Stem Clubs Activities
Masks
24th November 2009
We are having a 1 World Day in school in October so we are going to apply brown parcel tape to masks and decorate them with paint and jewels – each student will decorate their own mask with a different country and will be diaplyed around the school
Kitchen Chemistry
24th November 2009
Trial and preparation of experiments to demonstrate at public Science showcase event.
Dragon drool / Slime: Cornflour & water, food colouring.
Smartie chromatography: Smarties, chromatography paper, water.
Volcanoes: Sodium hydrogen carbonate, acetic acid.
Polishing pennies: Lemon juice.
Yo-yo raisins: Raisins in lemonade (cheap lemonade seems to work best!)
Rockets
24th November 2009
Investigating rocket bodies and propulsion methods, working towards building a complete rocket.
Air propelled card rockets (launched by blowing through straw into rocket cylinder) – pupils experimenting with fin setups for stable flight.
Diet coke & Mentos eruption demo’d.
Alka Seltzer & water in measuring cylinder sealed with rubber bung. Turned upside down and when gas build up is sufficient measuring cylinder takes off. Pupils investigating what ratio of reactants produced the highest launch. (We found that approx 30-40ml water and 1/2 – 1 tablet in a 100ml measuring cylinder worked best)
Complete rockets built using film canisters with Alka Seltzer & water for propulsion, and card rocket bodies. Competition held for which student’s rocket flew the highest.
Cars
24th November 2009
Students working in pairs to build basic car chassis with choice of drivetrain (gear drive, friction drive, pulley drive) and power source (battery, solar panel).
Designing body to form from plastic -consideration of aerodynamics, weight, aesthetics required.
Potential for adding remote controls later.
Hovercrafts
22nd November 2009
Hovercrafts
Pupils have been constructing hovercrafts out of mdf, pond lining and a leaf blower.
Pupils have been working in groups to design and make their own hover crafts.
They will be testing them in the sports hall.
Bridge Building
22nd November 2009
Students were given a limited amount of material that included 4 sheets of A4 card, 30 wooden splints and a role of sellotape and were allowed just 1 hour to bridge a fixed gap between two tables that would allow a glass marble to roll from one side to the other. Students worked in groups of four and were awarded marks for design, efficiency of design, effectiveness of bridge, team-work, etc.
The idea was essentially developed from a longer and more complex team challenge that was set during another club activity that our Year 8 members are involved in called the Flying Start Challenge (see our other projects for more information on this particular project). In this particular team challenge pupils had to design a rollercoaster given limited materials, time and certain design criteria.
Perhaps it was no surprise that the students in the club who had taken part in the Flying Start Challenge activity completed this project better than older students in club who you might expect would complete the activity with more aplomb!
Mechanical Toys
20th November 2009
We introduced the students to the world of CAMs! We pre cut some pieces from the laser cutter and the students used 2D design to create their own pieces to add to the frame. We concentrated on ‘things that jump’ and the students came up with ideas such as frogs, children on trampolines and animals running. They assembled the laser cut pieces and added dowel and the cams and added colour to finish them off.
Egg Survival
19th November 2009
Pupils had to design a housing that would support an egg from a fall.
The housing was wade from recycled materials and each group had exactly the same quantity of materials. The challenge was seperated into two sessions so that the egg was not completly incapsulated by the housing, but the housing was dismantible and easy to change the egg inside.
Pupils worked in teams and cam up with a variety of different solutions – including parachutes to slow down the descent.
Had a 10 minute plenary discussing the merits of each design… with finger food!
Treeplanting Project for Our Eco Classroom
18th November 2009
Construction of our outdoor eco-classroom has begun and we thought we would start by clearing part of the area and planting some trees as it was National Tree Planting week.
The trees to be planted in our eco-classroom were generously donated by one of the parents of a member of our science club. We have also assembled a composter that can be filled with all of the schools canteen compostable waste on a daily basis. Thus making the eco-classroom sustainable.
The tree planting event was held on remembrance day Wednesday, 11th November 2009 and parents, governors and the STEMNET regional co-ordinator were invited to help.
Hot fresh soup and home-made bread with herbs grown from our herb garden were served as refreshments.
Robot design
18th November 2009
Looking at building our own robot. We began with a simple mechanical arm/litter picker to begin with the idea of levers. The following we we ha our Head of Science lead a dissection of a chicken leg, showing us how bones, ligaments, tendons and muscles combine in organisms to help them move. Followed up with a trip to the Robot Zoo exhibition at the Horniman Museum to view their mechanical animals. We are now moving onto building with Lego and making our own robots…
MP3 music boxes
18th November 2009
During May 2009 we creates some music boxes. This included soldering the electronic boards with battery connection and speaker connection. We then designed the boxes using CAD software. There were then cut using the school laser cutter. Finally we put the boxes together and tested them using MP3 players. A really good project.
whale conservation
16th November 2009
School children from across the UK took part in a ceremony in memory of more than 40,000 slaughtered whales to mark the opening of a unique Junior Whale Conference which began this week (11th Nov).
The two day event at the Alton Towers Resort, saw delegates from nine schools across the UK debate the controversial whaling industry, and included pupils who traveled all the way from Islay High School in Scotland.
“The Coppice Performing Arts School tackled the issue of other forms of whaling including aboriginal subsistence whaling. I was particularly taken with the fact that they had surveyed their school colleagues on the issue of whaling.” Chris Butler-Stroud 2009
http://www2.wdcs.org/blog/index.php?/categories/11-WDCS-Sea-Life-Junior-Whale-Conference