A Big Earthworm

A Big Earthworm, Wednesday, 12th March, 2008Look at the huge earthworm we found on the grass.
He moved very quickly, and had lots and lots of segments.
It hurts the worm to pick him up with your hands, but we had gloves so we could pick him up and move him to somewhere safer where no-one would stand on him.

Floating Cork

Floating Cork, Wednesday, 12th March, 2008 When we put a cork into a cup of water, the cork always tries to float over to the edge of the cup.
We tried this lots of times, but the cork floated to the edge of the cup each time.
Teacher filled the cup up to the top, and then added even more water.
The water bulged at the top of the glass (the bulge holds because of surface tension). Now the cork floats in the middle of the cup.

Sugar Cube Science

Sugar Cube Science, Keep the Damp Out, Thursday, 6th March, 2008
We poured water on a sponge. The sponge only soaked up water when it was already wet.We tried newspaper too. It soaked up a little water but not much.
We made a sugar cube tower and put it in water with green dye (for St. Patrick’s Day). All the sugar cubes sucked up the green water.

Next we made towers with one cube on the bottom, then another layer of something to test, then 2 more sugar cubes.
We tried sponge, paper towel, newspaper, tin foil, cardboard, card, cling film and plastic in between the cubes of each tower.

Our experiment didn’t work too well. We found that the sugar cubes dissolved faster than they could absorb the coloured water through any material but paper towels.

When the sugar cubes dissolved, the whole tower fell over and the cube on the top absorbed the coloured water as soon as it touched the water. It was very interesting and fun anyway.

Balloon Blowing

Balloon Blowing, Monday, 3rd March, 2008

This is an ordinary balloon that we can easily blow up.

If we put it inside a bottle it doesn’t blow up so easily. Why not?

When we put the balloon in the bottle there is air in the bottle already. We can’t blow up the balloon without moving the air that is in the bottle already, and there is nowhere else for this air to go. It is impossible to blow up the balloon.
If we cut the end off the bottle, now the air can be pushed out of the way and we can blow up the balloon.

Moebius Strip

Moebius Strip, Monday, 3rd March, 2008
Teacher folded over one piece of paper. This strip of paper had two faces but.....when we drew a line down the middle, the line went on both the inside and the outside. This means that the paper had only one face.

When teacher cut the paper in two along the coloured line, we ended up with still only one strip. How strange? Magic? no, science!