Year 1/2 News
Mad About Science
On Monday 24th of July, the Year 1 and 2 students were excited to engage in their Incursion with the Mad About Science team. This incursion was all about science and living things!
The sessions explored a range of different related ideas around Living Things such as:
- What is Living and Alive? How do we know?
- A living versus non-living sorting activity.
- Science experiment with yeast and a balloon.
- Arthropods – Classification of insects by their physical traits.
- Microscope, magnifying glasses and looking carefully at bugs in resin.
- Worm study.
During these activities, the students learned and were able to define and sort a collection of objects by what is living and what is not living. They worked in small groups and were able to get hands-on with these items and share their thoughts and ideas to sort and re-sort if necessary.
Our wonderful presenter, Ken, demonstrated and carefully taught the students all about yeast and showed them the reaction when mixed with warm water, fed some sugar and placed in a flask. He then gently stirred and shook the mixture well and sealed the top with a balloon and the students waited and observed the changes that took place over the next hour.
After this demonstration, Ken showed the classes a high-powered magnifying microscope that allowed everyone to see everyday items and parts of the human body in a much more 'up close and personal kind of way'! We then went back to our small groups and looked at a range of insects and bugs using handheld magnifying glasses. These bugs were then sorted and classified based on species, and traits such as how many legs, what type of body and size.
The final and most exciting part of the incursion was when the students got down and dirty with some worms! We first created a suitable habitat by tearing newspaper up, layering on bark and soil then spraying water to make a damp and loamy surface for the worms to enjoy. Then Ken came around with a portable compost filled with scraps and we dug around to find our own worms, which were then carefully moved onto the student-made worm beds to allow close and careful observation.
Students had lots of fun and thoroughly enjoyed getting hands-on experience with science and learning all about Living Things.
The Reef
