Simple Machines

What would you do with blocks, string, a pulley and a spring loaded scale?

If you were a seventh age student, you'd create a simple machine!

How? Check out their inventions below!

Students examine their materials before building begins:

Students measure the mass of their blocks they tied with string:

Students take their time attaching the pulley to string and blocks

Our simple machines were a success: after using our pulley systems, the blocks moved easily up the edge of the table (and our spring-loaded scales proved it!)

Our girls are quite the builders!!

Postion, Motion and Balance

Our 7th agers are now tackling position, motion and balance. In no time at all they were demonstrating how position could impact balance and create or prevent motion! We had a great time manipulating the position of channels to impact the balance and motion of the marbles. What great scientists!

Check out this video of the girls working hard, it takes a few tries but they stick with it and are successful!! Great job, girls!

Learning about Gases!

Our classes worked with balloons to learn a little more about our last state of matter: Gas. We demonstrated that air does have mass (a balloon without air weighs 2.5 grams whereas a balloon with air weights 3.0 grams!)

We also demonstrated that air molecules are impacted by cooling or heating, as we learned last class! We measured the circumference of a balloon, and then placed it out in freezing temperatures...Our balloon decreased 2 centimeters in 7 minutes! WOW!

Water Molecules

One of our 7th age scientists asked to complete a gum-drop molecule project in class. It turned out to be a HUGE hit! We formed water molecules (H 2 O) and demonstrated the three states of matter with our molecules.

H2O as a solid (tightly packed):

H2O as a liquid:

H2O as a gas (lots of movement in these molecules!):

Liquids!

We transitioned from solids to liquids by discussing how ice and water are two forms of the same substance. We then voted on whether water set outside in freezing temperatures would freeze before the ice cubes would melt in the classroom under a heat lamp.

We also discussed what makes up a mixture (all parts remain whole), a solution (such as salt dissolving into the solvent, water) and saw two liquids that just do NOT mix!

Sand and water makes wet sand...No dissolving here!

Buttons? No dissolving here!

Oil and water? One of our friends pretends to drink this crazy combination!

Our friends are becoming very talented at recognizing liquids. They worked in teams to draw and label all of liquids we use everyday! One team came up with over 40 common liquids!

States of Matter

During class the Seventh Age students demonstrated how molecules act in solids, liquids and gases. They did a terrific job moving from a tightly packed solid, "heating up" to change into a liquid and finally breaking bonds to form a gas!

Boys and girls acting as solids:

Boys and girls acting as liquid:

Boys and girls acting as gas:

Fuzzy Furry Friends

Seventh Age Science spent a lot of time learning about our most popular type of animals: Mammals. To learn about a variety of mammals, pairs of students worked together to prepare facts to share with their classmates about their chosen animal. From an egg-laying platypus (who also has venomous spike in his heel) to the sloth covered in algae, we learned a LOT of interesting facts and saw some exciting pictures! Best of all, the seventh age scientists taught it to each other!

Birds of a Feather...

Seventh Age students have learned all about birds this fall!

We have even learned that some birds do not fly...If you are intrigued, feel free to ask any of our 7th agers, "why!?"

We spent time learning about interesting birds from the southern hemisphere...PENGUINS! There are many different types of penguins; (the two largest, the king and emperor, are the size of the average 7th age student!) but we focused primarily on our friends from Antarctica:

the Adelie and Emperor penguins.

We learned more about these penguins through: http://www.penguinscience.com/classroom_home.php; a website created by scientists studying the Adelie penguins allowing them to communicate with students around the globe! We even mailed the scientists postcards and made them a flag representing our class and our love for these amazing creatures!

We finished our bird unit by learning about birds that live closer to home...even outside of our classrooms! Using orange juice containers, sunflower butter and bird seed, we created hand-made bird feeders to attract local birds during the winter season. Each class created three feeders and voted on various locations around the school building. We also discussed the manyfactors that may impact birds' feeding habits...

what a great way to learn about our feathered-neighbors!

Cold Blooded Friends

To learn about sea turtles, each seventh age class chose a turtle from www.tourdeturtles.org . This website tracks the movements of real sea turtles as they completed their 1,000 mile "race" back to their nesting beaches. Each turtle was swimming in the "tour de turtles" to raise awareness about a different issue impacting the survival of sea turtles. Students learned about the issues from their turtles, and watched live videos of the sea turtle tagging (attaching their GPS trackers) and release. We also watched videos of tiny sea turtles hatching and making their first journey down the beach to the ocean. It was a terrific way to learn more about the real issues facing turtles as well as getting to know more about our giant reptile friends (after measuring out our turtles shells, we learned that our sea turtles are LARGER than the average seventh age student!)

We also learned about land turtles as we adopted "Pablo", a Russian Tortoise donated to our class by an older Calvert student. He helps us remember that reptiles are cold blooded as he basks under his heat lamb while nibbling on strawberries and tomatoes.

Busy Busy Fall

We have had a very busy fall this year in 7th age science! After establishing that all of us are scientists (all you need to do is ask questions about the world around you!), we practiced making observations and creating testable hypothesises...Our conclusion? We have some very talented scientists in 7th age!! When learning about displaying results, our 7th age scientists became quite skilled at identifying and reading graphs!

We then spent time learning about what it means to be "living" and what is necessary for all living things to survive. While in the middle school's garden, we realized that living things are EVERYWHERE! Some of our girls held wiggly worms for the first time!

We then moved onto learning about the five groups of living things:

Reptiles, Mammals, Birds, Amphibians, and Fish.

We will finish our bird unit after winter break, meet some exciting visitors and then we start our matter unit, learning about solid, liquid and gas. Be sure to check back to see some exciting new photos of our seventh age scientists in action!!