The National Science Week theme for 2014 provided an excellent opportunity to integrate Science with Health at St Emilie's. Through a variety of relevant and challenging science investigations students learned where our food products come from and how healthy eating habits and food choices contribute to a healthy lifestyle. Students in year K to 6 participated in a week-long extravaganza of extra science and health activities prepared by Science Learning Area Coordinator. The class teachers further facilitated learning by integrating the activities into the class program. This enhanced the profile of the Science learning area throughout Science Week and encouraged the class teachers to become more informed and aware of the 2014 topic - Science Feeding the World. To conclude our Science Week we held an expo in the school hall to showcase our findings about our food supply and other science related experiences offered to the students at St Emilie's.
The verbal feedback from parents who attended the expo on Tuesday evening was highly complimentary about the range and variety of science learning experiences. Further to this several parents emailed through positive feedback about the science program offered at St Emilie's. Also just seeing the students animated faces and their delight at sharing their work and learning with their parents is delightful in itself.
By holding a Science event and making sure a whole week was dedicated to science it meant that we lifted the profile of this valued learning area. Team work with colleagues was enhanced as everyone came on board to support the initiative and offer their assistance. Sourcing and planning activities that directly linked to the 2014 topic had a huge impact as it made us focus intently on sharing the importance of science in our food production and think towards the future and the impact of various factors and their influence on our food supply. |
The year 5 students looked at the Australian grain industry, firstly through a mapping activity to identify where grains are grown in Australia, then sorting a tub of cereal and pulse grains and finally growing their own crops in small trays. The PP and year 2 classes looked at 'What's in your lunchbox?' and did many sharing activities together. The PP also looked at dairy farms and set up a farmers market. Year 6 students investigated wind turbines and viewed some youtube clips of wind farms in Sri Lanka. The students did a wind power challenge to see if they could construct their own wind turbine to lift a small plastic cup to bench height. We had a visit from Josh Richards - Mars One candidate. He shared his dreams for the habitat that will be set up on Mars in 2025. This led to many ongoing class activities. The year 6 students investigated how to create a healthy menu for astronauts travelling to Mars by using the 'ISS daily menu food list'. This also led to the students setting up their own hydroponics systems and managing these as the astronauts on Mars will be growing their own food this way. Year 2 learnt about the wheat industry by growing their own grass heads.
SERCUL - South Eastern Regional Centre for Urban Landcare set up a bush tucker display at our Science Expo on 16 Sept. SERCUL offer support for environmental projects in the local region and are a great source of advice about managing our school bushland. UCB - Urban Bushland Council.- we consult with UBC about our bushland management program and one of their representatives Cath Cooper visits the school on a regular basis to work with our science inquiry group.
We will continue our liaisons with Josh Richards as he has made a big presence in our school about space travel and the Mars One project. The K and PP classes will continue with their food topics. The K in particular have found the 2014 National Science Week topic most fitting as they use the Planting the Seeds of Science resource. For science week they did a unit on honey which included a visit from an apiarist. The honey topic integrated well with the unit 'We're going on a (forensic) bear hunt'. |
We used the Agrifood incursions as the topics they cover integrated well with the 2014 National Science Week topic. I found a resource on the internet called 'Go Grains' and the ideas in this resource helped with the planning of the year 5 activity. I applied for a Seed Potatoes for WA Schools kit from Fresh Potatoes WA and we did a study about potatoes with year 4 and this included planting the potato seeds in the vegie garden beds. I visited a farm in the WA wheat belt and the farmer gave me sacks of grains - canola, barley, oats, wheat and lupin. I used these for the year 5 activity. I also had images of the paddocks with the crop and silos. |
I attended the Primary Science Conference WA in March this year and found out more on native Australian bees. With resource ideas provided by the presenter the year 3 students made 'bee motels' to place in the school bushland to create habitats for bees. This led to further class learning about sugar bag honey in indigenous society.