Tag Archives: science

Tree Day 2018

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Today, October 4th, is Tree Day 2018.
The Sunshine class went for a walk to the Phoenix Park where we looked at some trees and noticed their different leaves and bark.
We saw that lots of the leaves have changed colour and fallen off the trees. We collected some leaves to bring back to school.
We also saw a family of swans going for a walk!

Eggs-ellent experiments in 5th/6th class

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5th/6th class got eggs-perimental this week with a super experiment.

We put a hard boiled egg in a glass of vinegar for four days to see what would happen. We made great predictions first.

After four days, the egg had lost its shell – well, actually, the egg’s shell dissolved in the vinegar. We learned that this is because the eggs shell is made from calcium (just like our teeth and bones) and the vinegar is an acid that breaks the calcium down.

It’s this reaction that caused the limestone in the Burren in County Clare to form the way it is – because of the acid in the rain. The limestone is a sedimentary rock, formed from the bones of creatures like fish and animals over thousands of years – so it’s also made of calcium.

Hmmm. now we know why fizzy drinks are so bad for our teeth – it’s the acid that wears away our lovely teeth, which are formed from all that great calcium in our bodies. The fizzy drinks are full of carbonic acid!

We are designing our own experiments now to test which acids are strongest – we’ll carry out our tests next week – watch this space!

Forces and motion with pulleys in 5th/6th class

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This month in Science, we learned about different ways of moving objects. Pulleys are used to move heavy loads with little effort. They are simple machines that have been used for thousands of years. We learned how they are made, how they are useful and we even made some working ones ourselves.

Here are some things we learned about pulleys:

Pulleys are simple machines designed to make life easier. They involve wheels that turn using a chain, rope or cable of some kind.

They work by pulling in a direction that is different from where the load being moved is going. By pulling down on the cable, the load goes up.

By pulling down on the rope, the load goes up.

· Pulleys have been in use for thousands of years.

· Modern pulleys use a wheel instead of a branch or a beam of wood. Thisis because there is less friction when a rope pulls over a wheel than when itpulls over a branch.

· Pulleys often use more than one wheel.

·The more wheels in a pulley arrangement, the less force is needed to lift the same amount of material.

· Pulleys are found in lifts, sash windows, cranes and some types of window blinds.

· They are also found a lot in the work-place.