Science

Communicating with the Specialist Team

We look forward to partnering with you in 2024, and welcome your input:

Hayley Oliver (Science)  Hayley.Oliver@education.vic.gov.au

Term 3 has already started off action packed in the Science room! This term we will move on to our Physics unit for the Term. The Grade 5/6 students will learn about electricity and have the chance to explore circuits. The 3/4 students will be looking at heat transferring from a source onto a material and researching what materials would be best to use when designing a new playground. At the end of the unit they will have the knowledge to be able to actually build a model playground, in small groups. With that in mind, I would really appreciate it if they could start collecting some materials, especially cereal boxes (or any other cardboard) that we can cut up and use for out models!

Level 5/6

After spending a whole term researching and creating for their ‘What If’ projects, I decided it would be nice if we started the term off with a bit of a showcase of the Grade 5/6 students’ learning to the rest of the school. It was lovely for the older students to have the chance to talk about their projects and show off what they had created and perhaps inspire some of the younger students. It was also a nice chance for the age groups to mix in a different setting to the playground. 

After production the Grade 5/6 students will be participating in our ‘STEM Olympics’ competition. 

Level 3/4

We have started Term 3 off brainstorming and talking about what we know about playgrounds, in relation to the equipment they have and what they are like in cold, wet, and hot weather. We have also studied some thermal images of playgrounds and were surprised how hot the surface temperatures of certain equipment or surfaces get.

With the Olympics in full swing over in Paris, I decided it might be fun to create our own version of STEM Olympics, right here in Upwey! The students worked in groups to participate in a shotput event. They had to create a catapult type thing, to be able to launch a ball forwards. They were all given the same materials and time to come up with an idea and create it. The teams then had three goes to launch their shotput. The teams that went the furthest were awarded a 1st, 2nd or 3rd ribbon. This was lots of noisy fun, it was so great seeing so many of the students work exceptionally well in a team to come up with their catapult.