Greenvale Primary School

National Science Week this year was held from Monday 13th to Friday 17th August.  The school theme for 2018 National Science Week, ‘Game Changers and Change Makers’, was focussed on the scientists, engineers, technologists, mathematicians, designers and innovators of the past and present.  There was also a focus on The International Year of the Reef.

All students from Foundation to Year 6 completed various classroom activities with their teachers. Here are some of the capillary action experiments completed by the students in Year 2.

Big Science Big Fun Science Show

Students in Year 3 to Year 6 concluded the week with a one hour in school workshop ‘Big Science Big Fun’ run by Fizzics Education on Friday 17th August.  Ben and Sam did a wonderful job keeping the students engaged and they explored Physical and Chemical Science concepts through an array of experiments and detailed explanations. The students were able to hypothesise, witness the effect a variable has on an experiment and observe what happened during the various scientific demonstrations.

The students saw the following demonstrations take place and included a balloon experiment, fog rings, gyroscope, the chair of nails, light, sound, static electricity, liquid nitrogen, combustion and flying

During Term 3, the Year 3-6 students are learning about Chemical Science.

Year 3/4 Experiments

The Year 3/4 students have a focus on dissolving and melting. The students have undertaken a variety of experiments focusing on dissolving which allows a solid to become incorporated into a liquid, creating a solution. The students have also observed how heat causes solids to melt and change states into a liquid. They observed how the melted substance can then cool and return to a solid state.

• Epsom Salt Crystals
• Dissolving sugar
• Colourful Ice
• Dissolving solutes in different solvents
• Melting

Year 5/6 Experiments

The Year 5/6 students are focusing on physical and chemical changes. The students have learnt how a physical change can be reversed, for example, water can change its state from a liquid (water) – solid (ice) – gas (water vapour) and all of these changes can be reversed. They also explored chemical reactions in a variety of experiments. The students were able to see some of the irreversible changes that occur during a chemical change, for example, a colour change, odour, bubbles/fizz (gas), the formation of a solid or a newly formed substance.

• Physical Changes using common substances
• Melting Chocolate
• Exploding sandwich

This term, the students in Years 3-6 are continuing their learning about Physical Sciences.

Year 5/6 – Electricity Unit

We have worked on making circuits using the Makey Makey kits. The Makey Makey kits allowed the students to demonstrate how to open and close circuits using various conductive objects connected to alligator clips. When the circuit is closed, the signals are then sent to the computer as commands like a button on a keyboard.

The students were able to use Playdoh and bananas to replace their keyboards to operate online bongos, a piano keyboard and various games.

Education Week  May 20th-26th

During Education Week, our school had the opportunity to display our student’s work at Gladstone Park Shopping Centre. Science was represented by the work completed by year 5/6 students in term 1, showcasing our paperclip and pressure switches and some of our completed torches.

It’s been a busy term in the Science room with lots of investigations on force and electricity. The Year 3/4 students completed a number or experiments on force, gravity and magnetism using the Predict, Observe, Explain method to record their results.

The Year 5/6 students made their own circuits with switches and made a useable, portable torch with a switch.