Professor Bunsen - Year5/6 Science Incursion

Professor Bunsen slotted himself a spot in the memory banks of all Year 5 and 6 students. He blew the minds off all students with his amazing and outstanding science experiments.

He started off simply by giving us a very extraordinary fact. He told us that a glass of water holds 20 times more molecules than there are planets in the galaxy and the universe for that matter. This is possible because molecules are so small they can not be seen from the naked eye.

He taught how heat changes the chemical compound of an object by melting the molecules into a different state. One of the most exciting and best representations of that is when he lit cotton on fire and it went in the blink of an eye. This is what would happen to the Earth if the amount of oxygen in the air was 35% or higher.

Something very surprising happened when he was teaching about carbon dioxide. He took out food dye. Took a straw out, put water in a glass and added food dye. Then he blew through the straw and the color went away. Then he sprayed washing spray in the glass and the color reappeared.

Overall we were really thankful for professor Bunsen. He showed us all really good experiments. Parents, be ready for your children to come home wanting to do some experiments!

By Harry, Miguel and Illya

Professor Bunsen was finally here to show us all his cool experiments and science knowledge! During the start of the incursion we started with the basics. He gave us a brief explanation about solids, liquids and gases with a few dioramas to show. He also tried to expand our knowledge, by teaching us complicated things such as chemical and physical changes, and how certain chemicals react to other substances.

Once Professor Bunson finished talking, he got to the experiments. He started with the reversible experiments and the students found them amazing. They included an experiment where he used heat to evaporate water. When he put a balloon on top of the container holding the water, the gas inflated the balloon and when you put ice on the container the balloon went inside it. Pretty cool if you ask us! He also showed us how much sugar was in a banana and mars bar. He talked about how the sugar heats up your body and how if you don’t burn away the sugar it will store it in your body as fat.

To start, he talked us through some basic chemical and physical changes such as ice melting, and setting something on fire. He chose a couple of people to come up and demonstrate experiments. The first demonstration was informing us about our body heat. He showed us an example by using a special type of thermometer. With the heat of our bodies we were able to make the liquid rise to the top and bubble. He then talked to us about the states of matter (solids, liquid and gasses). He showed how water can turn into both a gas and solid too. Once he was done with explaining the basic demonstrations, he then went into more exciting ones. One of the experiments had amazed everyone as we were all scared of the unexpected loud noise that the dangerous Nitrogen filled balloon had made. The balloon came with a massive fire explosion, which made the whole room shake.

By Chiara and Amelie

On 9th of May, 2023, Professor Bunsen visited St Justin's to talk about science and states of matter. We knew the basics: Matter was anything that takes up space. Solid, liquid, and gas are all states of matter; But Professor Bunsen really blew us away with his experiments!

Experiments:

Heat

The first experiment he did was with ice. He showed us ice (water as a solid), then he showed us how our body heat melts ice. He told us that heat is made of energy. We eat food to get a chemical change in our body that makes heat.. That's how we get body heat, our body heat is about 26 degrees.

The next heat experiment was with a tube that contained a purple liquid. When you put your hand at the bottom, the liquid bubbled all the way to the top. This was sort of like a thermometer but cooler.

Fun facts

Professor Bunsen has already been to our school which was 2 years ago
Our body gives us just the best amount of heat and with that heat we can melt ice
A banana has about 2 spoons of sugar and a mars bar has about 60 spoons of sugar
If we had 35% of oxygen on earth everything would burn very quickly

By Michaela, Ivy and Charleen

As we went in we were instantaneously dazzled with the wondrous things we saw. Then we sat down and Professor Bunsen gave us a quick recount of what happened last year where we learned all about heat and quickly explained that everything in this room was either a solid, a liquid or a gas except for the radiator which was plasma, a false state of matter. Then he said in this glass of water (it was half full) there were 120x the amount of molecules then all the stars and galaxies in the observable Universe in this single cup of water.

By Thomas G