For the next little while we will be looking at “Light and Sound” – first in a scientific way with a visit from the CSIRO Labs on Legs where we are looking forward to some more great hands on activities and experiments to do.

To get ready for this visit we spent a beautiful and sunny afternoon exploring what we already knew about light and shadows.

First up we played “Shadow Tag” outside in the playground. The person who was “it” had to catch the other kids by stamping on their shadow.

We decided that the trick was to make sure that the person who was “it” was always between you and the sun. If you did this, then it was nearly impossible for “it” to reach your shadow.

This was because our bodies blocked the light from the sun, causing a shadow behind us. If “it” was between you and the sun then your shadow was too far away from “it” for him to reach!

We also tried to make numbers and letters using our shadows – can you see the numbers and letters that we made with our bodies?

Inside, we used the OHP as the light source to make shadow animals with our hands. We also used other objects from around the room to experiment with shadows as well.

Some people were really clever at making interesting patterns and creatures with their hands.

Sam from the CSIRO showed us many fantastic tricks and experiments all about forces and motion. Learning about forces and motion means we are studying physics -and it was great fun and very interesting.

We rode skateboards, lifted heavy objects (and teachers) with no hands, twirled discs, made bridges and even got to sit on a chair of nails.

Did you know that:

• if you go fast on a bike, it’s less likely that the bike will fall over?
• if you squash a balloon across 500 nails it will not burst ….. but if you push just one nail into a balloon it WILL burst? 
• you can’t pull someone on a skateboard with your feet off the ground!
• when you are pulling you are actually pushing! (You push your feet into the ground whilst you are actually pulling  something )
• a small kid can lift a large adult easy as you like if the kid uses a lever (like a see-saw)?
• friction keeps cars on the road as do studs on footy boots?

We were able to do many experiments to see how chemicals and substances reacted when mixed. We looked at acids and alkalines, we measured temperature changes, we made slime and mixed, observed and predicted what might happen next.

We think that we will explore Cool Chemistry further, back in class for the next few weeks. Stay tuned!

 BubbleShare: Share photos – Find great Clip Art Images.

We tasted, looked, thought, poked, timed, ran, balanced, took apart, put together, moved, spat, sniffed, read, laughed, talked, hypothesised, tested, and had heaps of fun.

Here are some photos we took on the day.

How cool is this?

Last week we tried out a mind mapping tool called mind42.com to organise our thinking about Natural Disasters.

We had just been introduced to Natural Disasters through some wonderful hands on science activities from the CSIRO and we thought that we would like to investigate further.

This is what we came up with – have a look at the map above – you can move themap, make the text bigger/smaller, open and close the nodes. WOW

AllStars – leave a comment about the area you would like to investigate.  

We found out about

• landfill
• bacteria
• chemicals
• bottles, glass, jars
• plastics
• recyclables
• contamination
• toxic
• dangers
• marine life
• pollution
• garbage

and our responsibilities towards our waste and rubbish.

There were lots of interesting things to think about – leave a comment on something YOU will do as a result of taking responsibility for your waste and rubbish      

Go on ….. leave a comment ……..

Everyone has been busy writing,  creating, and posting about what they have been up to! We could choose how we wanted to present our information – some people chose to write about it, others used Rock You, ToonDoo or Newspaper Generator. Check out these blogs   

     Sports Carnival =

• Celia
• Clement
• Dushan
• Emily
• Kesaia
• Matthew
• Nadine
• Naomi
• Natalie
• Tyrone

     The Sydney Observatory =

• Marshall
• Momtahina
• Nancy
• Natalie
• Sharon
• Sokeina
• Timothy
• Yilmaz

A baffling crime puzzled the police until they called in the investigative minds of the AllStars! Along with Lisa from the CSIRO, the AllStars became real life Crime Scene Investigators as they:

• tested blood samples,

• compared finger prints,

• took footprint plasters,

• looked at DNA,

• compared hair samples,

• looked at oils found at the scene,

• checked bullet casings, 

• and used chromatography to compare pens used.

“We had to look at the evidence that was left behind at the crime scene to work out who was behind a blackmailing plot, and the theft of $200 000 from a safe. There were four suspects who had been identified, but all protested that they were innocent. It was our job to look through the evidence and eliminate or prove a suspect guilty.”

Comparison of Hair: We had to look at samples under the microscope – the sample found at the scene and the suspects. Two of the suspects hair looked the same as the evidence hair.   Celia

Comparison of Fabrics: We compared fabrics from the suspects, with a piece of fabric found on a chair at the crime scene. First we swirled the fabric in some water, then we dropped  a few drops of indicator onto the piece of cloth. We left it for 2 minutes and then we compared the colours to see if it matched the evidence fabric.   Sokeina

Soil Analysis: We had to put some soil samples in a dish and compare them to soil from the crime scene. We dropped a small amount of soil in the dish, then added indicator on top. The indicator turned a different colour according to the acidity of the soil. Each soil sample turned a different colour – but only one matched the soil from the crime scene!  Nadine

Identikit Face: We had to memorize the description of a man seen at the crime scene and build a picture of the person’s face using a computer program. We had to make the picture look exactly like the picture of the man seen at the crime. Tyrone

 Ballistics: We took the bullet found in the sofa at the crime scene and looked at it under the magnifying glass. We then had to try and spot  identical markings on bullets from the suspects guns. We were able to find a match from one of the suspects guns. Marshall

Chromatography: this is when we drew a line on a small sample of paper and put it in water. The colours in the ink seperated and we had to match the ink from the pen used to write the blackmail letter. Gloria & Natalie