Science around the school

I have had the privilege of being able to pop in to Pods over the last couple of weeks to see what science everyone is doing.

What an awesome science school we have!

Pod 1 have been looking at the science in Nursery Rhymes - this is them testing what sort of material will protect Humpty Dumpty from breaking when he falls off his wall.

 Pod 5 and 6 have been looking at chemical and physical changes - what do you think? Is this experiment showing a chemical or a physical change? How do you know?

Lunchtime Science CLub

Yesterday was our first Wanaka Primary Lunchtime Science Club. We had a great turn out and had a lot of fun exploring two bubble mixtures.
The question we were investigating was: Does glycerin or sugar make a better bubble mixture?
We talked about how could we test this and what could we measure?

We used lots of science skills - gathering evidence, exploring, collaborating with others.

In the end we decided that the glycerin mixture was the better mix because the bubbles lasted longer.

Pod 6 Being Scientists!

Today Pod 6 started looking at their new science investigation topic.

They were exploring some different kitchen chemistry experiments and using their OBSERVATION skills to GATHER EVIDENCE.

They will use their observations and evidence to work out what a PHYSICAL CHANGE is and what a CHEMICAL CHANGE is.

Student Science Survey

If you are a student at Wanaka Primary can you complete this survey to let Jennie know what you think about science at Wanaka Primary.

Remember you must be a Wanaka Primary student to complete this survey and you will need your Google login.

It's Science Week!

It's National Science Week this week and the theme is Light!

This theme was chosen because it is the International Year of Light.

Who knows what our main source of light is? Is it electricity? Is it something else?

Light comes in many different forms - there is white light - which is the visible light we can see, but there are also other types of light - one of these is UV light. UV is the light that causes sunburn but you can't see the it.

Did you know that you can get sunburnt even when it is cloudy? You can also get sunburnt in the winter - especially if you are up at a skifield!

Have a look at this video:


It says that UV can't go through glass or sunscreen. What about clouds? I wonder if there is UV light when it is dark? Where does UV light come from?

How could you test these questions out? What evidence can you find to help back up your thinking? It's like when the police send someone to court - they have to have evidence that shows what they did wrong - scientists have to have evidence that supports what they think.

We have some UV beads at school - they are special beads that can tell you when you are exposed to UV light. How could you use these UV beads to find some evidence to answer these questions?

Take photos of you finding out the answers and email them to Jennie L and she will put them on a blogpost. Comment on this post with your evidence - what did you find out?

Remember to enter the skink competition!

Super Skink Science Competition

This is your chance to be a scientist for a day! Join Jennie L  for a day in Alexandra, riding in a 4WD, meeting the skinks and finding out what it is that some scientists do.

How do you enter?

You need to complete 2 tasks from the Wanaka Science Blog - http://wanakascience.blogspot.co.nz/

1)  Read the blog posts and answer 2 questions that Jennie has written - write your answers in a comment on each post.

2) Go to the “Identifying Skinks” post and use the photos to identify the skinks in the photos - write your answer in a comment - remember to include your first name only and room number.

The competition closes at the of Science Week (Week 3 -May 8th)  so get investigating now!

Tracking Tunnels

I have been working up at Macraes Field Base recently - last week we had A LOT of snow and got snowed in!

Luckily the snow cleared away by Thursday and I was able to get out and do my work. 

 I was working on checking the tracking tunnels in the reserve predator-proof enclosures. We use the tracking tunnels to make sure there are no animals we don't want in the enclosures e.g. rats, mice, stoats etc - predators. 

The tracking tunnels also help us to see where the lizards are by showing their tracks.

I use a map with all the tunnels marked on it to find my way around the reserve and make sure I have checked all the tunnels.

Each tunnel is marked with a blue triangle so I can find it. Can you find this tunnel on the map above?

The tracking cards are kept in a tunnel that directs the animals over them

A blob of peanut butter is placed in the middle to attract the animals over the ink.

The black stuff is a non-toxic, natural ink. The animals walk over the black ink and then over the white card at either end and leave their tracks.

This card has a mixture of skink and gecko tracks on it. Each type of lizard leave a unique print that we can use to identify what species it is. There were no predator prints on any of the tracking cards, which is awesome!

While I was checking the tunnels I saw lots of lizards - if you look closely at this picture you will see a gecko sleeping - geckos are nocturnal so don't come out in the sun like skinks do.

I managed to get really close to the skinks sunbathing! It was really exciting seeing so many.

These are two quite young skinks. It is unusual to see skinks sunbathing close together unless they are young siblings.