march blog
British Science Week
The week of 13th - 17th March we celebrated British Science week in school.
We took part in a range of live online seminars all about different topics:
"All About Insects" - we met bug experts who told us all about insect genetics and DNA, and also how to create habitats for bugs in our own gardens.
"Gaming and Esports" - we learned about different job opportunities available in the gaming industry such as game designer, game testers, animators, professional gamer etc.
"UK Power Networks" - we looked at the UK power grid and talked about how power gets to our houses. We also learned about what happens when there is a power cut.
"Is this good for me?" - we thought about different types of food and how they can impact our bodies.
Linked to our learning on the Human Body, we also took part in a live seminar with Henry Rae, a bone expert from the University of St Andrews. He talked to us about how to keep our bones healthy, and showed us what happens if we don't get enough calcium or collagen.
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World Book Day
On Thursday 2nd March we celebrated World Book Day.
We started our morning with a live online "Footy and Booky Quiz", one round on football, one round on reading. It was hosted by Alex Bellos and Ben Lyttleton, authors of the famous book series "Football School", which teach you all about the world through football. It was great fun and we all did really well! The winning team was
Next, we did some creative writing all about superheroes! We had to imagine our own superhero character and describe them to a friend so that they could draw them. It really made us think about how much detail we need to give when describing someone's appearance - some of drawings were not at all how we'd imagined our characters to look! We then began writing our superhero stories!
After lunch we went down to the drama studio for our World Book Day Bedtime Story. In our pyjamas, onesies and oodies, we read our favourite books while cosied up with a hot chocolate and biscuit - it was such a good way to celebrate!
Science - Our Senses
To carry on with our learning about the Human Body, we took part in a range of experiments all about the five senses!
Hearing
We learned about the McGurk effect which shows how much both hearing and vision are used for speech perception. Although we hear with our ears, we also rely heavily on our other senses to understand what people are saying. We watched a video of a man saying /ga/ with a sound recording of /ba/. When this happens, you head a third sound of /da/. This effect even works if you know about it! What do you hear when you watch and listen?
McGurk Effect Video - Senses Circus.mp4Sight
We looked at several optical illusions and had to answer questions such as "Which line is longer?" or "Which circle is bigger?"
We then discussed our answers as a class and found that not everyone agreed.
What do you see when you look at the illusions?
Smell
We had to sniff containers containing cotton wool pads with different smells. We then had to write down what we thought the smell was, whether it was a strong or mild smell, and whether it was a nice or nasty smell.
Some of the smells included lemon, coffee, mint (mouthwash) and ginger.
We then discussed everyone's likes and dislikes and we were all very different? Which ones do you think you'd like?
Taste
For this one we had to close our eyes and pinch our nose while a friend put a Starburst in our mouth. We had to guess the flavour of the sweet. Then we let go of our nose, chewed a few more times, then guessed the flavour again. We did this twice. We were actually very good at this game!
Then we thought about why food tastes different when we can't smell. Without smell, our sense of taste is very limited. That's why when your nose is blocked from a cold, most foods taste very bland. This is the same for pinching your nose.
Touch
First, we had to put our hand into a box and touch the object inside. We had to describe it to our classmates and all guess what it might be. Once we'd written down our guess, the object was revealed. We guess correctly on quite a few such as a house point token and a pencil.
Next, we looked at something called proprioception, which is where your body is in the space around you. We sat down on the floor and closed our eyes. Starting with our arms out straight to the side, we had to bend our arms and try to touch our nose with our left pointer finger. Then we had to do the same with our right pointer finger. After that, we repeated the experiment, but this time with our eyes open. Some of us found it much more difficult with our eyes closed, while others found it the same. Most of us found it easier to do with the hand we write with.
Then we tried a harder challenge. We had to stand with both arms up towards the ceiling with our eyes closed. Keeping our left arm in the air, we had to use the pointer finger of our right hand to touch our nose, then touch the thumb of our left hand. Once we'd done that we tried to touch every finger of our left hand, touching our nose again in between each one. We then repeated this experiment, but this time wiggling the fingers on our left hand. We definitely found it easier when we wiggled our fingers because it helped us find where our hand was!
