Thinking about Easter - Science and devotions go together!

WHAT JESUS DID ON THE CROSS

We conducted a science experiment today to illustrate what Jesus dying on the cross means for us. This is the second experiment we have conducted to do this now. Science is great!

Here is what we did...


The coin represents us. We have value. The coloured water represents our sin. 
   






The candle represents Jesus.

Jesus took our sin away.







We tried the experiment a couple of times to see what happened if we added more or less water.

You can see the sin disappearing. 

Jesus is amazing!

A few scientific ponderings...

We noticed:

• the flame was yellow/orange
• the flame moved
• it was shaped like part of an oval
• the flame went out after a little bit of time, once the glass had been put over the candle.
• the water went into the glass much quicker when there was more of it.

We wondered why the flame went out. A few students came up with a few ideas...

• "Maybe it is cold inside the glass" Amber
• "Maybe because of the air" Peter

We wondered if we could make the flame come back if we pulled the glass away quick enough - WE COULD, but you had to be quick before the flame completely disappeared.

We wondered how the coloured water got into the glass?

Micah said, "maybe there are tunnels in the glass". He used a magnifying glass to see if he could see any but he couldn't. He felt around the rim and felt a tiny dip that could not be seen. It still remains a mystery...something to think about :)

After our experiments, everyone is pretty keen to study Science as our theme next term. I'll see what I can do A5. I have to say, I like your chances. You are definitely showing signs of being super scientists!

Shadows, Sun and Scientists

We were doing a whole lot of noticing this morning being the keen scientists that we are.  Did you know that leaves have lines like our palms have lines!? (Thanks Sarah for making that link).  While we were playing shadow tag for fitness we thought, hey why don't we draw around our shadows and see what happens to them over the day!   The shadows in the photo's below are at 2pm. The blue outline was drawn at 10am.  We made sure we stood in the same place both times.

We noticed:

• The sun was on a different side of the sky at 2pm.  Everyone said the sun moved - this will be something to explore while we study space this term.
• The sun was 'behind' (on the base side of) the shadow both times.  If you are facing your shadow the sun is behind you.  
• At 10am we could see the moon.  It was shaped like a banana and was almost opposite the sun.
• Our shadows were a little bit shorter at 2pm.  They were still gigantic though compared to us!
• At 2pm we had no shadow sometimes.  This happened when there was 'no sun'.  We decided this was because the clouds covered the sun.  We are sure now the sun makes our shadows.

When we looked at this photo we noticed Aikona, Elina, Tayla and Luque's shadows are all going in the same direction.  They all look like they are standing in a line, but the four of them are not!  Hmmm...

Aikona came up with a great idea to draw an arrow showing the direction his shadow moved.  The yellow outline is at 2pm.

We wonder what happens to our shadow, between the two shadows?  Some of us think our shadows will get bigger, some of us think they will get smaller and some of us think they will disappear.  We will have to see tomorrow and have a look at 12pm!  What do you think?

Other thoughts we had were: are there shadows at night - we think yes because of the moon.  We also started to think about how Jemima (our wonderful friend who moved to England) sleeps when we are awake - in some parts of the world it is night while in others it is day.  Something to explore!!!!!

Until next time, this is A3 Mad Scientists over and out.

Little Scientists

Jolly Jumping Jelly Beans, what makes POPCORN pop?

If you read yesterday's post you will have a clue that the second of our two sounds we are learning about this week is 'p'.  We know that popcorn has that sound twice and that we love to eat it, but what we didn't know was:  What makes popcorn pop?

After some research via Suzy's World and our own experiment.  Here's what two of our super scientists had to say in their own words...

"The hot takes the cover off the popcorn.  When the cover comes off, the popcorn comes out."  Jonny

"After popcorn has popped, the inside is on the outside and the outside is on the inside.  It's inside out!  Luque

We also found out you can't use any old corn.  It needs to be corn specially grown for popping.

Here is the corn heating up and starting to pop...

Pop, pop, pop!...

Tasting the popcorn (for experimental purposes only, of course)

Our big book this week is called Jolly Jumping Jellybeans and the first sound we learnt about this week was 'j' (how convenient).  While we ate our popcorn we watched a 'movie' on how jelly beans are made.  We learnt that jelly beans are made up of two parts.  We sucked on our jelly beans of all different colours and flavours (again, only for experimental purposes, of course), and discovered what was inside was the same no matter what flavour.  Inside, all jelly beans look like this...