Student Work

It is my pleasure to showcase writing from some of our Prep students.

Astronomy Incursion

On Monday in Week 4 we had an incursion about astronomy. It was very cool. I learned that if something gets to a certain speed, it can defy gravity. I was grouped up with Mary and Evie. The first activity I did was put the planets in order on a measuring tape. I put the planets in order and Mary did the asteroid belt and Kuiper belt. My group did pretty well. Our second activity was where someone would hold a large funnel and the others would put a type of small ball into the funnel, showing the orbit of different sized balls. Our third activity was when we put some water and aspirin, a medicine, into a tube and put the cork on the top of it. The pressure would push against the cork and send it flying. We were able to do it six whole times! It was so cool. Then, we listened to the presenter talk about physics and astronomy. She taught us how Newton had a theory that everything in space travelled in a straight line. But Albert Einstein said it was a lot more complicated than that. He said that earth and other planets orbit the sun and don’t just travel in a straight line. The last thing we did was watch the presenter make elephant toothpaste. She put a bit of dish liquid, food colouring, glitter and some other stuff that I don’t remember. When it came out, it was so cool. It exploded everywhere! After all that, I think I learned a lot in that lesson.

By Cooper

Astronomy Incursion

On Monday in Week 4 our class had an Incursion about astronomy and we made a solar system. When I saw the difference in size between the sun and the planets I was amazed at how big the sun was and the planets looked like the size of a tennis ball next to it. I also learnt that the asteroid belt separates the four rocky planets from the ice giant and the gas giants. The Kuiper belt is where all the asteroids come from. To remember the planets order from the sun, there is an acronym, and it is Many Very Excellent Monkeys Just Served Us Nachos. What are planets? A planet must circle around the sun; it must be able to hold up its own mass. It must be bigger than the moon. Pluto is not a planet anymore because it doesn't have a clear orbit and it is smaller than the average planet. There are also telescopes that discover new things like all these different moons and did you know that Jupiter has 95 moons? The universe is vast and there are still new things to discover. We watched the instructor make elephant tooth paste and she used water, food colouring, detergent and glitter. My group and I did an activity where you have to pour water in a tub then place an aspirin in. After that, put the lid on and wait until the lid pops off. It pops off because the aspirin reacts with the water and the air is trapped. This was like a rocket blast off!