Mad scientists

The senior students (9 - 12) of Glenbrae School had a mad weekend of Science during Term 2, week 10, 2015. Every Monday we had Mrs Raj as our teacher. We learned about Physical and Chemical changes. Each class had a science experiment of their own to show the other classes.

Monday

Today, in Room 7 Mrs Raj was showing us about the 3 states of matter, which involves Water - Liquid, Ice - Solid and Gaseous - Steam. To show us about the 3 states of matter Mrs Raj borrowed a little bit of coffee from Mr Nath next door. Mrs Raj boiled water in a the electric jug. When the water was finally boiled, Mrs Raj poured the boiling water into the cup of coffee. She showed us the Steam that was evaporating from the cup. After that, we learnt more about condensation, evaporation and the water cycle.

Tuesday

The next day, we had our normal teacher Mrs Parker. With Mrs Parker, we learnt how to make bread (Baking is science). When we bake, Mrs Parker explained why you need to let the bread rest before you bake the bread. We now know what happens when you let the bread rest. After kneading the dough, you had to punch the dough down before letting it rest. By punching the bread dough down, it helps the Carbon Dioxide dissolve into the bread. The yeast is ALIVE! so it feeds on the sugar because it needs to stay alive and active. When the yeast it feeding on the sugar, the bread wouldn’t be as sweet as it was before. When it was morning tea, we left the bread to rise and we made another bread but we didn’t leave it to rise, we put it straight into the oven. After morning tea, we sat on the mat. Mrs Parker said she’ll choose a few students to wash their hands so they could knead the bread dough. I was chosen, then I went to wash my hands, with my other friends. We washed our hands and dried them with a towel. Me and the other students were rushing to go and knead the bread, when we got in I could spell the bread dough. Me and the other students got in a line to knead the bread. It was now my turn after 3 minutes or so. The second I felt the bread it was softer than I thought. When I kneading the bread, Mrs Parker said to “Knead the bread hard as you can” so I did knead the bread harder. Minutes later, when we all had finished kneading the bread. Mrs Card took the bread dough down to the kitchen in the hall to bake the bread.

Finally when the bread finished baking. We made butter! Mrs Parker brought in some cream, salt and 4 mini jars. Each house group got a jar of butter and salt, we were told to shake them as fast as we could. But while we shaked them, we kept one finger on top of the lid just to make sure it wont open. Everyone took turns with the jar, it was really fun too. Rata house was the first to get their butter result. In the jar was butter and milk! It somehow made milk??

Finally when we all had finished shaking our butter jars. Room 7 all gathered down on the mat, Mrs Parker and Mrs Card sliced the bread into little pieces so everyone gets a piece of bread. Next, when the bread was finished Mrs Parker and Mrs Card buttered the bread pieces. The house that was sitting the best, got to choose their bread first. Since we were the best house, we got to go get a piece of bread first and it looked pretty good. I couldn’t wait to eat my piece of bread with butter on top. Everyone got their piece of bread and we were all having a nice treat. Mrs Parker told us to take a bite of both pieces of bread at the same time and taste the difference between each bread. So since we get milk nowadays we had our milk with our two pieces of bread. We all enjoyed it, the bread was so delicious but I wanted more.

Wednesday

I think on Wednesday was the best science day. In Room 10 with Mrs Tofa we learnt how to cut an apple, without the apple turning brown-ish. We had to choose a liquid and place to put the apple. But before that, we got into our house groups. Kowhai was my group (yellow house). The options to put the apple in was water, vinegar, sprite or L&P. You could also choose to put the apple outside or inside. Kowhai all thought we should put the apple in vinegar then put it outside in the sun. Mrs Tofa said to leave it outside/inside for 10 minutes, while we’re waiting Luisa, Honey and I took some photos on the class Ipad before we could leave it in the sun. 10 minutes later we went to take a look at the apple. First of all, we had to take a photo for the result after we left it in the sun, with it dipped in vinegar (we made a movie of our science week.) We all gathered in class to show the result of the apple, Kowhai had a fantastic result but I don't know about the other houses.

Thursday

On the last day of science, we were in Mr Nath’s class. In his class, Mr Nath and Miss Card had a competition. Mr Nath had salt on his teaspoon and Miss Card had brown sugar on her teaspoon. Mr Nath burnt two long blue candles, Mr Nath held his teaspoon of salt ontop of the burning candle and Miss Card held her teaspoon of brown sugar ontop of the burning candle. Me and Luisa was also filming the experiment, others were getting closer and they were also amazed. Moments later, we could see the salt and brown sugar boiling, we got more amazed about the experiment. About 10 minutes later, the boiling stopped. Mr Naths result was back to normal, by that I mean that the salt hadn’t changed. But Miss Card’s teaspoon of brown sugar was all crispy and burnt, there was no more sugar left, it all became dry like little flakes. And when Miss Card turned her spoon around it was all burnt, so was Mr Nath’s teaspoon.

On Thursday we also went to Mrs Moopanar’s class, but Ms Ravi was the teacher. For the experiment Ms Ravi showed us how to make Lemon Pop Soda, Ms Ravi had a glass of lemon juice, sugar, water and baking soda. She left the baking soda for last. We all waited, then finally she poured it in. The Lemon Pop Soda rised higher, it was really awesome! I felt like drinking it because it looked delicious.