General Idea List:

• The power of belief

  • With cold and warm water

• Oxygen/Carbon dioxide paramecium experiment

Take a shallow tank with paramecium throughout it. Make general observations about the number of paramecium around the tank before pumping small(ish) amounts of carbon dioxide and oxygen through their respective ends of the tank. In theory the paramecium would shift to the side of the tank with the oxygen in it and away from the carbon dioxide end of the tank.

• Oysters in alkaline/basic averments

Get some oysters and keep them is a tank which is either very slight more or less alkaline than the average ocean and check out their differences from the control group in regular oceanic environments

• Experiment with placing acids and bases on meat to show what would happen if you didn't wash your hands

02.04.2025 - 

• Pelton turbine

05.02.2025/12.02.2025 - Preparing to Busk

This activity will be in the Biology Lab.

Our final idea for the microscope exhibition is that we'll actually have 3 micro-stations that all have slightly different functions. They are:

1. Prepared Compound Microscopes Micro-station: Selected prepared slides are on show with posters sharing a little bit about them.

• Items under prepared microscopes:

  • • Feathers

    • Human stomach cross-section

    • Paramecium

• Other notes:

2. Exploration Compound Microscopes Micro-station: New buskers can make their own slides (under supervision) to examine.

• Items under exploration compound microscopes:

  • • Feathers

    • Pond water

    • Leaves/flowers

• Other notes:

  • • Water must be used when preparing slides

3. Exploration Binoculars/Dissection Microscopes Micro-station: New buskers can interact with larger objects.

• Items under exploration binoculars/dissection microscopes:

  • • Feathers

    • Leaves/flowers

General Equipment:

• 4 + Compound Microscopes

• Box of prepared slides

• Posters about prepared slides

• Used slides + slide covers

• Water (in beakers, none in Bio Lab)

• 4 + pipettes (1x paramecium, 1x pond water, 1x water, 1 spare)

• 2 + wooden/chopping board

• 2 + scalpel or sharp knife

• 2 + Binoculars/Dissection Microscopes

• 2 + Lights

• Scissors

Pack up equipment:

• Trays (to put slides in)

• Paper towels (for slides)

Items under observation (that need collection):

• Feathers (chicken, mallard etc.)

• Flowers (lavender etc.)

• Leaves (apple/pear leaves, etc)

• Pond Water

Other notes:

• Liquid (we'll use water) must be used under the coverslip

• Use a mix of compound microscopes and dissection microscopes (binoculars) 

• This little animal we found in the paramecium culture really doesn't like the heat generated by the light on the microscopes (and I've already forgotten it's name, although I'm pretty sure I found the exoskeleton of a similar looking creature (but bigger) at Duck Pond Nu.3)

16.10.2024 - Term 3 Buskers Wrap Up

Okay, so perhaps I may have to summarize everything that's happened. I'm sorry to whoever's reading this for my inconstant communication.

Bacteria growth under nails

This investigation was meant to uncover whether my mum's claim that cutting your nails helps reduce the bacteria growth underneath them. I swabbed under the nails of a bunch of volunteers when they were long, short and washed. Then I grew the samples for a couple of days in the Science Buskers incubator and guess what I found!

Peoples nailed had the most observable bacteria underneath them after they'd been washed! And when I asked around this had also been the result for a year 12 Biology class investigating in the effects of washing and drying your hands on bacteria growth. In hindsight, the water from the science lab is probably contaminated. This also makes sense because it comes straight of the roof of the building.

In short if you're using the laboratory sinks, be aware that it's a potential source of contamination.

Due to the contamination, I wasn't able to draw accurate conclusions. I think I might want to try a similar experiment another day and see how it goes.

Busk Off

This year we also conducted our first ever Busk Off with the other schools in the region. At first is was Remarkable vs Wakatipu vs Cromwell but Cromwell had to pull out last minute because they weren't prepared. I was coaching on of the Remarkable Primary teams with Solomon and Lorenzo and here are our main tips for any future coaches:

• Maintain Engagement: you litterally can't do anything if you don't have their attention on you.

  • Be confident because the moment you're not, the kids attention drift

  • Have a clear goal each week and timetable/schedule so that you don't fall behind and everyone has something to work towards.

  • Minimize distractions. I used the biology lab when I needed to talk to them so that they we're getting distracted by other things (like people)

  • Meet the terrapins when they first come into the lab and they're less distracted by them after that.

• Give Feedback & Resources: I found that they're really willing to learn in their own time but they don't always know when to find the information

  • Feedback should be concise and constructive. Make sure you also include positive notes.

  • Sites they can go for information should be concise and easily accessible. Avoid sites that over-complicate things and video can sometimes be better than article.

03.07.2024 - Mr Gilbert Leaves (and massive explosion)

Today was Mr Jim Gilbert's last Science Buskers session at Wakatipu cause he's moving to Cromwell School now which is really, really sad to be very honest. He's an absolutely amazing teacher and such as calm hand over all us crazy people. He will be very missed.

In his honor we created a small show with some of his favorite experiments including Elephants Toothpaste, Big Bertha, Hydrogen Balloons and Flaming Names (which Isaac then burned into the board). I was working on the Elephants Toothpaste with Oliver, the plan was to make it go as high as possible. Soon we'd asked Alice (an alumni) for help as she'd done some when she was a Busker and after a couple of attempts, we realized it wasn't really working out as well as expected (vomiting out rather than shooting out). Alice and Ben (also an alumni) came up with a plan to attempt to make a Methylated Spirits elephant toothpaste which would then be set on fire once the first part of the reaction had been finished. Basically the first one we did worked well but the second one went BOOM!!! Like, boom! People in the music room (across the school) heard it with music all the way up. Massive. It did no damage to anything but it was just so, so, so loud. Not going to be repeated, that's for sure. Lesson learned.

30.05.2024 - DNA!!!

Today we had a shorter Buskers session today which ended with pizza at 4:30 (for our totally amazing work on the RPS expo) but it was one of the most interesting Buskers sessions I've ever had! So today we experiment with a DNA sequencer, obviously. So basically, once you have extracted and broken up the DNA strands from a sample, you place a small amount in a piece of shaped agarose gel (also used in petri dishes). You then place the whole thing in a buffer (aqueous substances that conducts electricity and stay at a constant pH as to not destroy the DNA) and run an electrical current through it. The DNA is negatively charge and therefore will move towards the positive end of the gel and depending on how charged is it and therefore how far it moves you can tell what species, or even individual, it came from.

01.05.2024 - Golden Rain 2 (RPS Expo)!

Today was the first Buskers Session in term 2 and I had my first run through with the full Golden Rain experiment for an expo as the last time I did I only demonstrated the second half of the experiment. Now I've figure out my set up and how long I can take (15 - 20min to set up and 7 min to busk; see image for details) I need to figure out how I'm going to demonstrate the experiment in 4 minutes then leaving them 3 minutes for their experiment and questions. Basically, for the moment it was just trying to fine tune the system that's already be tried (see faaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrr down for details).

13.03.2024 - Hydrogen Balloons and Pocket Rockets

Today I joined up with Ethan who was giving a demonstration on how to make hydrogen balloons in which I made my very first! I have to say, from the side, I haven't appreciated how much heat come of it. On the other hand, holding the balloon on the end of the stick definitely made it easier to feel. After that, I experimented with something called a pocket rocket, a small rocket made from aluminum foil powered by a single matchstick end. These turned out to be very interesting and I'm planning on making some with my family at home. In the end, the furthest rocket we made went a whooping 20 cm from it's launching point!!! So hopefully with a bit of help from YouTube (Pocket Rockets: How To Make a Matchbox Rocket Launching Kit) we can make them go a awful lot further. In short, it was a great session with a bunch of small fun projects sprinkled amongst it! Can't wait to try them again.

06.03.2024 - Paradise Shelduck Slides

At this session I started making my slides again with various levels of success. The Iodine I was using was a little old and therfore a bit darker amking my slides a darker tint than perivous. When you where looking through the microscope, they looked perfectly fine but through the naked eye they didn't. After stuffing up two more slides trying to make them with the new Iodine, I dicided that this wasn't my day and packed up early. That's okay though! Hopefully next week they turn out a bit better.

28.02.2024 - Colored Sparklers!

Today I had to leave early to take my team cricket photo so I joined Oliver in trying to make colored sparklers! I won't explain everything, there's a more detailed explanation on Oliver's site (here: Oliver's Site) but it was great fun, lots of experimenting with different methods of getting the chemicals onto the splints with varying levels of success. In the end, we managed to make the flame around the splint the color of our choice, but the sparks themselves remained the same red color as before. This is probably due to the way the Iron power doesn't actually bond with the chemical in charge of changing it's color, it merely sits beside it.

21.02.2024 - New Buskers Expo

This week we held an expo for all the new science buskers which included Jessica and Bloom's Van De Graaff generator and... some other stuff... I honestly completely forgot about pretty much all the others when I realized some of the prepared slides I was showing people where made in 1987! Now I'm going to see if I can get in touch with the person who made it (assuming their still around (and yes I know, that was a dark but very true comment)). I also found out that Buddisha was also really into biology so now I (might) have a bio partner in crime.  Other than that, I also noticed that people tend to enjoy moving parts of biology more than they do with still specimens. The moment we took the Paramecium out, people's interest skyrocketed and they started to flock around.

In short it was a fast, action packed session with lots of cool little things happening! Great to see so many new people have signed up to the club this year.

14.02.2024 - Preparation for the Science Buskers Extracurricular Expo & next weeks new members

This week we prepared for a full week ahead with the Science Buskers Extracurricular Expo on Friday and new buskers starting next Wednesday. I was chosen to participate in the expo were we showed the traffic light experiment in the theater along with Ethan, Leo and Hector. I love you Audrey <3

2023 Science Buskers

15.11.2023 - The Rainbow Lorikeet and Hydrogen Balloon

Today I finished making slides of all the feathers I have so far with the Rainbow Lorikeet being the last one. Ethan and the Colorful Hydrogen Balloon Bomb Trust  started working to make colorful hydrogen balloons. The first of those being bright red! It worked really well with an obvious red glow. Overall, great time for the last Science Buskers session for the year.

08.11.2023 - Magnesium Experiments

Today because some of the teachers and technicians weren't there,  we each did a small experiment we'd (for the most part) never done before and my pick of the hat was 2 magnesium experiments. The first was too put magnesium in acid and the second was to burn the magnesium. I'll be very honest, I can't remember what type of acid was used. When we burnt the magnesium, it reacted with oxygen forming magnesium oxide and giving off a strong light and a little bit of smoke. When you add magnesium with acid (again, I can't remember what type it was, I'll update this as soon as I know), it creates a new gas seen as a frothy substance on the top of the liquid as well as streaming from the sides from the magnesium, sometimes even getting strong enough to lift it to meniscus level. Overall I felt my presenting ability was really good (came tied 1st in the comp) and thought I did well remembering the chemical reactions behind the experiments (even though I can't remember it now) except the one type were I mixed up helium and hydrogen when I was refencing Solomon's station.

Next lesson plan - Aim: Create and catalogue permanent slides of bird feathers.

1. Collect and sample bird feathers both flight and contour

2. Create permanent slides of the samples and catalogue them

3. Observe and photograph changes in the structure of the feather

Girl Guides Science Expo!!!

In the last couple of weeks Jade and I, with the help of Hunter, have been working looking at the Golden Rain experiment which we presented as part of the Girls Guides Science Expo.  The plan is to have everyone do the first part of the experiment, and we'd show them the last part so as to minimize the risk of fire hazard to mini 12 year old people.  Jade was a way on the actual night so that left Hunter and I to control the viscous flood of turtle loving kids. Overall, it went great with one person reportedly even saying "this was the best night ever" so I guess we got something right. It was great fun although our group kept getting distracted by the turtles so we should accommodate for that next time.

Vocab

• Perspiration (when 2 liquids form a liquid and a solid when mixed together)

• Insoluble (unable to dissolve. There are different levels of insolubility his may change when the substance is heated)

Instructions and Reaction Information 

1.  Start by mixing Lead Nitrate and Potassium Iodide into a boiling tube.

When you add the 2 colorless solutions together, it should go bright yellow, showing that a chemical reaction has also occurred. This step of the experiment is called a perspiration reaction (see definition) and creates Lead Iodide and Potassium Nitrate. In this case, the Potassium Nitrate is the liquid and the Lead Iodide is the solid. When these element bond, they have to become a neutral compound (neither positively or negatively charged) so one Lead atom joins with 2 Iodide atoms while only one Potassium atom joins with only one Nitrate atom. The rest of the atoms float around and aren't relevant to the rest of the experiment, this is also why precise measurements aren't necessary for this experiment.

2. Place the solution in a beaker of boiling water and wait until as much of the Lead Iodide, the solid, has dissolved into the Potassium Nitrate.

Please note: during a long expo, be carful when adding new water in the beaker so it doesn't change temperature suddenly and break or the temperature drops enough that the solution crystalizes.

3. In the last part of this experiment, you place the heated solution into a beaker of lukewarm water for a couple of minutes until you start to see golden rain appear! Wait another minute or so, then you can take it out to examine, observe, stare at in a not at all creepy way, what ever you call it.

Please note: keep the water temperature cold enough to crystalize the Lead Iodide but warm enough not to break the glass boiling tube.

When the solution cools down quickly, the Lead Iodide crystalizes. As they have dissolved into the Potassium Nitrate and are spread equally through the boiling tube, this means that when they crystalize, they form throughout the solution creating, in essence, golden rain! Crystals, including this one, are a form of crystalline solid (type of solid when the atoms arrange themselves in a regular pattern) and these crystals are glittery cause they're flat and reflect light. If you shine a light through the solution, you can see the crystals better.

... No! I refuse to be finished yet!

You could also go on about light itself and why the solution is yellow. When light hits a substances, different wavelengths of the light get absorbed and others bounce of so the yellow of the golden rain experiment means that the solution absorbs most of the other wavelengths and reflects yellow light into your eyes.  When an object is white it means that most of  the wavelengths are reflected while the color black means most of them are absorbed. This proses is called reflection. And when you refract light, make it change direction and speed to split the light waves, you can see all the colors (but there are also other things too, you just can't see them).

13.09.2023 - More permanent slides

Today I increased my collection of permanent slides by 75% from 4 to 7. I've finished making them for contour feathers of two species (Domestic Chicken and Mallard) and have a Rainbow Lorikeet feather up next. I'm still planning to go to the Kiwi Bird Life Park to see it they have bird feathers I could take. I also helped Leo look at a Bismuth under a microscope.

Vocab

• Bismuth (type of crystal)

Next lesson plan - Aim: Create and catalogue permanent slides of bird feathers.

1. Collect and sample bird feathers both flight and contour

2. Create permanent slides of the samples and catalogue them

3. Observe and photograph changes in the structure of the feather

6.09.2023 - Making Parachutes

Today we had a contest were we had a bunch of different materials all at different 'costs'. We had 5 dollars to spend to make a contraption that would hold an amount of matter (plasticine) that would then be dropped of the walkway in the lab. We were judged on the money we spent, how fast our contraption fell and the amount of matter we had on board. We won!!! Somehow. Our contraption consisted of a parachute made of tissue paper, with 4 strings attached to a paper cup which would hold the matter. We were a good all round team with a final score of 7, 2 ahead of the second place team. Overall a great time, I would love to do the same with eggs (egg drop challenge).

Vocab

• Plasticine (clayey, moldable substance we used as the stuff we were holding)

Next lesson plan - Aim: Create and catalogue permanent slides of bird feathers.

1. Collect and sample bird feathers both flight and contour

2. Create permanent slides of the samples and catalogue them

3. Observe and photograph changes in the structure of the feather

30.08.2023 - Creating permanent slides

I made 3 permanent slides of a domestic chicken feather which turned out ok after complications with applying the nail polish, cutting the name tags with straight edges, finding the right words to go on the name tag, then realizing I didn't have enough space to write it. Anyway, I'm planning to ask the Kiwi Bird Life Park if I can walk round and steal some of the feathers left behind by their feathered friends which would help with the problem of only having a limited amount of species the I can confidently say are that bird.

Method of making permanent slides

1. Collect your sample and place it in your desired location on the slide. Make sure there's enough space to place a cover slide evenly over it.

2. Place 2 drops on iodine on sample carful not to flush the sample in any unwanted direction. 

3.  Carefully place a slide cover evenly on the top of the slide being sure there are no air bubbles under it.

4.  Slide the cover towards the upper edge of the slide until it hangs over the edge of the slide and cover the underside with nail polish. Slide the cover back in place.

5. Repeat with the lower edge.

6.  Cover the left and right sides of the cover with nail polish sealing the iodine from air. Leave to dry.

Vocab

• Tardigrades (single celled organism that looks a little like a bear)

Next lesson plan - Aim: Create and catalogue permanent slides of bird feathers.

1. Collect and sample bird feathers both flight and contour

2. Create permanent slides of the samples and catalogue them

3. Observe and photograph changes in the structure of the feather

23.08.2023 - Observing the structural change between feathers of different feather types and species

I looked at both a Domestic Chicken contour feather and a Mallard Duck contour feather under a microscope (see Feather Identification Project) and took photos. We also looked at paramecium under a microscope and observed 3 types,  one that looked like a see through worm, one that was like an egg by had loads of small tails all over it to propel is around and one that had one tail that turned like a rotor blade on a helicopter. Everything was vastly interesting.

Vocab

• Paramecium (small, single celled organism)

Questions

• How do paramecium eat the algae and what do they do with it (they're single celled)?

Next lesson plan - Aim: Observe and classify the structural change between feathers of different feather types and species

1. Collect and catalogue bird feathers both flight and contour

2. Collect feather samples from feather both at the tip, the bottom of the feather and a part of the calamus.

3. Make cataloged slides and photographs depicting these samples

09.08.2023 - Observing the structural change between feathers of different feather types and species

I looked at Mallard, Domestic Chicken, Canada Geese and Rainbow Lorikeet feathers. This proved very interesting with amazing views of the barbs and barbules. I noticed that the one sample of the Canada Geese flight feather had it's barbs much closer together than that of the Chicken and Mallard contour feathers. I infer that this is because flight feathers have to be much more robust than those of the contour feather. It was so cool, can't wait to continue in the next session!

Vocab

• Iodine (2 drops on the slide before putting the slide cover on)

• Pennaceous (non-interlocking feather structure eg, down)

• Plumulaceous (interlocking feather structure eg, flight feather)

• Calamus (quill)

• Remiges (wing feather)

• Rectrices (tail feather)

Questions

• How does the quill absorb water?

Next lesson plan - Aim: Observe and classify the structural change between feathers of different feather types and species

1. Collect and catalogue bird feathers both flight and contour

2. Collect feather samples from feather both at the tip, the bottom of the feather and a part of the calamus.

3. Make cataloged slides and photographs depicting these samples

4. Describe their differences

02.08.23 - Working and observing with a microscope

We observed a variety of things including plant skeletons, pollen and human intestines. I was amazing and I really enjoyed it.

Vocab

• Chloroplasts (part of the plant that photosynthesis and makes plants green)

Next Lesson Plan - Aim: Observe the structural change between feathers of different feather types and species

1. Collect and catalogue bird feathers found

2. Examine feathers from different bird species under microscope and observe structural changes

3. Examine feathers types of the same bird species (domestic chicken) under microscope and observe structural changes

4. Show findings