Wednesday 30 October 2013

All Change at Lunt's Heath

Science2U had a very busy but fun day at Lunt's Heath Primary school in Widnes focusing on Materials and their Properties with our super show All Change.
This show looks at solids, liquids and gases and what happens when we heat, freeze and do other amazing things to them.
Our adventure started the day before when we were eagerly waiting for our delivery of dry ice. This was due to arrive round about lunch time but by mid afternoon there was no sign......DON'T PANIC comes to mind!!
A quick call to the company revealed that our little pack of ice was still at the depot and not winging its way to us. So after organising a courier to arrive first thing the next day at the school and calling the school to alert the caretaker, it was fingers crossed that our parcel arrived on time for the first show at 9.15

This school is very close to our HQ so it wasn't a dreadfully early start and after a warm welcome we began to set up.

Our first show was for KS1 and this was a Science Magic show with some amazing colour change liquids that go blue or pink when you shake them and then go clear again when left alone; invisible balls that magically appear when you tip the water away; spooky smoke that makes a spoon scream and gungy slime.


Everyone had a really great time and there were lots of smiles all round.

After break it was KS2 looking at  changing materials with lots of dry ice and very exciting - setting fire to things! Helen demonstrated with volunteers what happens when you set fire to chemical salts and we made iron filing sparkles.


The finale was our whoosh bottle which really surprised the front row!

In the afternoon we did two hands on sessions with Year 3&4. Lunt's Heath has 3 classes so we did rather large sessions in the hall getting up close to some of the equipment and demonstrations from the shows.

A quick tidy up and we moved to the Year 6 classroom for a staff CPD session. After exploring the dry ice and having a go with our ghostly bubbles gizmo, 


looking at colour change straws, paper and LCD sheeting and looking really closely at how handwarmers work, we all had a go at using milk, food colouring and washing up liquid for Art on a Plate



Flight Day - To Infinity and Beyond

Recently we had a fantastic day with our good friends Knowsley Park Centre for Learning.



The theme of  their special day was Flight and all year 6 pupils from their feeder schools were invited. The remit was for a 30 minute hands on workshop which we would repeat 8 times - busy day!


We had also been asked to repeat our very successful Whoosh bottle demonstration.
So we created a session looking at why birds can fly and we can't. We heard about the Greek myth of Icarus, We examined feathers ( all cleaned thoroughly ) through a hand lens and saw the structure and how one worked.

We laughed at some of those magnificent men in their flying machines and then looked to the stars and space.


We asked the all important question - how do you go to the loo in space??

We examined what is really inside an astronauts nappy and finally we set off our whoosh bottle with rocket fuel.

The session was really appreciated by both chidlren and staff
A good day all round - thank for inviting us to be part of it