Glenbrae science week!

Glenbrae school science week!

It was Week 10 of Term 2, also science week. Glenbrae senior students rotated to different classes of every day  for science. We did science week because we needed to learn about the world around us, our science projects were based on physical and chemical changes of matter. We went to other classes to see the different kinds of science experiments. In all of our visits to each classes there were different chemical reactions which we had to write on templates printed out for us.

It was Monday, we were with Mrs Raj. Room 7 learned about States of matter, Condensation, The water cycle and other things about water.  The experiment we did with Mrs Raj was, she made a cup of coffee and then she put a glass over the top of the cup.  When she took the up off the top of it, there was little drops of clear water at the top of the cup. We learned a lot about Condensation and what water can do.

On the second day of science week (Tuesday), all of the classes were with their own teachers. In room 7, we baked bread. The reason we did this was to see what carbon dioxide would do to the bread. When we made the breads dough, we halved them into two parts because we wanted to let one last for half an hour and the other one for about an hour and a half. After it had been half an hour, we placed it into the oven for it to bake. Time ticked by, then it was time to get out the one that had rest for a short time then we put in the one that had been resting for a long time inside the oven. As Mrs Parker cut into the two different bread, some of us spotted a difference between them, the one that had rested longer than the other had more carbon dioxide in it because it got a really long time to rest in the sun. Mrs Parker cut them both into little pieces until everyone could have one of each. We all jumped up to get the two different pieces of bread and see which one tasted better. I thought about it for a minute then I said that the one that had less rest was more yum.

I really enjoyed baking bread because I got to learn more about carbon dioxide. It was so yum as well, I hope that we can do it again sometime.

It was Wednesday , the Third day of science week. On Wednesday , we went to Room 10 with Mrs Tofa. The science that we were doing with her was baking scones. What we did first was get quarter of an apple from Mrs Tofa and pick which liquid we wanted to dip it in. The challenge

was seeing which liquid would stop the apple from going rotten. The options were vinegar,

L & P and Sprite. We all got spread into 3 groups, the groups had to pick which liquid they wanted. We all thought that the best option was vinegar. As time ticked past, we checked on it every minute to see if it was rotting, we were curious if we were wrong. After ten minutes, it hadn’t gone rotten, we were so happy because we thought that we would of been wrong.

After that, we started on the scones. When all of the ingredients were added (I can’t remember what they are) we got into the kneading. In our groups, one person got to do it, but 2 of us in our group did it. Luisa and I were the kneaders, but it was very hard for me because it was too wet and it didn’t have enough flour, so it started to stick to my hands and I couldn’t get it off.  

Luisa, Alex and I went to the staff room and put the scones into the oven, we had to go back in another 15 minutes to grab ours and other groups scones. When Luisa and I hand them out with some milk, our groups flavoured scones were L & P. I sat down, but before I bit into it, I could smell the beautiful smell of it, it smelt so yum that I almost started to drool.

When I took a bite into it, it tasted superb! As I finished my milk and scone we all got told to sit on the mat. When we sat on the mat, Mrs Tofa told us a few riddles, but she didn’t know that I knew almost all of the riddles. I answered most of them and she said “ Oh my gosh, you know all of these!” then she started to laugh.

I had a great day with Mrs Tofa baking scones and telling jokes.

Here is a riddle: We see it once in a year, twice in a week, and never in a day.

What is it?

Answer: The Letter ‘E’

It was the third day of the week (Thursday) On Thursday, everyone was with Mr Nath, but I wasn’t here on Thursday so I didn’t know exactly what they did. All I know is just that they did an experiment with Coke and Mentos! I think what is supposed to happen is that it is going to fizz up and is close to exploding?

Finally, on Friday, it was just a normal kind of day. We just did work and everything that we usually do.

This week was my favourite week this term. I learned a lot about Water, States of matter, baking and so much more. I  hope we get to do this again, but with other kinds of science!

Glenbrae scientists!

Today, Glenbrae School had our inquiry road show. This is when all the classes share what they have learned during the term.  We share our learning by creating presentations, posters, diagrams and hand-on activities.

I enjoyed making and telling people about the subject we did (WWI & WWII Weapons) My group and I are so proud of what we have presented today. I loved describing what kind of guns/weapons they are, how they were used and how they affected people in the war. I enjoyed a lot of other presentations that other groups created. They are so creative, they had very clever ideas.

I learned that you can make slime with Glue, washing powder and food colouring. It was interesting, you can also make perfume with washing power and food colouring.

The best presentation was the slime making to me, but I really liked the one that Luisa, McKenzie and I.

Here is our presentation:

Here is my venn diagram which compares weapons from WWI & WWII. 

Our amazing trip to Butterfly creek!

Our field trip to butterfly creek

It was a wet Monday morning, the wind was blowing all over the trees. Half of the school students went to the butterfly creek, I felt very excited. We were going there to learn about dinosaurs, animals and butterflies as well.

Firstly, we all lined up in the hall, our teacher gave us our name tags and we went to the bus. At butterfly creek we went to the Papillion to have morning tea before we started our big and fun day.  As everyone was eating Sunita  came to introduce us to butterfly creek and told us where we were going first. Then a man came and told us about dinosaurs, crocodiles and alligators. He told us about shark teeth too.

Secondly, we went to the amazing dinosaur kingdom where they had mechanical dinosaurs.  They were very big and we all took photos with it. Dinosaurs existed many many million years ago. Paul told us about the dinosaur poo, teeth and bones. He showed us the teeth of a prehistoric Shark compared to the dinosaur.

Thirdly, we marched to the long train. We hopped in and locked the doors. As we made our way around in a circle, we saw other dinosaurs too. When I saw a triceratops I thought it was real but then when I went up close to it i saw that it wasn't real. As we hopped off the train, we saw juniors waiting for us to hop off. I saw that they were excited for it.

After that, we, room 7 went to the Farm which had amazing animals and cool trucks. When I first went in there I saw some billy goats, they were eating. When I went into this shack thing, there were heaps of rabbits, hamsters and parrots. The lady that worker with the bunnies told us to sit down so that we could hold the little ones. When she brought it to us, it felt as soft as a cloud looks. I went outside to see the other animals that there were, I went along the lamas and they were all pushing eachother to get the last pile of grass. I walked back to the beginning and I saw some colourful parrots and they were trying to hide from everyone that walked past. I went back into the shack and there was a billy goat, we got to brush it while it was eating. Mrs Parker told us to line up so that we could go to the next station.

Meanwhile, Room 7 went to the amazing aquarium and looked at the amazing fish, some of them I have never seen before. Some students went to go and play with the steering wheel of a ship. I was trying to look for a clownfish, but I couldn’t. As we all had a quick look we started to line up so we could go to the hot butterfly room. As we all entered it was hotter than being on the beach on a sunday. I was walking around and I saw a butterfly that I have never seen before, it was black, yellow and red. When I was walking around my friend asked me if I wanted to hold it so I said yes, it wouldn’t go off me so I just left it there. As we needed to exit Luisa and I saw monkeys, they were climbing trees. I wanted to hold them but they were in a glass room.

Soon we were going to see the crocodiles to see how they were doing before the show started. There was another room on the other side of where the crocodiles are, we went in there and in there was baby crocodiles, lizards and other things too. Then we went to the spider room… It was the most scariest room yet to me because I am very scared of spiders! As I walked into it I saw a cockroach house with quite a lot of cockroaches. Then I saw a huge stuffed spider above the spider room, it was very scary when was in the room because I saw a lot of tarantulas.  I never knew that there were tarantulas in New-Zealand until I saw it, I was terrified.

Once we left the spider room we went to the butterfly room again to see a big tarantula. We, room 7 all sat down and waited for the man to come and show us the tarantula, when he opened the container that it was in I got scared and I was at the front too. When he took it out I was very, very scared I almost started to cry. But it was interesting what Paul  said about it. Paul said that if you get bit it will hurt in the beginning but then it will start to get itchy. Paul said that if you get bit, it means that you did something wrong to it, so if you got bit then you deserved it. He explained how it gets it prey too, Paul said that it catches its prey by staying still and waiting for small animals, like frogs, insects and others.

Meanwhile the juniors were looking around, we went to have lunch then they came after us. Me and Luisa went to go sit down, eat and talk about we had seen so far. The day had been awesome so far. Me and her had some laughs too. We asked each other what was our favourite room so far, I said that it was the Farm and she said that hers was the farm as well. When we finished eating we all lined up to go to the crocodile show.

During Paul and Ruberto  was getting prepared for the show we all sat down in lines so we could see the amazing show. As they entered the show I was excited as can be, scar the crock was getting ready too. Paul was talking about Scar while Ruberto was feeding Scar while putting on a show for us. It was very entertaining too because he was making Scar jump up to try and catch the meat so he could eat it. I was thrilled because he could jump pretty high and catch the meat, but Ruberto lifted it higher. Some of the juniors and Room 8 went on the other side of us and they would've been scared because that is where Ruberto made him jump very high. When Scar had eaten all of the meat he crawled back into the water.

Later on we had to exit the room. We made our back to the Papillion where Luisa made a speech to thank them, she said “On behalf of Glenbrae school we would like to thank you Sunita for hosting our trip today and we learnt a lot coming to Butterfly, Thank You”  well that is what I think she said. We all went out the door to our bus and made our way back to the school. That day was an awesome day to me, I hope that we can go there again some day.