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Science straws!

Collaborative work, Science, term 3 3 Responses »

Mar 152012

Who has the strongest lungs?

As part of science week, we have been investigating what happens when you suck water through straws. However, we didn’t just use one straw, we used many joined together and we found that it became much more difficult to suck the water up through the straws as a result. Why was this? Forces acting downwards (gravity) and the fact that when we joined the straws together using sellotape, there may not have been perfect seals, thus losing the effects of a vacuum, as well as the fact that our lungs have only limited sucking capacity, all conspired to make the job much harder as we added the number of straws! We found that with 12 straws joined together, it was very, very hard to suck water successfully directly upwards!

Fizz, Bang, Boom!

Collaborative work, Science, term 3 2 Responses »

Feb 202012

We had a visit today from Generation Science, and the class all carried out various experiments, including testing for acids and alkalis, mixing acids and alkalis together to see what happened, and recording the results, before finally watching and recording how various reactions occur when they mixed various substances together. Click on each picture below to see a larger version!

: Generation Science comes to Yester!

: Straight down to action!

: Working to add the various ingredients

: Testing for acids and alkalis

: Careful when you add the liquids…

: Don’t add the mixture too quickly!

: Rinsing the mixture out

: Team-work ensures the experiment will be a success!

: Keeping a record of the results

: Goggles ensure safety at work!

: Did you get the same results as we did?

: Listen carefully, as we learn what we’ll do next!

: Concentration is the key!

: Approaching the finale…

: Boom! The lid is blown off!

Our 2012 European Chain Reaction entry!

Collaborative work, ICT, International Education, Science, term 3 1 Response »

Jan 032012

Here is our entry for the 2012 version of The European Chain Reaction. It took us quite a bit of time to plan and put it together, and each and everyone in the class took part and collaborated to help make it happen.
We now need to wait and watch all the other entries from across Europe appear- they need to be uploaded to the blog by Friday 13th January. Then, once everyone has watched all the entries and voted for their favourites, the winning country will be announced on Friday 27th January.

Chain Reaction 2012

Collaborative work, ICT, International Education, Science, Term 2 No Responses »

Dec 162011

Having won the school around £1000 in ICT software a couple of weeks ago, our Chain Reaction for 2012 is nearly complete! Many weeks ago now, we filmed the majority of our technical chain reaction, and we will complete it next week, by using our lift and the stairs to finish it off with a flourish! I will then edit it over the Christmas holidays, as it needs to be uploaded to the project blog by Friday 13th January.

Meanwhile, all teams in the contest this year have been asked to introduce themselves to each other by creating a shorter, “Human Chain Reaction”. We filmed ours yesterday, and you can see it below, as well as the others which have already been uploaded to the European Chain Reaction 2012 blog.

Chain Reaction project wins 1st prize in MEDEA Awards!

Collaborative work, International Education, Science, Term 2 2 Responses »

Nov 252011

Back in early 2011, I created the European Chain Reaction science project with Belgian teacher, Dave Schrauwen, and it was a very popular project undertaken by P6/7 last year. We were joined by primary schools from 11 other European countries, who all undertook to create their very own chain reactions. The project was the focus of a visit by HMIe in March 2011, and after speaking to some of the children involved at the time, the inspector described it as one of the best collaborative pieces of work he had seen produced by any school in the four years he had been looking at International Education across Scotland.

Yesterday, in Brussels, the project won 1st prize in the category of best example of Cross Border European Collaboration, at the 2011 MEDEA Awards!
As a result, Yester Primary wins a software package suite valued at more than £1000! Fantastic news!
As you know, we worked on creating our 2012 Chain Reaction a few weeks back, and we hope to finish it shortly, allowing me plenty of time to edit the footage for our entry into the 2012 European Chain Reaction.

You can read a bit about the entry to the MEDEA Awards here.