Science Club

2023- 2024

Our final 2 science club sessions for this term were great fun.

First we made water filters using plastic water bottles, large pebbles, small gravel and sand.

They were pretty effective at removing some of the impurities from our very dirty water, although we found out that also using charcoal makes then even better.

Our very final session was probably the most popular one we had tried: ice cream.

Using a mix of cream or milk with a little sugar in a zip lock bag and shaking it vigorously in another bag of ice and salt, we made very tasty ice cream which was perfect with a few sprinkles!

Summer Term

This half term, we have carried a wide range of different activities from balloon powered vehicles and creating the most effective bubble mixture to bean mazes and bird feeders made from recyclable materials.

We tried an engineering challenge this week (23.5.24). The children used 20 straws (and masking tape) to try and build the tallest tower that could support a marshmallow. They then tried the same challenge using just 20 uncooked pieces of spaghetti. It's harder than you think!

This straw prototype had an ingenious way to connect two paper straws and was the tallest straw tower to hold a marshmallow.

A different straw design which used geometric shapes.

This was the first model using just 20 pieces of spaghetti to hold a mashmallow.

Our most successful spaghetti tower.

We created bean mazes to show how plants grow towards the light. This is a phenomenon called phototropism.

We hope that our beans will germinate and 'find' their way through the mazes up to the light like this one.

We used different liquids that we knew would make bubbles.

These included washing up liquid, soap and shampoo.

We found that adding corn starch to the liquids made bigger, stronger bubbles.

Miss Wilcox showed the children how to blow bubbles within bubbles using a straw.

21.3.24

For our final science club of Spring term, we experimented with making boomerangs from a single piece of A4 paper, as well as investigating how to harness the propulsion force of escaping air from a balloon by making balloon 'rockets'.

First, thread a piece of drinking straw onto a long piece of string. Tie the string to 2 stable objects- we used chairs.

Next, get some pieces of sticky tape ready and blow up the balloon. When you are ready, pinch the balloon shut so air does not escape and tape it to the string. (Make sure that it is facing the right way.)

Let go of the opening of the balloon and watch as the air rushes out, causing the balloon 'rocket' to shoot across the string.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFl6f1VFdLs

We used this video- it does work!

Attaching the balloon to a straw which is threaded onto the string.

Air rushes out of the balloon, which propels it along the string.

Can you blow a balloon up as big as this?

14.3.24

The children asked for this popular activity and really enjoyed finding out what happened when 'mentoes' are dropped into a newly opened bottle of fizzy drink. We did find that different drinks created slightly different results.

What will you discover if you try this one at home?

7.3.24

Our next activity was red cabbage ph indicator. We chopped up some red cabbage and put warm water onto the pieces. This resulted in a bluey/purple liquid. If you pour this into different liquids, there will be a change in colour depending on how acid or alkaline the liquid is. One of the most exciting changes was adding red cabbage water to white vinegar- we got a beautiful red showing the acidity of the vinegar.

This is another great experiment that you can try at home. (Take care when choppping the cabbage and be prepared to have purple fingers for a while!)

29.2.24

This week, we experimented with different types of paper planes and helicopters including hoop gliders. These were made with 2 strips of paper and a straw. The different length strips were both formed in to loops and stuck either end of a straw. When thrown, they could travel quite a distance.

Have a go for yourself. The Science Museum has instructions that you can print out.

https://learning.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/resources/make-it-fly/

15.2.24

Oobleck

Last week, we experimented with cornflour and water mixtures and created oobleck. This is a fascinating substance.

If you stir it hard, hit it or grip a handful tightly, it appears solid but if you stir it very gently or put some in your hand and leave it, appears liquid.

It is known as a non-Newtonian fluid because it does not follow Newton's law of viscosity and it's viscosity can change under force. It happens because particles of cornflour are long and thin and do not dissolve in water. When the mixture is moved slowly, the particles slide past each other but when the mixture is moved fast, the particles become tangled.

1.2.24 and 8.2.24

Absorbency

On the 1st Feb, science club investigated which types of paper could absorb water the best. To test this, we cut pieces of paper so they were same size and dipped them in cups of water (equal amounts of water) and then lifted them out. We then measured how much water was left in each cup. While we predicted that kitchen towel would be the most absorbent, we were surprised at how much water newspaper can absorb.

You could have a go at this at home or even investigate which brand of paper towel is the best at soaking up water.

The following week, knowing how absorbent paper towel is, we created 'walking rainbows'. We had 6 cups, 3 empty and 1 with red water, 1 with blue and 1 with yellow. After putting them in a circle of alternating cups- empty and full, we placed folded paper towels in arches between the cups.

What do you think happened?

25.1.23

Water surface tension.

Our investigation this week was to discover how many drops of water a coin could hold. We used pipettes/droppers to control how much water was put onto each coin and counted every drop carefully. We tried different types of coin, as well as experimenting with whether surface tension was better if the water was warm or cold.

Do you think it would make a difference?

It was fascinating to see how the surface tension that allows insects such as pond skaters to 'skate' on the surface of ponds creates what looks like a dome on top of the coin.

Surface tension works because the water molecules are attracted to each other and 'cling' together. This is why most water droplets are spherical.

Did you know it is possible to float a paper clip on the surface of water? Why don't you have a go.

18.1.24

This week, we carried out investigations with ice.

Did you know that it possible to lift an ice cube from a shallow cup of water with one short piece of string? It is if you also include a spoonful of salt and wait for about 30 seconds. The salt lowers the freezing temperature of the water so some of the ice melts. To do this it absorbs heat from the water around it which causes the water to become so cold it refreezes again trapping the ice. You can now lift the ice from the water.

We also experimented with melting ice in different liquids- warm water, cold water, salt solution, sugar solution and oil. After making predictions we placed ice cubes in cups with the same amount of liquid. As expected, the warm water ice cube melted fastest. Our most surprising result was the ice cube in oil, which melted much faster than we thought it would.

Why don't you have a go at home?

Welcome to the Sunnymede Science Club page.

Today, we had our first club meeting.

Our investigations involved candy canes. First, we measured the temperature of different cups of water using thermometers and then we carefully dropped mini-candy canes in to see how long they would take to dissolve. The cups had cold water at 20 C, warm water at 35C and warmer water which was 45C. The candy canes all began to lose their red colouring after couple of minutes but after 15 minutes there was areal difference in how much they gad dissolved. By 30 minutes, the canes in the warm water were really thin, while the ones in cold water just a little thinner. The canes in the warmest water had nearly dissolved completely leaving a slightly pink sugar solution.

Our second investigation was to find out how much weight the candy canes could hold. We made estimates (predictions) and then carefullyhung weights on the candy canes. None of us were close with our predictions! Did you know that a full size candy (with a plastic wrap) can hold 3.25kg? We were very surprised.

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