CELEBRATING SCIENCE ( JR WING)
Reason, observation and experience are the holy trinity of science!
In view of the National Science Day on 28th Feb, the junior wing celebrated science and the spirit of science by doing various activities and experiments in their online classes and at home. Each experiment was carefully planned keeping in mind the standard sequence ie. the objective, the hypothesis, the experiment, recording of data and finally the conclusion drawn. The fun filled week-long event was conducted from 22nd Feb to 26 Feb 2021.
Students of UKG were not to be left behind as they donned their scientist hats and went about checking whether their objects were going to sink or float in water. As leaves floated and pebbles sank, the little ones soon concluded that everything doesn’t float and some objects which are heavier will sink!
Class 1 students chose to observe a common house plant like tulsi or rose. They looked out for features like thickness/ hardness of the stem, colour/ texture/ shape/ smell of the leaves and size of the plant etc. They came to the conclusion that stems are usually brown and hard while leaves are (usually) green and soft. The children also concluded that a happy plant has bright upright leaves and a sad plant has droopy leaves !
Class 2 students included colour mixing in their science experiment called ‘Travelling Colours’. They used 2 glasses of coloured water and some folded tissue paper to make the water ‘travel’ to an empty glass. And VOILA! The colour that they got was a different one! It was a very interesting observation and the students were all wide eyed with the magical science and left wondering ‘Is that how ice-creams, candies, toys, paints and lipsticks etc have so many NEW colours?’
The students of Class 3 took up the topic of ‘Ice Melt’ experiment in which they tried to find out which object is most useful in order to melt the ice quickly. They used salt, sugar, lemon juice and water. The students kept a watch on their ice cubes and recorded the time taken up by each piece of ice to melt. Their experiment led to the discovery that salt melts ice pretty fast. It was an interesting conclusion because in many countries, salt is sprinkled on snow to melt it and clear up the main roads, footpaths and home entrance etc.
Class 4 students followed the scientific theory behind solubility of different substances found in the kitchens. They used turmeric, salt, sugar, oil etc to test whether each substance would dissolve or not .Water was used as the medium. They vigorously swirled their spoons and waited patiently for it to settle so that they could record their observation. Finally, they concluded that all objects do not dissolve in water. And oil doesn’t dissolve, but floats on top! Hmm… no wonder the fishes die when there is an oil spill in the ocean waters! This is a very useful observation especially for climate science!
Which bridge is the strongest? Posed with this question, the students of Class 5 tested the strength of various bridges in the experiment ‘Building bridges’. They folded paper into various shapes and tested it’s strength using coins (representing vehicles). For balancing purpose, books were used on the two ends to manage the paper bridge. The students counted the coins which they could place before the bridge collapsed. Recording of observations was done as to which type of bridge was holding maximum number of coins. Hence, they arrived at the conclusion that triangular shapes have a lot of strength and can bear maximum weight. No wonder ‘triangle’ is the favourite shape of architects and used in the constructions of bridges, electrical towers, internet towers all around the world!
Overall it was a fun filled ‘science in the air’ week where children used the ‘hands-on’ approach to learn how scientists use observation to collect and record data, which enables them to develop and test various theories.
The important thing is to never stop questioning – Albert Einstein