Raw and cooked eggs

Teacher had some raw and cooked eggs but couldn't tell which was which so we helped her.

If you spin a cooked egg it spins quickly and stops immediately if you put your hand on it.
This is like a child in a car with a seat belt on who stops as soon as the car does.

If you spin a raw egg it spins more slowly and stops for a second if you put your hand on it, but then continues spinning slowly.  This is like a child in a car with no seat belt on.  When the car stops suddenly the child keeps moving, often bumping his head on the seat in front or the windscreen.
This is a good test for raw and cooked eggs, and a good reminder for us to always wear our seat belts in the car!

Acids and red cabbage

Waterproof materials

Hairdryer science

Robotics week 2012

This week is EU Robotics Week!

In our school we really enjoy robotics!

We are looking forward  to being part of the Galway Junior First LEGO League with many other Galway schools.  Today was our first taste of robotics.  We think we will be very good at it!

Magic magnets

We had great fun experimenting with magnets. We found lots of things around the class that attract magnets. We learned that magnets have two sides. We learned opposites attract and same sides repel. We had lots of fun repelling and attracting. It looked just like magic when teacher put the same side of the magnets together, the magnet spun around without anything touching it!

String Telephones

We learned that Alexander Graham Bell invented the first telephone. We learned the sound was carried along the string. The tighter we pulled the string the better the sound travelled!

Volcano eruption

Today we were amazed when we made our very own volcano erupt!

Volcano

An experiment to try at home

Have fun with science.
Can you control a ping pong ball as it floats above a hair dryer? Put your hand-eye coordination skills to the test while learning the important role that forces such as gravity and air pressure play in this simple experiment for kids.
What you'll need:
At least 1 ping pong ball (2 or 3 would be great)
A hair dryer
Instructions:
Plug in the hair dryer and turn it on.
Put it on the highest setting and point it straight up.
Place your ping pong ball above the hair dryer and watch what happens.
What's happening?
Your ping pong ball floats gently above the hair dryer without shifting sideways or flying across the other side of the room. The airflow from the hair dryer pushes the ping pong ball upwards until its upward force equals the force of gravity pushing down on it. When it reaches this point it gently bounces around, floating where the upward and downward forces are equal.

The reason the ping pong ball stays nicely inside the column of air produced by the hair dryer without shifting sideways is due to air pressure. The fast moving air from the hair dryer creates a column of lower air pressure, the surrounding higher air pressure forces the ping pong ball to stay inside this column, making it easy to move the hair dryer around without losing control of the ping pong ball.

See if you can float 2 or even 3 ping pong balls as an extra challenge.

Crazy Craig - The Mad Scientist

We learned some really interesting things from the mad scientist who visited our school. We thought he was a bit like a magician. We learned alot about something that is all around us but which is invisible. Some very clever children knew the answer, air! We learned how to make a ping pong ball float. The airflow from the hair dryer pushes the ping pong ball upwards until its upward force equals the force of gravity pushing down on it. We learned about hover crafts and one lucky boy had a turn on a hover craft. We learned all about air and if we suck air out of objects we can create a vacuum. A vacuum makes it impossible to pull objects away from each other. We learned the power of little objects when placed correctly. They can take a lot of weight when it's distributed evenly.

http://animoto.com/play/Ci2MVX6Vb0CO9c09eua0BQ