Science, Technology, and Engineering

Communicating with the Specialist Team

We look forward to partnering with you in 2023, and welcome your input:

Hayley Oliver (Science, Technology, and Engineering)  Hayley.Oliver@education.vic.gov.au

Wow! What a busy few weeks we have had in our Science classroom, topped off by the long awaited arrival of our lab coats. We can’t wait to start wearing them!

Here’s what we’ve been up to, recently:

Grade 3/4s

The students have continued their investigations on packaging, including materials, environmental factors, shape, cost, weight and aesthetics. They were challenged with the task of building a structure that could hold the weight of a cup, using only straws, playdoh and string. We discussed different ways buildings and structures are designed with the intention of holding weight, what it means to meet a design brief and what a design brief is. The students also had a go at making paper shapes to test which shape would be the strongest. They made a cylinder, a rectangular prism and a triangular prism, they then put books on the structure to find out which one could hold the most weight. Turns out there was a tie between the cylinder and the rectangular prism. The students then had a go to see if anything changed when the shapes were different heights. 

During this time, I have conveniently received a few packages that have been damaged upon delivery. Two of these packages even had broken contents! Frustrating for me, but great for these lessons and rich discussions. I know that we could build packages stronger than these, so that’s what we are going to be doing over the next couple of lessons! 

Grade 5/6s

We have been continuing to look at the States of Matter and have been able to categorise different items into their rightful states.  We have now turned our attention to gas and over the last few lessons the students have designed a launch pad for a rocket, ready to blast. They have drawn a labelled diagram of the front view and birds eye view of their launchpad and begun the building process. The launch pad has been designed to hold a bottle upright. 

There are so many creative designs! I am so excited for our next lesson where we will be combining ingredients with carbon dioxide, to hopefully see some rockets launch! Stay tuned!