Down at the Orchard with Sharon

Week 1 - Wellington, STLP Induction Symposium
What a fabulous experience to meet Primary and Secondary School teachers from a variety of backgrounds and to hear about the amazing science projects that are taking place all over New Zealand. There are 21 participants in my group and our placement projects range from studying soil, fungi and fruit to tracking and monitoring bats, kiwi, tuatara, birds and fish. We were all fired up and ready to go after our inspirational week at the Induction Symposium.

Weeks 2 and 3 - On Placement at Plant and Food Research in Clyde

The Scientists in the Physiology Lab - counting apricots!

Here I am writing labels to record the tree code for this crop.

Testing whether these apricots are ready to be picked.

Using a refractometer which measures sugar levels.

Samples of apricots are picked, then taken to the lab to be assessed.

These apricots were incredibly juicy and the best I have ever tasted. It can take years for a new variety of apricot to make it to market.

School Science Expo

The science class had a great first session of their science expo. We hosted 4 classes last Thursday afternoon for an afternoon of fun and educational science experiments.

All the science students were amazing at teaching their experiments and working with all the ages - we had Year 5/6 students and our brand new 5 year old students!

Thursday Science Group links

Use these websites to help find some experiments you can use for our school science expo.

You can also think of the experiments that we have been doing in class.

Science Bob

Steve Spangler

Science Kids

Funology

Thursday Science Group

Last week in science group we got to visit the Lab In A Box, which was visiting MAC. We had a great time exploring all sorts of light activities like refraction, the light spectrum of different gases, looking through some Oculus Glasses and also exploring what it feels like to be upside down in space - in a ZORB!!

Mystery edible substance

Today's science club was all about gathering and using evidence to identify 3 mystery powders.

We started by looking at the powders and guessing what each one was. Then we decided we needed some more evidence because we still weren't sure what they were. Finally we decided to taste them - Jennie said they were all edible.

Tasting gave us our final piece of evidence!

Substance A looked white, fine and grainy,didn't have much of a smell, tasted yuck and fizzed on our tongues.

Substance B looked like salt or sugar, didn't have much of a smell and tasted quite sour

Substance C looked like flour but tasted sweet.

What do you think out 3 substances were and what did we make when we mixed all 3 together?

UV Photos

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8faqc92rk6bX09EX3RRUjROMGM&usp=sharing

Standing on balloons!

Today the Year 3 and 4 science club had great fun exploring how many people could stand on a table that was sitting on balloons.

Our predictions were that only 1 or 2 people would be able to do it. Well, have a look!

We ended up with 11 children on the table before a balloon popped!

Then we thought about trying it with only a few balloons - one on each corner and one in the middle...

We made it to 11 people again!

We are wondering what happens if we have a bigger table and fewer balloons or more balloons. 

Why do you think the balloons didn't pop?