In Science this month, students learned the term oxidation and discovered that when you add bleach to something it becomes oxidized, therefore its properties change.
The students experimented with air pressure using a hair dryer and ping pong ball. They discovered that the air from the hair dryer flows around the outside of the ball, so if they positioned the ball carefully, the air flowed evenly around each side making the ball float midair. We also talked about how gravity pulls the ball downward while the pressure below the ball from the moving air forces it upward, meaning that all the forces acting on the ball are balanced and the ball hovers in midair.
The students experienced seeing sound waves using a metal spoon and pan. They also learned that sound waves are what allows us to hear different noises.
For science this week we filled a Ziploc bag up with water and gently using pencils pierced through the bag until it pierced both sides, surprisingly NO water leaked out! The students discovered that the plastic the Ziploc bag we used was made of naturally formed a seal around the object as long as it stayed in place.
Our next experiment, we created an environment where we could see the oxygen/carbon dioxide process of plants by submerging a leaf in water and placing it in the sunlight. The process of photosynthesis allowed us to see bubbles on the leaves and as the leaves released its’ extra oxygen from being submerged, the oxygen was seen as bubbles in the water.
It has been a fun month exploring in Science!