun during STEM week. We looked at different types of buildings and what makes them strong before making our own buildings out of chocolate, biscuits and wafers - we got rather messy! We looked at different types of everyday materials and what makes them unique. This helped us to design and build our Robobugs. Once we had build our bugs we tested them to see which of our designs could fulfill their goal of carrying heavy objects.

Year 2

This week in year 2 we have looked at the different properties of materials and thought about how some materials are more useful for particular purposes than others. We tested materials from around the classroom to see if they could, bend, squash, twist and stretch.

We then carried out an investigation to find it if we could make a weak material stronger. We constructed paper bridges and tested their durability by adding weight to them until they collapsed.

Year 3

Throughout STEM week, we have focused on various aspects of Biology in Year 3, by looking at plants and animals.

We learned how our diet affects our health, as well as why our organs, muscles and bones all play important roles within our body! We could demonstrate a wide range of movements that our muscles allow us to achieve, and even shared our favourite active hobbies with each other. After learning about endoskeletons, exoskeletons and hydrostatic skeletons, we had a go at recreating a skeleton from memory, using twigs and clay to represent the bones and joints!

Then, we investigated what plants need to survive and why each of these things plays an important role in the plant life cycle. We enjoyed planting our own runner bean seeds and seeking sources of light to help our new plants grow!

Whilst experimenting with sources of light, we also discovered how shadows and reflections are products of light. Using torches, we tracked shadows and directions of light, whilst using our plants as a central object.

Year 4

In Year 4, we conducted an experiment to decide on a glue recipe which would be best to hold a race car together. We used our measuring skills to use different equipment, like scales and syringes, to make the different glues. We glued some sticks together and tested their removability and strength, as well as thinking about how waterproof they were. Two of the glues were tied right up until the end, when one turned out to be easier to remove than the other.

We also looked at classification keys to look at how plastics and other everyday materials could be grouped and compared. We were good at following the classification key, although we found it harder to make our own. We were sad to find out that some materials cannot be recycled too.

On Wednesday, we spent a lot of our time learning about electricity. We learned about how electricity flows through a circuit, the different parts and their uses and how to put them together. We also had a challenge where we needed to make a switch from card, split pins and a paper clip! This helped us to add electrical components to our Robo-Bug for DT too.

Year 5

For our science this week, we have been learning about plastics. We started off by trying to define what plastic was- we found this very tricky. Next we went on a plastics search and we quickly discovered that we couldn't look anywhere in the classroom without finding something that contained plastic.

Next, we focused on types of plastic and investigated the properties of the plastic to work out why manufacturers chose to use certain products for their products.

Many of us were a little frustrated by the amount of plastic around so we also thought about how we could refuse, reduce, reuse, repair, recycle and rethink the use of plastics.

During our DT work, we also researched how different insects had adapted to live in their environment as well as what features they had.

Year 6

Year 6 had a light day on Wednesday. We learned that light travels in straight lines, that we need the light to reflect off an object and travel to our eyes so that we can see them and that light is made up of all the colours of the rainbow that can be split using a prism.

STEM Week Assembly

During STEM week, the school had a special visitor! We were introduced to a scientist, who had lots of fun and silly experiments for us to watch.

We learned that you need 3 key things to make fire, one of them being the air we breathe in (oxygen!), heat and fuel. There was also a great POP when we learned about what happens in our stomachs when we drink fizzy drinks – don’t worry it wasn’t from any of us though! We really enjoyed watching the different kinds of experiments and it helped us to understand the differences between materials and notice things about the way materials change, such as gloopy slime and exploding coca cola! It was interesting to think about the difference in forces so that we could make a ping pong ball fly as we didn’t think that could happen either.