Rainbow Skittles
Ms. Noonan’s Class investigated how to make a Skittle Rainbow. Skittles are coated with sugar and food colouring. When you add warm water to the Skittles, the sugar and food colouring start to dissolve. They have similar amounts coated on them so they dissolve at similar speeds and stay in their lanes. During this investigation children learned a bit more about dissolving, absorption and how colours mix.
Absorbent and Waterproof Materials
Spectacular Science in Senior Infants and 1st Class who were investigating absorbent and non-absorbent materials. They learned that materials are absorbent if they soak up water and non-absorbent if they let the water run off. Afterwards, they recorded our results and wrote the procedure of how to conduct this investigation.
The Science of Pancakes
Cooking pancakes is an example of a chemical change. The pancake batter “changes” from a liquid to a solid when heated on the pan. Follow along with our step by step slide show to see the science at work. Each ingredient was separate at the start. We mixed the wet & dry ingredients to form a batter. When heated, the batter changes. Some common attributes of a chemical change are:
- Colour changes: our pancakes turned golden brown when cooked.
- Energy is released: steam rose off the batter.
- Odour changes: As the batter cooked there was a new smell. It was lovely! Our friends came to see!!
- Not easily reversed: We cannot change back to batter!
- Gases are present: bubbles appeared in the batter as the pancakes were heated.
The cooked pancakes tasted great!
Zombie Hands and Puking Pumpkins Experiments
Ms. Russell’s Class investigated how mixing materials can cause cool changes in their Zombie Hand and Puking Pumpkin experiments. They made zombie hands by mixing and splitting carbonic acid! This experiment investigated chemical reactions. This was a multistep reaction. Vinegar is acetic acid, and baking soda contains sodium bicarbonate, a base. They don’t just mingle when mixed—their molecules rearrange into something else. As the baking soda reacted with the vinegar, it formed bubbles that inflated the glove. When sodium bicarbonate combines with acetic acid, they form carbonic acid, which, in the second part of the reaction, divides into carbon dioxide and water. The carbon dioxide bubbles up, inflating the glove. At the end sodium acetate is left in the jar.
Watch their step by step procedure in the video below
Reflective Materials
Ms. Brennan’s loved learning about reflective materials. They investigated which materials best reflect light by creating a ‘light reflector tester’ which was a white card that had a torch going through it. They shone the torch on the material and if the light bounced back onto the card than the material was reflective. They learned that reflective materials bounce back the light and make it easier to be seen on the roads when it’s dark.
#STEM#SFI#Scienceweek#roadsafety#rsaireland
