Monday 2 June 2014

Kinetic energy, and heat and light

Over the last couple of weeks we have been experimenting with kinetic energy to try and understand how we can give energy to things and make them move. The best part was making ramps and trying to make a ramp to make the cars go faster each time.
Today we used kinetic energy to light a match. The kinetic energy turned into light and heat in the flame. We were trying to feel the rays of heat coming out of the candle - rays mean the heat goes across a space to get us without us having to touch the hot thing...that would hurt.

In the black and white glass the candle is burning. We were watching to see if the black parts got hotter faster than the white bits. The butter holding the pins on started to melt and made the pins start to droop....on the black space. Yay.
It has been really interesting trying to draw diagrams that show what we are finding out. The most fun is being molecules all jiggling around. We squash up to be solids, then spread out to be a liquid when we get hot. Finally we spread out all round the room to be lonely gas molecules.
Chloe has been learning about animal science too. She found out that dolphins can get caught in fishing nets and then they drown. She was very worried about them. 

1 comment:

  1. This is a great post about your science learning. I love the questions you have posed to investigate and the scientific words you are using. I wonder why the black sections butter melted fastest? Can you explain it to me?

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