Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Hot and Cold science

Today in science we were investigating how to keep ice cubes cold by using insulators. We started by recapping the term insulator and our investigation last week which involved seeing which material would keep hot water hottest for longest. 
It was great that today groups had different methods for investigating and worked independently to carry out their test. Some chose to measure the icecubes using rulers at regular intervals whilst some chose to use measuring instruments to see how much water came from the melting ice cube. At the end, each group was asked to order their ice cubes and insulting materials from least melted to most melted.
In each group, the top two materials were fur and bubble wrap. We compared this with our results from last week's investigation and this really helped us firm up our understanding of an insulator. 
We also discussed that while we tried to make our test as fair as possible, there were some things we found tricky to control, some difficulties with measuring and also having to handle the ice cubes which could affect our results. 
Here are some photos of us working in our group. 













Our best insulators- these were the best icecubes after 20 minutes .




Having a go at batik.

This week we have been trying out batik. Here are some photos of us working. We are concentrating really hard to use the tjanting to guide the wax onto our material to create our design. Later in the week we will be painting our designs. 





















Saturday, January 26, 2013

The Indian Experience

Some photos from our sessions with Sunita Patel learning about Indian culture and lifestyle.