Everyone in the school is working on our coding and robotics unit. The Prep-Grade 2 students have been pretending to be robots and practising giving instruction to each other to follow. The Grade 3-6 students have been using out Lego Robots. They connect to the robots using their iPads. The Grade 3/4 students use a visual programming langue, while the Grade 5/6 students have a programming language that is very similar to Scratch, using blocks with words on them.
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The Grade 3 and 4 students have been thinking about forces. They have talked about several different kinds - push, pull, gravity, electrostatic, magnetic, buoyancy and friction - and have been playing around with them in the classroom. Congratulations to Olivia, Anjali, Austin, Sebby and Lucas for building a phenomenal bridge! Made from icy pole sticks and glue, they constructed a bridge that held an incredible amount of weight. It definitely held 9kg and since they had far exceeded Miss Augello's expectations, she wasn't prepared at all with heavier weights to test their bridge. After some improvising with a 20kg bag of sand from the storeroom, we think the bridge would have held about 15kg since it did start to break slightly when we swapped the 9kg for the 20kg bag.
Some students decide to come to STEM Club on Monday lunchtimes for some engineering challenges. The most recent challenge was to build the tallest tower. Students worked together using as much newspaper as they wanted but they only had a limited amount of masking tape to work with. After our radish experiment outside was snacked upon by caterpillars, Grade 3/4 had a big discussion about the merits of greenhouses. They made models of greenhouses. First they drew a plan to follow and carefully considered what materials they would make their model out of. Some of the materials that greenhouses are made out of in the real world are not appropriate for school so students had to think about alternative materials that would represent the ones used in real life. Once they had completed their plan, they created their model greenhouse. As part of our topic of Caring for Populations, the Grade 3/4s were presented with the hypothetical situation of a zombie apocalypse. As a band of survivors living in the school ground, student had to work their way through the problem of surviving long term. Each of the classes eventually realised that food would be a big issue and thought that turning one or both of the ovals into a farm would be better than eating canned food. This led to much discussion about whether the quality of soil on the ovals would be good enough to grow plants on so the students have been experimenting to find out. Using the abandoned garden beds behind the canteen, students planted some radish seeds in the poor quality soil there as well as some seeds in fresh potting mix to act as their control. The Grade 3s and 4s have been taking a very close look at dirt. They brought a sample of dirt from home and examined it under a microscope. They discovered that dirt isn't nearly as uniform as they imagined - there's bits of rock, plants and even living things in dirt!The Grade 3 and 4s have been experimenting with insulation. They tested out how they slow down the movement of heat energy. Some students used insulators to keep hot water hot, others used them keep cold water cold. They tried out bubble wrap, a tea towel, a thermos and a drink cooler/stubby holder.
Congratulations to the follow students who have been selected to represent TPPS at the STS in 2021.
2C - Scarlett S, Fraser C, Bryan X, Isabella Y, Jude W, Rex M, Mia I 2D - Megan S, Zain P, Hope G, Chloe A, Nathan K, Gabriel M 2G - Hunter B, Fletcher G, Anmol B, Evie C, Alex G, Mia G 2N - Ellie K, Angus B, Aaliyah E, Ambrose M, Xavier O, Layla S 4E - Gretchen M & Oliver P 4K - Farrah B & Zoe G, Eleanor T & Melody V 4TF - Isabella A, Simi M, Caitlin E & Katara H, Eva T 6A - Matisse F & Scarlett C, Jamie G, Estelle C & Niamh R 6I - Brianna L & Elka V, Sara H & Bani J 6K - Michael C & Ethan K, Daniella S & Kate G The Grade 2s, 4s and 6s have all been working very hard on their investigations and projects. |
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February 2022
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