The Solar System

Last week we learned all about the Solar System. The Solar System is made up of all the planets that orbit our Sun. The Sun contains around 98% of all the material in our solar system. Scientists believe that the Solar System evolved from a giant cloud of dust and gas. The outer planets are largely made of gas and water, while the inner planets are made up almost entirely of rock and dust.Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are the names of the planets in our solar system .

by ,Patrick G

Strange Sounds!

Today in class we did two experiemnts exploring vibrations and sound. One was 'feeling' sound. We blew up balloons and held them next to our friends' ear. When we spoke through the balloon the sound was louder and really clear.
For the next experiment we put clingfilm over a plastic box and pulled the clingfilm really tight. Then we put uncooked rice on the clingfilm. After that we placed the plastic next to the speaker of a music stereo. When we played the music, the vibrations made the rice hop and dance - the rice can dance better than most of the lads in my class!!

By J-Dizzle D-Money

Let's Build a Rocket Boys!

We did some great science stuff and experiments this afternoon. We learned that when water or different liquids are added to vitamin c tablets, carbon dioxide is released. The pressure of the carbon dioxide builds up inside the canister until it blows the lid off the canister. If we put the canister upside down, on the lid, then it will shoot into the air like a rocket!!

By John and Cameron

Our Reaction Times!

Although light and heavy things fall to ground at the same speed (we studied Galileo's famous experiment from the Tower of Pisa!), becuase paper is very light, it can be subject to air resistance and air currents. We created reaction timers that we cut out and weighed down with a piece of 'blu-tac'. Check out our video and see how our paper reaction timers fall and who has the fastest reaction times! Can you guess who has the feastest reaction times?

By Pierce O' Leary

Dancing Raisins

Equipment

A jar glass of water, a fizzy drink e.g. 7up or fizzy water and the main thing, a hand full of raisins.

Information

The raisins are heavier than the drink so they sink to the bottom of the drink. In the fizzy drink though, they collect bubbles at the bottom of the jar, and these bubbles help the raisins dance up the jar to the surface. With the bubbles of carbon dioxide, the raisins are ligther than the drink so they rise to the top.

Experiment

Drop a handful of raisins into glass.

Drop a handful of raisins into 7up.

After a while the raisins will rise to the surface.

What I noticed

I noticed that the raisins went to the surface of the fizzy drink but when they got there the bubbles burst and the raisins went back down. Also, after a while the fizz went flat and the raisins did not go as fast as they did at the start.

By Luke.

Our Science Experiments

Can you balance - three ways to find out

Experiment 3. Can you stand against a wall and raise your opposite leg?

I thought it would be easy to stand with your feet apart, with one foot shoulder and head touching the wall and raise your other leg. Dead easy or is it??!!! When you are against the wall you can't move your leg off the wall. One of the lads made sure we didn't move our head, shoulder or foot off the wall. When you try to lift your other leg off the wall you fall. I did it i kept falling off the wall. Because I lifted my leg up too low and my centre of gravity was not over my two feet! Very hard unless you have incredible balance!

By Taylor M.

Can you balance - three ways to find out

Experiment 2. Can you stand against a wall and bend down without moving your knees?

I thought I Can you stand against the wall without moving your knee off the wall, no problem. Its harder than you think. If you can touch your toes you might be able to do it but when I did it, I moved my centre of gravity from over my feet and I fell over. One of the lads made sure we didn't bend our knees. I wasn't able to pick up the coin, it was too hard.

By Taylor M.

Can you Balance - three ways to find out

Experiment 1. Can you stand up without leaning foward?

Harder than it seems!! When you are standing your centre of gravity is over your feet. When you sit down or are bending forward your centre of gravity is over the chair. To stand up you must move to get your centre of gravity over your feet but it is impossible to stand up if you don't lean forwards. When I tried it I nearly got it. But I nearly fell back any time I was pushing up because the chair kept on moving back!

by Taylor M.

Our Pulse and Heartbeat

Last week in school we learned about active pulse, resting pulse and the heart! It was great! First we took our pulse sitting down, on our wrist or neck or behind the knee, with two fingers. Then we ran on the spot for 1 min and my active pulse was going very fast! My resting pulse was 44 beats per second and my active pulse was 105. I felt great but my legs were sleepy!

We learnt about the heart, and the way system of blood vessels, arteries, veins and capillaries is over 60,000 miles long! That’s long enough to go around the world more than twice! And the adult pumps about 5 quarters of blood each minute-approximately 2,000 gallons of blood each day-throughout the body. You can see us in the photos taking our resting pulse, then exercising and counting our active pulse after!

By Jake

Every eye has a blind spot

While we were studying the eye, we did another experiement which showed how everybody has a blind spot in their eye. We held up a piece of paper in front of us and there was a circle and a cross on the sheet. You had to look at the cross while shuting your right eye. You bring the page slowly to your eye and the closer it gets you can't see the circle. I didnt get it at first but a few seconds later it began to work. It was weird! I never knew you could do that before until my teacher showed me. My blind spot is in my left eye.

By Nato Barrett

Which is your dominant eye?

Today I studied the eye and studied about the dominant eye. The dominant eye means that one eye is stronger than the other. To do this you must line a pen or some object up with a vertical ine, with your two eyes open. When I closed my left eye, the pen stayed in the same place.But when I closed my right eye it went completly off track so my right eye is my dominant eye.

When I opened my eyes I could only see the pen and all the background.This is me in the photograph you can see what I am doing.

By Luke

Our trip to the Young Scientist Awards

On the 15th of January I went to the RDS to see the Young Scientist Awards. We went to the see robots wars first of all. We saw two of the robots fighting together in a big cage with bulletproof windows. The names of the two of them were Pressure and Saint.
Later we went around to the exhibition stands and there were lots of good stands with projects. We saw a project with a lie detector and one about the play station that could make you more aggressive the more you play it. I thought they were good projects. My favourite was the lie detector because if you lie to someone it can pick up the lie, and the lie detector will tell you if what the person says it is true or false. It might be good to have in my class!

By Killian D’Arcy

Our Reaction Times

We studied reaction times today. First we cut out the reaction timer strip, we folded it down the centre vertical line and glued the two sides together. We made a small hole near the bottomand put a paper clip with blu-tack on oit to act as a weight. Luke held the timer up in the air and dropped it, I had to try catch it at the fastest time I could get. My times were
0.19
0.18
0.12
0.10
Luke’s times were
0.25
0.40
0.40
0.40
I think I have better reaction times than Luke!!

By Hayden.

The Famine

Today there are about 5 million people living on the island of Ireland. Around the time of Daniel O’Connell, the population was about eight million. Most of the people were very poor. They lived in tiny cabins on small patches of land and had to pay rent to the landlords who owned the land.

The blight
In September 1845 a strange new disease attacked the potato crop in Ireland.