Science During COVD19

Science can be quite difficult in these times when you don't have the correct equipment, so I am going to try and add activities here that you can try at home with resources you can find yourself around the house.  

If you or your family members try anything at home and you would like to share this with me, so that I can share it on to the website please email me your instructions or pictures and I will add them on to here.  If you would like to share them with me but do NOT want them on the website please still email me and let me know and I will have a go before sharing on here.

My email is s.cleary-king@vigo.hants.sch.uk

Thank you for your ongoing support during this time ... Let's keep Science fun for all the chidlren!!

Fancy entering a competition?

Have a look at the website below to enter a competition where you go an a minibeast hunt in your garden or an outside space ... making sure you adhere to the 2m rules for social distancing!  Read the website for more information for what to do and how to enter.  The winner will receive a book about animals plus a bundle of bug exploration related prizes and the overall winners school can win a team of experts in for an "insect day"!!  The best entry will win a digital microscope too.

Closing date 12th June

Sounds so much fun that I wish I could enter ha ha ha!

Have fun bug hunting!

If you don't win, don't worry, send your entries to me and I will showcase them on our website so everyone can see how amazing you all are!

FUN SCIENCE FACT

Did you know?

Nectar is butterfly and bee fuel!  Painted Lady Butterflies can fly for hundreds of miles on their migration from Africa and Europe, while the huge energy demands of a flying bumblebee means that with a full stomach they are only ever 40 minutes from starvation!

From Caterpillar to Butterfly

My caterpillars arrived safe and sound in their temporary home which contained all of the nutritious food and moisture they needed to grow into Painted Ladybird butterflies.  Don't worry, the lid had tiny holes so they could get all of the fresh air they needed.  I kept them out of direct sunlight and in a nice, warm, dry place to help them to grow as fat as they possibly could.

The webbing that you could see is the silk that they spin as they grow.  If they were in the wild this would protect them from many dangers.  The caterpillars use this webbing to stick to their host plants, as the wind can easily blow them off of leaves.  They also use the silk to pull leaves around themselves to hide from predators that might like to eat them.

FUN FACT - caterpillars breath through holes in its sides called spiracles.  These are located on both sides of each segment!!

The caterpillars shed their exoskeletons four times and they grew more than 10 times their original size!  Then they climbed to the top of the cup and hung there in a J shape.  They shed their exoskeleton one last time, so that is now 5 in total, before they pupate (become chrysallids).  I left them for a few days so that they could safely harden into chyrsallids and now they are in their new home - the hatching habitat.  These are exciting times and I will keep you posted for when they turn into beautiful butterflies.

What is an exoskeleton?

This means the skelton is on the outside and their tissue is on the inside, as a human our skelton is on the inside and our tissue is on the outside so we are opposites.As they grow, this exoskeleton gets tighter and tighter, this is why they need to shed it so they can continue to grow.  The little black balls that you may be able to see in the cups are actually small balls of cast-off caterpillar exoskeleton.

Why does it wriggle and shake when it is a chrysallid?

This is a perfectly normal response, it is a natural defence mechanism!  They wiggle and shake when they are disturbed in order to frighten potential predators.  They are just telling me to stop what I am doing and go away .

Websites to visit

I will upload links to websites that could be fun to look at or useful for Science.  If you know of any others let me know and I can post them here too!

The above photos are a project completed by one of our families during COVD19

After a walk last week round Anton lakes we decided to try measuring the flow of the rivers.

We made origami boats, drew maps, talked about rivers the day before then on Wednesday and then went out to Anton lakes.  Both children measured how long it took the boats to go 4m down three different parts of the river, three times each.

They then wrote up the data in a table and made bar charts with their data. One child worked out averages for the bar charts.

We also recorded measurements of the river and next week we’re going to try and work out the volume of each bit of the river.