What is water resistance?
Our Science learning continues with water resistance this week. We’ve applied our previous learning about air resistance to investigate how the shape of an object affects the amount of water resistance acting upon it.
First, we planned the sort of shapes we thought would sink fastest and slowest through water.
Then, we worked together to create these shapes out plasticine in order to test them.
Finally, we tested the shapes against each other to see which would sink faster and discuss what forces were working on them to give the outcomes we saw.
Why not try the same at home? Albert wondered whether the size of the container we were testing them in would affect the results greatly. Could you investigate this at home?
What charity should our school support?
And the winner is…
Year 5’s chosen charity (the World Wildlife Fund) eventually went on to be chosen by our school council as Moortown’s new charity.
Here’s an extract from their website:
The world’s leading conservation organization, WWF works in 100 countries and is supported by more than one million members in the United States and close to five million globally. WWF’s unique way of working combines global reach with a foundation in science, involves action at every level from local to global, and ensures the delivery of innovative solutions that meet the needs of both people and nature.
Air resistance is amazing! Part 2
To test the science behind the parachute slowing us down when running, we set up an experiment involving parachutes, eggs and a window.
Year 5 worked in groups to make three different parachute sizes. We wanted to investigate which parachute had the most air resistance and therefore slow the egg’s fall the most to prevent it from breaking. It was important to keep everything else the same so that we could tell that it was definitely the parachute size affecting the results.
Next, it was the moment of truth. We waited patiently below to observe the speed of the parachute’s fall and whether or not our eggs cracked. A slower fall would mean more air resistance and, ultimately, an egg in less danger!
We found that the larger parachutes fell slower and had more success protecting their eggs. Smaller parachutes fell very quickly to the ground. This means larger parachutes have a greater air resistance and smaller parachutes have less air resistance.
Science mini topic
We’ve now started a science mini topic based on forces. To begin this topic, the children were shown a series of forces-related photos and asked to come up with questions based on what they would want to know.
There were some great scientific questions and these will lead into some investigations we will be doing based on forces.
BBC website has a number of videos on forces if you want to find out more.
Air resistance is amazing!
This week, Year 5 have been learning about air resistance! Here’s our post to get you up to speed on our sprinting experiment. Hope it’s not a drag!
We had three participants who first ran from the gate to the gazebo and back without the parachute on (shown here by our fantastic photographers) and these were timed.
The same people ran again but this time with a parachute attached to their back and timed again.
All three participants were much slower on their second run. Challenge your child to explain the science behind it!
Our participants said:
- “It felt like someone was pulling you back when you were running!”
- “It felt like someone lightly tugging you as you were running.”
- “The parachute run was harder. The faster you go, the more the wind pulls you back.”
- “It was quite exciting to see how fast they went.”
- “The parachute run had more air resistance because the air was getting trapped in the parachute and slowing it down.”
- “It was nice seeing how quick they were and seeing how much difference the parachute made.”
- “I was kind of surprised and kind of not surprised. I was surprised that it made it that much slower but I did know that it would make them slower.”
Owl Babies
After reading the book ‘Owl Babies’ by Martin Waddell, the children took part in lots of owl themed activities.
They compared the different sized owls and were given the challenge of proving that the mother owl was the tallest.
They drew story maps and added labels and captions to help with their retelling of the story.
Why not ask your child to retell the story to you?
What is our new school charity?
We support our school charity for a year and it is now time to change our current school charity, Make-A-Wish.
This week, each class, discussed a range of charities, researched by the children for their homework, and voted on one charity they wanted to put forward for the school councillors to decide on.
Here were the class choices:
The final democratic decision was made by a vote by the School Council and the winning charity for 2018-2019 is WWF. We will support this charity for one year.
What makes a parachute successful?
Continuing our learning about air resistance, we decided to investigate what improved the success of a parachute. Because we had already learnt about what air resistance is and seen it in action with our running parachute, we already knew what we expected to see from our investigation.
We worked in groups, each changing one aspect of our parachute to see whether this affected how safely it brought an egg down to the ground. Each group chose what they wanted to investigate.
- material it’s made out of
- its size
- the number of parachutes
- the number of holes in the parachute
Changing the number of holes
Changing the material its made out of
We tested them by holding the bottom of the cup 1m above the floor (carefully covered by plastic bags) and dropping them. We could then see how damaged – if at all – the egg was and evaluate the success of the parachute.
We were surprised by some of our results and others were what we expected. We’re now going to discuss what we observed in class and consider why we didn’t always see what we expected – a crucial part of the scientific enquiry process.
What is a force?
This week, Year 4 have been introduced to their new mini topic – ‘Forces.’
Did you know that without forces our world would be silent and immobile?
The lessons began with the children recognising that everything on Earth is powered by forces, pushes and pulls which act on our bodies and the things around us. Forces make things move and stop moving.
Having discussed pushing and pulling, it was time to demonstrate these forces using our bodies. Working with a partner, the children created their own push and pull forces. Some were easier than others!
Magnetism
Magnetism is an invisible force. A magnet attracts or repels other items.
We discussed that magnets come in different shapes and sizes: horseshoe magnets (the ‘classic’ magnets we see in pictures!), bar magnets and round magnets.
Each magnet has a south pole and a north pole.
Opposites attract: this means the north pole of a magnet attracts (pulls towards) the south pole of another magnet.
Likes repel: this means that the north pole of a magnet repels (pushes away) the north pole of another magnet and the south pole of a magnet repels (pushes away) the south pole of another magnet. The children were amazed to learn that the Earth is like a giant magnet, and there is a magnetic field all around us. The Earth’s North Pole is also a magnetic north pole: a compass points north towards the North Pole because it is attracted by the Earth’s magnetic field.
Iron is magnetic, so any metal with iron in it will be attracted to a magnet. Most other metals, like aluminium, copper or gold, are not magnetic.
A magnet can move an object without touching it. True or false?
Using iron filings, we tested different magnets to see if this statement was correct.
This got us thinking about whether or not the size of the magnet had an impact on it’s strength.
The class were asked to work scientifically to explore this. Using different sizes of magnets and paperclips, the children made predictions, tested magnet, recorded their findings and were then able to decide if size made a difference to strength. One rule was that paperclips were NOT allowed to be joined!
The bigger the magnet, the stronger the force?
The children were not shown how to carry out the experiment. I was really impressed with how they set about testing the magnets. All around the room it was great to hear some fantastic, scientific conversations taking place. They will be studying their findings in our next lesson.
“Let’s work slowly and add one paperclip at a time.” Devising a systematic approach!
Here are a few magnet activities for at-home learning:
Visit the library and look for information books on magnets.
Investigate how many paper-clips you can pick up with different magnets.
Explore magnets: what do they stick too? What items are magnetic? This could be around the house or outside around your local environment.
Do you have any magnets around the house? What are they used for? Can you investigate different uses for magnets?
Find out about how electricity and magnetism are linked.
Make your own fridge magnets and decorate them in any way you like.
What is a force?
This week, Year 3 have been introduced to their new mini topic – ‘Forces.’
Did you know that without forces our world would be silent and immobile?
The lessons began with the children recognising that everything on Earth is powered by forces, pushes and pulls which act on our bodies and the things around us. Forces make things move and stop moving.
Having discussed pushing and pulling, it was time to demonstrate these forces using our bodies. Working with a partner, the children created their own push and pull forces. Some were easier than others!
Magnetism
Before some experimental learning, we discussed magnets and named different types. The children were fascinated to see what happens when a magnet gets close to a magnetic object.
A magnet can move an object without touching it.
Using iron filings, we tested different magnets to see if this was true.
Magnetism is an invisible force. A magnet attracts or repels other items. Magnets have north poles and south poles. These attract each other. But two north poles will repel each other, as will two south poles.
Iron is magnetic, so any metal with iron in it will be attracted to a magnet. Most other metals, like aluminium, copper or gold, are not magnetic.
With forces in mind, Year 3 put these into action in their Bollywood PE lesson.
by Mrs Burgess