Materials 2010

We started our topic on Materials today. We worked collaboratively to put our materials in groups and then discussed the criteria we used. We made a list of properties of materials and interesting WOW words to describe each item. Next we checked the materials to see if they were absorbent, flexible, transparent, magnetic and if they were electrical conductors.

We learned a lot about properties but we have so many more questions to be answered!

1st Novemer 2010. - We have had a very busy afternoon.

First we watched an animation of molecules in solids liquids and gases. We saw how they move and how the bonds between them change in each state.

Next we worked in groups to learn a bit more about water, our discoveries included:

** Water has no shape of its own.
** If you move water around you can catch air in it.
** Water keeps its temperature better in a big container than in a small container.

We discussed viscosity or thickness of liquids and grouped them. We decided that thicker liquid would travel slower than thin liquid but we wanted to prove it!

After discussing what would make a fair experiment and changing the experiment accordingly we had great fun racing liquids down a tray.

Pierre didn’t even have time to set the stop watch before the water reached the end! The oil was very quick and came in second. Unfortunately the honey and tomato sauce didn’t do very well. We decided it might have worked better if we had a larger amount of each liquid.

We always enjoy seeing Jack’s personal projects because he puts so much work into them. In this project he is showing us the journey of crude oil to plastics and rubber. We were all impressed by his confident presentation and learned a lot. Well done Jack.

We were learning about evaporation today and have set up our experiment to see whether water, or water with another substance added, will evaporate first. We tried to make the experiment fair and watched and recorded the result each day.

The water evaporated first followed by the salt and water solution. We were very suprised to find the salt stayed behind. The sugar and water solution took a bit longer to evaporate and again the sugar was seperated from the water. Lastly the water in the oil and water solution evaporated and the oil was left behind.

We have been learning how to write reports on our experiments. We have tried to include all the important details about equipment needed, our predictions, what we did, or the method. After the experiments we write about what happened and why we think it happened.

Rauri presented his interesting project on glass today and also showed us a video on the process. We all found it facinating.

We have been working cooperatively in groups to create a collage using hot and cold colours.