St. Emilie's Catholic Primary School

Learning about everyday materials in Science

September 23, 2021
Kerrie Cogger
· Kindy · Kindy Gold · Pre-Primary · Pre-Primary Blue · Year 2 · Year 2 Blue · Year 2 Gold

Mrs Cogger visits the kindy every week to teach Science to the children. This term we have been learning about our five senses.

The children investigated how we could use bells and a magnet to make an instrument.

We used our sense of touch to explore water beads.

Our Pre-Primary children explored the contents of a Mystery Bag. The students are learning what everyday objects are made of.

We used our sense of smell to explore sensory containers with different scents such as chocolate, lemon, orange, vanilla etc.

There was much excitement for the Year 2 students this week as the students learned how water and vegetable oil don’t mix when making their lava lamp.

Bush tucker with 4B

Another focus for the National Science Week theme of Food Different by Design is looking at WA’s bush tucker. Mrs Cogger invited Natasha Bowden from SERCUL to present an incursion about the bush tucker found around the Canning River.

The students learned about the different plant and animal species appropriate to each Noongar Season.

The Noongar people used Banksia cones to transport fire as they moved on country.

Coastal Pigface was used to heal cuts and wounds.

The Noongar people used kangaroo poop as an adhesive when making tools.

Natasha interacted with each group to share her knowledge about the different plants. She is a welcome visitor to St Emilie’s. The students will use this new bush tucker knowledge to write captions to accompany the photos that they will be taking in our bushland for the Chevron Focus Environment photography competition. The students photos will been display at the Open Night.

5G Farm in a glove

This week the Year 5 students commenced a project for their Open Night display. It’s called a ‘farm in a glove’. This activity is linked to the National Science Week theme of Food different by Design. The students will observe how a seed sprouts and investigate the conditions necessary for germination to occur by planting five different seeds in a clear plastic glove.

The students had to carefully place 2 cotton balls in each finger of the glove.

The student labelled each finger before inserting their seeds.

Then the students used a pipette to dispense the same amount of water onto each cotton ball. We wanted to ensure that we are making this investigation a ‘fair test’.

The gloves will be on displaying MPR (Science) on Open Night. Come and visit to see if the seeds have germinate and whether the Year 5 students have provided the right conditions.

Science in Year 6

When you drop into MPR to view the children’s Science investigations make sure you stop and admire the hydroponics that the Year 6 students have been working on this term.

This is yet another focus on the National Science Week theme for 2021 of Food Different by Design. The students have been learning about how humans would survive on a mission to Mars. Most importantly how we would ‘feed’ ourselves.

Hydroponics systems on Mars is a possibility. Here are a few photos of the students setting up their systems.

Firstly the students had to thread a wick through, wash the soil from their lettuce seedling and then plant it in coconut coir.

Then the students came to Mrs Cogger to add the nutrient and water. Finally they secured a strip of foil around the container.

Science Inquiry

A small group of Year 6 students meet with Mrs Cogger each Friday and work independently of different challenging STEM activities.

This year the students have worked with partner to construct and test Rubber Band Racers. They had to construct 5 different models. On Open Night the students have on display their ‘dream model’. They were encouraged to use the materials in their kit to make ‘whatever’they liked.

Investigating crunchy crisp apples with Year 3.

August 25, 2021
Kerrie Cogger
· Science · Uncategorized · Year 3 · Year 3 Gold

Last week it was National Science Week with the theme of Food Different by Design. Each class has been focusing on learning and investigating different everyday foods. The Year 3 students investigated apples.

We commenced the lesson by learning about the story of the Little Red House.

Then each team of students were given an apple to investigate.

The students had many interesting words to describe their Pink Lady apples. From all accounts the apples were the best that they had ever tasted! Thanks to Gilberts in Southlands Shopping Centre!

We used a ruler to measure the length and width of the apple.

Let’s go fly a kite with Pre-Primary

Paper Bag kite investigation with Pre-Primary (Nature and development of Science ACSHE013)

In our PrePrimary Class Science Journal the students compiled a list of the things that we see moving around on a windy day.

The students then listened to the story – Curious George Flies a Kite. Each pair of children were given a small tray of materials to take outside to investigate which materials the wind will and will not move such as – paper cup, small and large balls, feather, piece of paper. Then we returned to class record our findings on a T chart in the Class Science Journal.

In the next lesson the students constructed a paper bag kite. They took the kite outside to test it out in the wind. Some of investigation questions were – which is best a long tail or short tail? Is it best to walk quickly or slowly?

To conclude the activity Mrs Cogger’s shared one of her favourite poems is ‘Wind on the hill’ by A A Milne. It was a great poem to share with the children this week about wind and kites.

No one can tell me,
Nobody knows,
Where the wind comes from,
Where the wind goes.

It’s flying from somewhere
As fast as it can,
I couldn’t keep up with it,
Not if I ran.

But if I stopped holding
The string of my kite,
It would blow with the wind
For a day and a night.

And then when I found it,
Wherever it blew,
I should know that the wind
Had been going there too.

So then I could tell them
Where the wind goes…
But where the wind comes from
Nobody knows.

Year 2 Grassheads get a haircut….

Towards the end of term 2 the Year 2 students grew their own grassy heads. We left our grassy heads to grow over the July holiday break.

This week our grassy heads were waiting for us and they were definitely in need or a haircut!

Chem Rocks with 5B

Our students recently enjoyed an incursion with Cecily from Australian Earth Science Education. The role of AESE is to create, produce and deliver innovative, valuable earth sciences experiences to students and the community and to emphasise the importance of earth sciences in understanding contemporary issues.

Our incursion commenced with a study of a map of WA to identify the various minerals and rocks and determine their age.

Cecily showed the students how to use a hand lens to make observations.

Cecily introduced the activity. The students investigated the chemistry of soils, testing for lime to help out a farmer with their crop (via a simple test with vinegar). Ww found out that calcium carbonate (lime) is also in Caltrate. We tested a few drops of vinegar on a Caltrate tablet.

We investigated other rocks to see if the acid in the vinegar would make a change to the rock.

We concluded the investigation by sharing our findings for each of the three rocks. Mrs Cogger recorded the students responses in the Class Science Journal.

We would like to that Cecily for coming to St Emilie’s and sharing her geology knowledge with us. She triggered many new ideas and questions with the students.

Year One Sandpit mining

The Year One students recently had an incursion with Cecily from Australian Earth Science Education.

The student put on their high viz and helmets and Cecily guided the students through a role play scenario. The students had to imagine that they were FIFO workers in the Pilbara.

The students used the trucks to dig big holes like a super pit. We pretended to have a tea break and swap our roles. At the end of the activity we filling in our holes and nurtured the landscape.

Lava viscosity

June 28, 2021
Kerrie Cogger
· Science · Uncategorized · Year 6 · Year 6 Gold

Our Year 6 students recently enjoyed an incursion with Cecily from Australian Earth Science Education. The topic was ‘lava viscosity’.

The students were shown a presentation where Cecily shared her wealth of knowledge about volcanoes.

To conduct the investigation the students were put into their teams and given a clipboard and three different liquids to test. The students are familiar with ‘fair testing’ so they knew how to identify the different variables in this test.

The students put a blob of each liquid (tomato sauce, glue and honey) onto the clipboard, then elevated the clipboard to measure viscosity.

The students were easily able to identify the lava flows of a ‘shield volcano’ and a ‘stratovolcano’.

The students thoroughly enjoyed the activities that Cecily had prepared for us. Cecily is a regular visitor to St Emilie’s and Mrs Cogger highly values her expertise. Thanks Cecily and Australian Earth Science Education.