Centripetal Force

For our last Science Club meeting we learned about Centripetal Force. Centripetal force is a force, which keeps a body moving with uniform speed along a circular path. We did two experiments to deminstrate this law of motion.
First: was swinging a cup in a circle on a piece of cardboard with strings. The cup had water in it, so if you could keep the cup moving in a circle motion with consistant speed the water would not spill.








Second we made cotton candy, which is a real world example of centripetal force, (just like riding on a roller coaster).

Energy Conversion

Last meeting was full of exciting inventions! We put the students in groups of three and had them come up with their own invention to protect a egg (light blub) so when it was dropped it would not break. We talked about gravity and the two different types of energy that pull our egg downward, potential energy and kinetic energy.

Here are some pictures of the students working on their designs!!

Electricity

For our second club meeting we learned all about Electricity!!


First, we learned about static electricity, we did an experiment using a balloon and a fluorescent light tube. We rubbed the balloon up and down on the tube which causes charged particles (electrons) to build up on the surface of the balloon and charges the mercury vapor inside the tube. The charged mercury vapor caused the fluorescent chemicals inside the tube to produce visible light.
Second, we made an electromagnet with a battery, wire, and a nail. The current in the wire creates a magnetic effect. A weak magnetic field is created around a wire carrying an electric current. This magnetic field gets stronger as the wire is coiled into a smaller space. The iron nail becomes magnetized inside the coiled wire and attracts the paper clips.
Third, we discussed conductors and insulators and let the kids test different materials to let them see which was a conductor and which was a insulator.

We made many interesting discoveries with these experiments!!

Our third year!!!

Science club is back for our third consecutive year!! We believe this will be our best year yet! We are so excited to have Adrienne Walker back as our science teacher!
We will meet every Tuesday for 5 weeks!
This week we will be learning about starch and doing some fun chemistry experiments to go along with it! Get ready to have a lot of fun and as an added bonus you will be learning!! :)

Science Club 2011

This year we had a great turn out for science club.
Our teacher this year was Adrienne Walker, she has impressive credentials and has previously taught science to high school students. Below are the science experiments we did during our five week science club meetings. Thanks everyone for making a science club a success! We hope everyone learned something and enjoyed the meetings.

Back to Science in the kitchen-- April 21st, 2011

For our last Science club meeting we decided it would be fun to do some more kitchen science. We had the students make ice cream. Some students make it with two zip lock bags and other students made ice cream with two cans (a small can and a large can). The students leaned that salt had to be added to the ice to help with the heat energy. To make ice cream, you must remove heat energy from the cream. That's why you use ice. Heat energy moves from places with more heat energy to places with less. So, heat energy flows from the cream to the ice, cooling the cream and melting the ice. Once the cream loses enough heat energy, it freezes and becomes a solid. Once the ice gains enough heat energy, it melts and becomes a liquid.
By the end each group had made a different flavor of ice cream that tasted much better then the store bought kind. The students also left the last science club meeting with frozen hands. :)

Digestive System -- April 7, 2011

During the fourth session of science club the students learned about the digestive system. Each student was given a cracker. They ate the cracker and were taught the process of digestion as they ate the cracker...Your tongue and check muscles push the cracker down your pharynx, which leads to your esophagus. The esophagus continues to the stomach where more chemical and mechanical digestion break down the cracker. The cracker is now ready to be absorbed into your blood stream. Muscles continue to push the cracker into your small intestine where digestion continues and the nutrients are absorbed into your blood stream. The small intestine leads into the large intestine where water, salts and minerals are absorbed. Next is the rectum where all the left over solid waste leaves the body.
They also learned that food stays in your stomach for 2-3 hours.

The students were then given a cracker to brake up into a cup then they added water and iodine, they were able to see the cracker brake down and turn to mush. The students also did an experiment with a cracker and coke.
The students were very captivated by the experiments, some students got a little queasy after thinking about the process....:0)