Yesterday, while the Grade 6 students were off having fun at Secondary School for the day, the Grade Five students were given a challenge, to make the tallest free-standing tower possible using only:
- ten sheets of newspaper
- 10 icypole sticks
- 10 drinking straws
- half a stick of Blu-tak
- masking tape
We had to design our models first, then build and evaluate them. The building part was the best – working in groups of three it took us about an hour to build our structures. The challenge was to get them to stand up without any support or without sticking them to the ground!
When we had our 15 minutes left warning, the teachers decided to try the challenge for themselves. Miss K, Mrs B and Mrs C collected the allowed equipment and in less than 15 minutes had built a tower that stood 3 metres (10 feet) high! And it stood without help! Such champions, but some of the kids said it wasn’t fair because the teachers had bigger brains with more science in them. Hmmm. The last picture in the gallery below is the teachers’ tower – what do you think?
Of the students, one groups were wildly successful, with their tower standing 1.8m (6 feet) high. Some other towers had to be measured lying down, as they fell over – and of course, the aim was the highest, not longest tower! So 10cm high and 2 metres long doesn’t win. 
We learned a lot about how to make things stand, where to put the heaviest parts and what shapes are strongest. But we can’t tell you here because next week we are going to challenge the Grade 6 students and we are aiming to beat them!
Tags:
Science,
technology
2 Comments »
It’s the first day of Summer and the sky is happy about it! Tonight the moon, Venus and Jupiter aligned to make a happy face in the west. The moon is at the bottom, Venus is the bright eye on the left and Jupiter is on the right.
While the planets and moon appear to be close together, they’re not at all close. The moon is 403,000 km away, while Venus is 150 million kilometres away and Jupiter 870 million kilometres away.
The smiley face will not appear again in Australia until 2036.
Photos: Mrs C from her back yard.
Tags:
Science,
space
2 Comments »
The Planetarium is at Scienceworks in Melbourne. It is where you look up to watch a movie. When you sit on the seats they move back so it is like you are lying down. The movie we watched was Spinning Out. It tells you about space and the tilt of the Earth and where most of the star constellations are and a lot more. I recommend you go to the Planetarium and watch Spinning Out. We rate it 9 out of 10 but you might rate it better.
By Aiden & Beau
Tags:
Events,
Melbourne,
Science
2 Comments »
Entries (RSS)