For A Spin

Since we are learning about light in science, we have used a cool little tool called a radiometer. The radiometer spins when you put it somewhere that receives sunlight. It has four little squares on the sides of it. These squares are black on one side, and white on the other. The reason it spins is that the black sides absorb light while the white sides reflect it. It is one of the coolest things we have. In our class, it never moves, but across the hall, where it isn't in the shade, it spins like crazy! See you next time on Science News!

Light Properties Lab

Translucent

Opaque

Transparent

  This blog about is about transparency and opacity (and translucency). Basically, these properties how much light can get through.Something opaque will not let light through, something transparent will let all light through, and something translucent will let some light through. We tested some objects by holding it up to the light and trying to see an outline/shadow or our knuckle ridges. Basically, if we saw nothing, it was opaque, a shadow was translucent, and if we can see the ridges of our knuckles its transparent.

Conductor or Insulator?

Conductor or insulator? In Mr. Matus's science class, we learned about electricity and what it can flow through. We tried many different things, including a paperclip, a pencil, and tape. Out of those, one of them worked, and the light bulb lighted up when we placed it on the battery. The others... not so much. We made predictions on what would light the light bulb up, and we were surprised when some of them were wrong. We learned a lot, and it was one of the best parts of science class in 5th grade.

chalk: insulator

Amazing Tools of Science!

One amazing tool of science is a graduated cylinder. We use the graduated cylinder in science to measure the amount of liquid. To use the graduated cylinder, you pour in the liquid and see at what mark the liquid stops at. Liquid is measured in mL (milliliters).

Another amazing tool of science is the triple beam balance. The triple beam balance is used in science to measure mass. To use the triple beam balance, first you need to make sure the pointer is pointing to the zero mark, then you put the object on the grey pan, then you start by measuring with 100 g and work your way down to the smallest mass 1g. Triple beam balances measure mass in g (grams).

Electromagnets

Electromagnet at work

Electromagnet Tools

An electromagnet is a thin coil of wire wrapped many times around a nail. There is left over wire attached to the nail that touches the positive and negative sides of a D battery. The nail becomes a magnet and will be able to pick up objects like paperclips, staples and the pointy part of a tack. The more times the wire wraps around the nail the more it attracts these objects. The class drew models of the electromagnets in their interactive science notebooks and labeled all of the parts like the nail wire and battery and finished their lab.

Switching It Up



This is the switch off.

You have just witnessed the pictures of a switch in action. Here is how it works, the battery supplies the electons that travels through the first wire, into and out the bulb, into the next wire and hits the switch. If the switch is closed, the electrons will continue on their journey to the next wire and beack to the batterey. This will make the indicator, the light bulb in this case, light up. We interveiwed John, and receved his thoughts, "I believe that it is amazing how all of this works."  This has been Switching It Up, join us next week for a surprise guest.

This is the switch on.

Path Finders

 Path finders was an electrifying lab! In path finders, we had to test out different circuits. If the light bulb lit up, it meant it was a complete circuit. In these test we had to find what circuits would work and what didn't work. The one to the right is the one that worked and the one on the left didn't. Only 4 of the nine circuits worked. In Path Finders, we also had to draw 2 examples of circuits that would light up.

The Periscopes of Science

One plastic bear, three paper tunnels, two mirrors, one mat, and you have a periscope. When you look down a corner, you can't really see around it. With a periscope, you can. This is how it works. 1: Fold three pieces of paper into 3 tunnels and put them in a Z shape. 2: Put a bear on either end of the tunnel. 3: Put mirrors on the open corners of the tunnel position the mirrors in the right angles and now you can see the bear. It was interesting to see the bear.

How Light Travels

Light shining through

Little dust particles

In this suspense filled demo, we tried to get light through holes in cardboard. It took a lot of teamwork to do. Some people were holding the card board while the other person held the flashlight. After a while, we managed to line all the card board things up, and we got the light to shine in a straight line. We also took chalk dust and put it in front of the beam as you can see in the picture on the right. It was so cool looking! We learned that light travels in a straight line. Well for now stay smart and join us on the science blog!

Making A Battery

Testing the battery

Energy is EPIC!

In Energy, (while we were at Live Oak) we learned how to make our own battery. It was made out of nickels, pennies, and cardboard disks. The disks were soaked in salt water, because salt water conducts electricity. This was called a voltaic pile, which was an early battery. You stacked it nickle, disk, penny, disk and so on, ending with a penny. The counselor there used a little device with two wires to measure the voltage. The battery was about a volt. That's all for today. Maybe you can make a battery like this! See you next time!

Science at Live Oak!!!

Static Electricity at Live Oak!

The guys using the static ball

The guys using the static ball

This ball is stored with electricity when turned on, and can store electricity in a tiny container which brings it to a tiny ball on top of it. That is called static electricity. If you put your hand on when it is on, nothing happens, but if you take it off when it is still on, that is gonna hurt a lot because you will get a little shock. Static electricity is what makes your hair stand up, but be very careful with static electricity. If you ever see anyone doing it, they might be a highly trained professional. This experiment was cool because you could see the little bolt connecting to the metal object and the ball.



An image of the static ball



The Big Fish

At Live Oak, the group, Beach Party, was fishing at the dock on the Pedernales River. Almost everybody caught a fish, but the most impressive fish was Christian's Flathead Catfish. It weighed 5lb and 10 oz, and it was 26 inches long! It was a struggle trying to catch the fish. Two of the volunteer fishermen had to come over and reel it in!
"That's probably the biggest fish I've ever caught.'' Christian smiled.

Live Oak Fishing Part 2

Last week the fifth graders left to Live Oak and got to go fishing. We learned about the science behind fish.  We learned that fish don't technically breathe out their gills, the water flows through allowing them to, well, breathe without dying! The fish swim using their fins (obviously), but fish move their fins side to side which makes them able to swim. They stay afloat by using a thing called a swim bladder. "The fish were weird and hard to catch.", said Ahad. "I almost caught a fish, and I felt the excitement surging through me, but he got away from me!", exclaimed Spencer. "The fish was slimy so I dropped it on the deck.", squirmed John. See you next time on FTE Science!!!!

Sparky's Lab!

 

You may be wondering what Sparky's Lab is? Now you can find out! It all has to do with science of course and making a complete circuit in order to light a light bulb. A circuit is a flow of electricity, and Sparky's Lab can help you do that. You first need a wire, battery, and a mini light bulb (source, indicator, conductor). There are many ways to light the bulb with these items. Here is one of the ways: Put the battery standing up and put the light bulb on top (the positive side) and touch the wire to the light bulb and the negative side of the battery. Then- voilà! The bulb lights!

Energy!

Energy, energy, energy! We learned a lot about energy at Live Oak, but one of the coolest things we did at the energy station at Live Oak was the solar oven! Here you can learn all about it. First we put sliced up peaches in a tray and then sprinkled some cake mix and added some cherry pie filling (yum!) Then we took the tray full of peach cobbler out to the solar oven and placed it inside. We then went back inside to learn more about energy.

   After a while we went back outside to check on the peach cobbler. It was ready! After interviewing someone who ate the peach cobbler, they said, "It was delicious!" That's all about the Live Oak solar pannel!

Live Oak Fishing

 Check this out! It's the Live Oak fishing dock!
Everybody caught a fish down here.We had to wear life vests so if we fell in the water we would float. The biggest fish caught at live Oak was 5 pounds. Mostly all of the fish were catfish. But there were some blue mouth bass and a couple other fish. We got use live bait. They were worms. Some of the girls got freaked out. There were at least 2 dozen fishing poles so every one got to have one. The boat ramp we had to walk on to get down to the dock was very steep. But mostly I think every one had fun at fishing.

Mixture Lab

the remnants

the mixture

In science we made a cool but gross mixture with flour, salt, water, and mulch. We were separating the materials. We used a screen and poured the mix into another cup to remove the mulch. After we poured it, the mulch stayed on the screen. The next day the flour settled on the bottom, and we decided to try and separate the salt from the water. We did this by taking 5mL and put it into a petri dish. After two days the water evaporated and the salt was the only thing left on the petri dish.

MATTER AND BILL NYE

Lately, the science class of room 47, hasn't been having to many labs. But, we are getting down to work. We're watching Bill Nye videos, taking notes, and learning about matter and physical properties are.
We also have been learning about what the atoms of the three main types of matter, solids, liquids and gasses. The particles of a solid are compact, and have almost no movement other than vibrating in place. The particles of a liquid are more free to move around than the particles of a solid, and take the shape of the container they are in. The particles in a gas take up all of the space available, and are all over where they can be. We learned that the reason you can't walk through solids is because the atoms are so compact. It is hard to move through liquid, because the atoms are spread out enough to allow movement, but still close enough to make it hard. It takes almost no effort to move through gas because the particles are so spread out that they don't push you back to much, but if you go really fast, like 700 miles an hour, you feel air resistance. That is what is we are learning in science class.

The Private Eye



Chart of findings

 

Little square soury salt

Today we got to classify matter by some other physical properties, we got private eyes (jeweler's loop) and took a really close look. A lot of stuff looked really cool. We looked at glue, chicken feed, and salt. Along with two items of our choice, it was a lot of fun. We looked for the shape, size, color, and texture. Our science teacher also had a bunch of cool stuff to look at. He had a wasp nest, spiky tree things, and other things. We saw little rough holes in the salt, I could just taste the sour square in my mouth. When we looked at the mulch it reminded me of cow patties and old decomposed grass. This Private Eye thing is pretty darn EPIC! No wonder the jewelers all use it. We will see ya next time on the SCIENCE BLOG!

A Matter of States

One afternoon in an exciting science class, we learned about matter and the states they can be in. Matter is anything you can feel such as solids, liquids and gases. Matter also takes up space and has weight. The class made models of matter's three states to see how fast they each move. The solids molecules are very cramped so they have very little space to move making it hard. The liquids molecules have more space to move around so they go faster then solids molecules making the liquid easy to go through. The gases molecules have enough room to move very fast, you can't see gas unlike liquids and solids. The models really helped the class understand how matter works that exciting day.

Matter Matters

Wednesday, September 21st Mr.Matus's Class did a fun, intergalactic, lesson on matter. The program starts with the kids figuring out what materials you need to classify the properties of matter. Then the kids were surprised by 4 different, multicolored, liquids. They had to chose the right tool (the thermometer) and find out the temperature. Then the kids wrote a few sentences about what they learned about matter. Some said that they learned that a football floats and also that the properties of matter are liquids, solids, and gases. Once the kids were done, they printed out there progress. It was epic, and everyone had fun.

Waft to Whiff

Whafting

Observations

The sweet smell of vanilla, filled my nose with a wonderful scent. The steak sauce cup before the vanilla cup, was terrible in my nose. The vanilla replaced the horrid smell of steak sauce burning in my nose. Not long after, we smelled spicy peppers, melting our noses with its smell and who can forget sour smell of vinegar. After we finished going through all the cups, we wrote down our observations. Ultimately, we had to learn how to waft or the smells might hurt our nose if we waft.



Loop planes in science class

In Mr. Matus's class, students were to make a loop plane using a straw, some paper, and tape. Outside, we threw the planes (which flew surprisingly far) and measured with a yardstick how far they flew. Using the scientific method, we were able to make a recollection of what happened during the experiment. It was a cool experiment, and probably the best one all year.