Super-Awesome Science with Eleanor Pallister!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First of all, speaking of earth science, here is a little bit of art my family did where we painted rocks!

I have a learned a lot about plants this term. I am super, super, super, excited. I think you will be too when you hear I coloured celery! Colouring the celery taught me about water in plants veins. 

 This is me, my friend Miranda and Sophia collecting leaf specimens. We noticed that the leaves could be ver small and point or very big and round.

This is us THROWING leaf specimens!

This is when we were looking at seeds and how seeds travel in little tiny helicopters. (Not real helicopters. They are shaped with sort of a helicopter propellor on them, and spin.) Trees have lots of different ways to spread their seeds and some are with helicopters!

This is a tree which some really odd sap was coming out of, if you look closely you can see on a diagonal slant off my shoulder, you can see sort of a whitish purple blomp of sap. It came out of the tree but but didnt ever drip down far enough so a solid crust formed around it and when you touched it would sort of dent in.

This is a tree which has been uprooted. This was not the only tree which we saw uprooted in our neighbourhood, there were about 3-5 trees we saw like his after the wind storm. The reason why all these trees which which are very supportive was that in the past when we had wind storms, there usually weren't droughts before that. But this summer there was a drought right before the windstorm so all of the roots were dry, and not strong. So that's why when the windstorm came tree branches and trees fell over like crazy. This part where my foot is, is a massive, massive, massive tree root where it just snapped!

This is a nursing tree which I found on a hike I went on.  (Not like milk-nursing, it is called a nursing tree because it gave up it's stump/roots and is giving its nutrients to make a new tree.) So this old tree died and new trees seeds got blown on to it, and the weather made it become a new tree.

This is me with my brownie troop going tree planting! It was so mega-fun! I hung out with all of my friends. The trees were little babies and they were in little pots. There were 3 simple steps to planting the trees. Step 1: take the plant out of the pot. Step 2: take your tree and place it in the hole. Step 3: re-bury the tree, but make sure it is not up to the stem or it will rot and grow moldy and snap and die! We had mega-awesome fun and I even saw a salmon go up stream to lay its eggs. We watched it go upstream 6 times and on the last time it made it! And I got a tree planting t-shirt.

This term I have made a amazing car/rocketship/hippopotamus! In this picture I would like to show you how I used screws and hinges to make a door. In the pictures above you can see the wings of the rocket ship we attached them by gluing and taping them on. We also put on wheels but a few of them are falling off. We haven't finished painting it yet.

The steering wheel was made from a old CD and a toilet paper tube. The gear shift lever is made of a styrofoam ball, and old box and a whole lot of tape! If you can look above the steering wheel, that is the windshield window. We used blue cellophane, and taped it on. it was mega-fun and amazing to do it. 

This is the control panel. it shows so many amazing buttons and things, or if you're low on gas, or honk your horn, or a windshield wiper, though the windshield wiper we made broke. 

They are some birds which I saw outside my front window, they were flying from lawn to lawn to lawn. it was like they all had the same mind! They flew all at the same time from lawn to lawn and up on to telephone lines, to lines. it was a amazing how they did it.

Oh, excuse me! That's not supposed to be on here! Next slide!!!!

Soundy, sound, sound.

This is us experimenting with sound. I learned sound waves travel through the string and into the paper clips so we can hear them in the cup.

I've also been experimenting on different surfaces in the bathroom and my singing toothbrush. I have found that depending upon what surfaces I touch it to, it makes it louder, clearer, or fuzzy and quiet. I realized it it is loudest when I touch it to the bottom of the bathtub. I think that is because all the sound waves echo and bounce around in there.

I also went to Science World to see the sound and light displays there this term too.

The thermometer (DON DON DON!):By Sophia$

A little wile ago we decided that we wanted to make a homemade thermometer out of a bottle and a few other things.

For grade 4 Science I needed to do weather and part of doing weather is you need to be able to measure it.

First we filled a glass bottle with cold water. it had to be glass bottle so it would read the temperature more accurately and when the thing would compress it wouldn't shrivel up into a dried out worm!

We put in a whole bunch of red food colouring, to make the water actually visible. and then stuck a straw in and sealed it with play-dough so it was airtight.

Then we poured cold water to make the water in the straw go down and so the water wouldn't dribble all over the counter we put the bottle in a bowl.

Then we taped a paper scale marked from 1 to 12 to the back of the straw so  we could tell when the temperature was higher or lower by the amount of water that was in the straw, because the water would go up or down the straw based on the temperature. it wasn't in degrees, but it was good enough.

 (we didn't have a picture for this part so that is why I'm dictating it to you)

Then, one day the weather got very warm, and the water in the thermometer expanded and bubbled up through the straw, there there wasn't enough water any more for the thermometer to work. Then I took the play dough off the top, because I thought, "well, now this thing is useless." And then a little while later, my Mum told me our city was expecting a cold snap, that means sudden cold weather.

 It's something to do with a thing called the "polar vortex", which apparently is some wind which makes everything colder, sort of like Elsa from the movie Frozen.

Then a few days later, I looked at the thermometer and the weirdest thing had happened. A little bit of a cylinder of ice had formed. Of course, I know that is what happens when things freeze, that the water expands, and there was a little bit of gushy ice at the top that looked like a tiny bit of exploding lava.

(Now this next part I am going to tell you is from the pictures below. P.S. The last part happened yesterday, Tues. Feb. 4, 2014. Today is Wed.)

This morning as soon as my Mum came in to wake me up, my brother and sister came in too, and they said, "Come! Quick! Something has happened with the thermometer! I can't tell you what it is! Come and see!"

Sure enough, when I got to the window, the entire thing had exploded. That's what happens when water is inside a glass bottle. All the water was pushing against the sides.

This thermometer was effective, for the while that it survived. When you have a homemade thermometer, bring it inside if there is going to be a cold snap! Use an actual thermometer to measure the temperature instead!

THE END!!!!!!!
(DON DON DON!!!)