Edwin's Flower Experiment!

This is what I did: First I got a cup and put quite a bit of food coloring in it. I peeled the leaves carefully off the rose and then I put the white rose in and left it for 24 hours.

This is what happened: When I checked the rose in the morning the whole rose turned blue! Because I chose blue food colouring. I also saw blue colouring where we had peeled the leaves off and in the sepals (I found out what this part of the flower is called from this website. Here's the information I used...)

This is what I learned: I learned that when roses suck up the water, they suck it up through their stems and it comes out in the flower. The stem is kind of like a straw and when a flower is in the garden the stem takes the water from the ground and takes it to the top. I had to take the leaves off because if I didn't take them off, all the leaves would turn blue first and it wouldn't go to the flower petals as clearly because it would go through the leaves too. This made the colour more obvious.

I noticed that one petal didn't turn blue. I think this might be because we didn't put it in for long enough. We did it for approx 12 hours which might not have been long enough. Or it could have been that that petal wasn't working properly or was dead. What do you think?

Defining 'ecosystem'

Today LH3 put their thinking caps on and investigated the meaning of 'ecosystem' - this is some of the information we found from the internet which we're now going to combine with our other findings and write our own definitions.  Have a look at our 'comment's below.

...in the hub we Built Knowledge = Found Out and Brainstormed.
At home we're Making Meaning = Considering and Knitting Together.
Then we're going to Apply Understandings together.

(We haven't yet discussed the importance of referencing our work so please excuse us this once!)

Blog Bus Stop: Week 5, Term 2 - Mind Mapping

This week, I'd like you to add anything you think is relevant to our Ecosystem Popplet (a neat mind mapping tool).  This might be an idea or thought you think you know about ecosystems, something you've found out recently or a link to a relevant picture etc.

Go for it!

Click here to go through to make additions.

(I've sent you all requests to join which will allow you to log in and add your ideas.  Simply click one of the little circles that appears on the edges of each popple to add the popple off to the side.)


... and while you're thinking about ecosystems, have a look at this video made by Junior G (Year 1 and 2 students in Melbourne, Australia) - they are beginning to understand hte interconnectedness of ecosystems.  This might help you to add to our Popplet.  (Be sure to pop through to their site and give them feedback on this video and their other minibeast learning - hard to believe they're a junior class!!)

Science Fair

Attn Year 7's and 8's!

As mentioned, we've been lucky to have been accepted into the Auckland Science Fair competition.  You're able to work either individually or in pairs and if you really stretch yourself and put a stellar effort in your chances are great at getting through to the Auckland finals where your experiment will be judged by professional scientists.

You're welcome to take a look at this presentation that gives you an introduction to the process.

Click here to see in full size.

Thanks to Mrs Carol Duffield for sharing the original text content!

Starting Science Fair...

Today the year 7 and 8 students carried out an experiment to test dishwashing liquid and it's effect on different liquids (in this case, milk, water and apple juice.)

The seniors were introduced to some key words and researched them before knitting together what we found to give a definition we would all understand.  They started to give examples of each term under the headings (eg. they had a go at writing their own hypotheses once they understood what one actually was.)

They're still working through the details but you can click on the following image to see the document that they're all working on.

See how we got on here (photos):

Moving Milk! on PhotoPeach

and video:

Learners, what did you guys think of the experiment and your learning?

Obelix - Weird Science Goop!

On Friday, Learning Hub 3 had their very own assembly. We sang a song that Hub 3 created with a little bit of help from Miss Smerdon. We did lots of awesome stuff like teaching how to make music with graphic notation and being mad scientists. You know what, it was really funny because we chose people to be to be a body and then we chose other people to be the arms. The body people put their arms behind their backs while the people who were the arms slipped their hands through and pretended to be the same person. The arms did all sorts of wacky things like feeding the body sandwiches and shapes and answered science questions. We were really proud of our assembly because we did almost everything by ourselves.

In the second block, we went outside and made obelix with Miss Holland. Obelix is a type of goop, made with cornflour, water and just to make it more fun, some food colouring (see how to make it here, it's pretty easy... http://sciencesquad.questacon.edu.au/activities/cornflour_slime.html) We mixed it together in our groups of 4 to 6 (which is called collaborating!) and had lots of fun and got messy!

The goop felt weird. It felt hard when you started to roll it around but when you stopped moving it, it fell through your fingers like slime. Very creepy! When we went to pick it up the slime parted almost like runny plastic might and when we punched it the slime was quite hard and you didn't get much on your fingers. It was like punching a tree trunk but a bit gooier.

Afterwards we talked about how things can be in different states. They're either solid, liquid or gas. This goop was strange because it was liquid and solid at the same time! Now we're going to find out why it does what it does because we haven't seen anything like this before.

By Dani and Maddy

(You should try this at home!)

Goop from Sarah Holland on Vimeo.

Be sure to watch right through to the end to see our video recordings of the goop in action!