World Science Day

World Science Day

Our Infants had a fantastic afternoon packed full of Science investigations to celebrate World Science Day on Thursday. Our topic, 'Super Me', focuses on biology and all of our investigations today helped us to learn more about our bodies.

Our Investigations:

Why do we get dizzy?

We talked about the science of roundabouts. There are two parts – one about the feeling you get of being “pushed out” (which is why you hold on so tightly) and the second is about why you feel dizzy! We talked about the 'centrifugal force' that is felt because the roundabout is constantly changing direction. Mrs Chapman demonstrated this by whizzing a bucket of water round and round, going upside down above her head (and NOT getting wet!!). 

 We then learnt how our ear affects why we get dizzy after experiencing this. We learnt that we have some liquid, bones and fine hairs in the ear that pick up any movement and changes of direction. They send this information back to our brain, telling us what we need to do, to keep our balance. When we spin round and round really quickly, the liquid is sloshing around in our ears and telling our brain what is going on.  When we suddenly stop the liquid carries on sloshing for a bit longer making us feel like we are still moving, even though our eyes know we have stopped.  This makes us feel quite strange. We witnessed this in the bucket of water after it had been whizzed around.

Can we see sound?

Tigers children have already learnt about how sound travels and were able to tell Bears that we hear through vibrations. We investigated whether we could 'see' these vibration by banging drums. We placed some cling film tightly over a bowl, placed some rice on top and watched them bounce around as we banged a drum next to them!

How does our digestive system work?

A little bit of 'Gross Science'. 

• We 'chewed' (mashed) some food (bread and crackers) with some saliva (water).

• We then showed the food travelling down the esophagus and into the stomach (a clear bag).
• In the stomach, we mixed the food with some stomach acid (orange juice) to break the food down further (this felt gross).

• We then sent the food into our intestines (tights) and squeezed all of the nutrients (liquid) out to show how our body absorbs and uses them. 

• The food left behind showed the waste products that cannot be absorbed.
• Finally, we squeezed these waste products through the intestines (tights) until they plopped out the bottom as a 'poo'. 

This provoked some excellent reactions!

Is taste linked to smell?

For this investigation, we each had 1 of each flavour of Skittle. We enjoyed simply eating and appreciating our first one. We then closed our eyes and chose a second Skittle, trying to guess what flavour we were eating. We repeated this again but, this time, we held our noses so that we couldn't breathe through them or smell. Suddenly the task became much harder! Children found that it was only when they let go of their noses that they were able to better taste and identify the flavour.

How fast are my reactions?

We tested how fast our reactions are by measuring the point on a ruler at which we were able to catch a ruler. 

How dirty are our hands?

We rubbed hands onto a slice of bread before washing them. Once we had used anti-bac, we rubbed our hands on another slice of bread. We will observe what happens...