Tinker time Science

Tinker time Science this term is about UV - the Ultra Violet light that seems invisible but is blocked by suncream on our skin, our sun hats and rash shirts when we swim. But where is it and does it really exist? Or are our Whanau being over protective when it comes to Slip Slop Slap?!

Mrs Trembath has discovered UV beads!! These little beads have a special pigment inside them that changes when exposed to UV light. Soooo let's get outside and see if we can capture some UV!

Each group of children had a few UV beads to place in different places in the playground. It was a sunny day with just a few whispy clouds, at 12:15pm, so right when the sun is high in the sky. The time everyone says stay in the shade!

Here is a container outside on the netball court. This is just when the beads are dropped into the box - can you see them starting to change from completely clear to... 

We had to keep them in a dark container - here a hat proved to block the sun completely - "wear your hat people". As soon as the children turned the hat over the sun's UV rays changed the beads' colour - it was instant!

The children discovered the beads were brightly coloured in the sun and then as they moved to the shade the colours started to lessen. 

Eventually in the dark shade of the trees and where no sun shone, the beads became white again. 

So in conclusion, we have proved to ourselves the sun does send out UV - ultra violet -  light and it does change the pigment in our skin (like the beads) really quickly! Stay in the shade, under a hat and wear a t-shirt or rash shirt at the beach.

Food for the turtles, dolphins and penguins....ENVIRO WEEK AT SCHOOL!

As part of our Inquiry into How Our Behaviour Impacts on the Sea, we posed the open question of 'Why do sea creatures eat rubbish'? 

Here we have some ordinary plastic bags from the supermarket shaped like jelly fish floating in the sea. We have looked at photos taken by marine biologists all over the world of such sights. So how does that affect the eating habits of the creatures that eat the jelly fish?

Mrs Venville worked with us to brainstorm our ideas and we recorded them to refer to as we go through our Inquiry. 

 Next Room 20 made our own Scientific investigations using our own ideas and observation skills:
What do I notice about the photographs? Compare the 2
What do I think about them? 
What do I wonder? What could I use instead of a plastic bag?

Here is a starting point for our own individual Inquiry study which can be found in our own Google Drive under Inquiry headed Question. We all have our own opinions about this problem - take a look and discuss the issue with your child.

Using plastic bottles and plastic bags again (- goodness we have a lot of those around!) we made a jellyfish in a bottle. When the sun shines through the blue coloured water it looks like a jellyfish floating in the sea. So if you were a turtle/ penguin /dolphin looking for food like a jellyfish you might eat this plastic bag by mistake. The plastic collects in the stomach and never fully breaks down. That made us feel a bit unhappy and sad for the sea creatures as they don't have any control over the plastic that is found in the sea.

So our conclusions are that there are plenty of alternatives to plastic bags and there is no excuse for saying no to a plastic bag!

Fantastic Longbeach School has sent us a wonderful parcel!

Everyone had a card from the parcel and took turns at placing it in the puzzle. There are imaginative metaphors on the back written by the Year 4 and 5s from Longbeach School. Ms McFarlane's class have done an amazing job! Come and have a look next time you are in R20.

There are lots of comparisons to make to our class - our class is larger, their Iwi is different, their leaf is huge - what kind of tree does it come from?... We certainly see the world differently - for example we learned some facts about cows that we didn't know, and they live near a mountain known for its snow and skiing! What a cool place to live!

Fantastic map - what an interesting room to learn in! Great furniture scale drawings!

Chapter Chat for Term 1 is nearly over but not the fun it brings.

We are becoming expert users of twitter and thinking about how to write a quality tweet and like someone else's tweet.

Today we shared our technology activity for the week on Twitter - making catapults!
This required fine motor skills, problem solving and a growth mindset!

Our Get NZ Writing parcel is on its way to Long Beach School!

This is the finished product of all our postcards put together. On the other side are our written poems using metaphors to describe ourselves. You can read our poems in Google Docs under Writing.

Now we await the parcel from Long Beach School!

Twitter connections on Chapter Chat!

Answering questions about our Class Novel Tuesdays at the Castle is a great way to see how we have listened and understood the story so far. We can see what other children are talking about and agree or disagree with their answers.

We are also learning to give other children feedback on their work about the book. We have learned that it must be positive, encouraging and thoughtful feedback.

We have also practiced writing tweets in pairs and reading them to each other to edit before we tweet. We are being responsible Twitter Users using the Internet carefully just like we agreed to when we signed our Device Use Contract.

Clever Mussels! Room 20 is learning about how our actions affect our local sea environment.

Mussels in the sea water collected from the Tamaki Estuary. Can you spot the difference between the clarity of the water in the top and bottom picture?

This is the water as soon as the mussels were put in. Can you see how cloudy the water is with all the sediment and silt floating around? 

After half an hour we started to see the water become clearer where the mussels began to filter it through their shells. 

Did you know a mussel can filter 350 litres of sea water a day!

Unfortunately there are nowhere near enough mussels to do the filtering of the Hauraki Gulf like many years ago as there are very little reefs for the mussels to grow on.

The is a lot of pollution from Auckland storm water drains into the sea, like in the Tamaki Estuary. But if we can support the regrowth of mussels on the seabed the water can be cleaned up and sea life will come back to the Gulf.

Find more information at:

http://reviveourgulf.org.nz/

We have been thinking of ways in which we can stop pollution going down the drain. 

Can you help too?