SCIENCE NEWS

YEAR 7 FORCES UNIT 

During our Forces unit Sonny of 7G had the opportunity to feel electrostatic energy firsthand using the Van der Graaff machine.  This experiment was conducted in a safe manner with insulation protecting Sonny from becoming part of an electrical circuit.

Due to the electrostatic attraction between Sonny’s freshly washed, negatively charged hair and the positively charged metal sphere, the individual hairs on the his head were repelled from each other and stood on end. This is because like charges repel each other, and the hairs are all carrying a similar negative charge.

ENVIROMENTAL SCIENCE

Surena, Kaiden and Bernado were conducting a quadrat survey of the plan life in a set Quadrat space when they came upon this beautifully coloured fungus. Mrs Guerin uploaded the pictures to iNaturalist to discover we have a Stinkhorn Anemone fungi in our office garden. We had some excited queries from scientists connected to iNaturalist as apparently this fungus is not typical to Mount Eliza. 

Please note the unopened fungi when opened a little was filled with the most revolting smelling substance that shows its name was well deserved.

Further “digging” has since shown that the spores of the fungus came to our garden through the mulch brought in to improve water retention in that space. As the larger specimen here was photographed open this fungus is here to stay.

As the students have been focussing on Citizen Science this term, these boys came across an ideal example of Citizen Science at work.