Please note that there will be no classes from the 10th to the 16th as we will be off for Half-Term. Classes will resume from Saturday the 17th.
Until then, join our Half-Term Camp here to get your weekly fix of science and wonder!
BENEATH
THE WAVES
Now that we have an intuitive understanding of density and buoyancy, it's time to harness them to dive down to the ocean’s depths. After making a mini density column using salt solutions of different concentrations, we will make Cartesian divers that vary their density the same way fish do, by filling their swim bladders with either air or water. Then, we will hook up a bottle with balloons and pipes to turn them into working submarines that swap ballasts for swim bladders and can resurface from the deep!
ACROSS
THE GALAXY
Had it not been for the unrelenting solar wind, Mars would have been more Earthlike. This constant stream of high-energy charged particles from the Sun blew its atmosphere away, leaving behind the barren wasteland we see today, and dampens hopes to terraform Mars into something more akin to Earth. After using pondweed and spinach to visualise photosynthesis’ ability to terraform Mars, we will use iron filings to visualise magnetic fields in all their dimensions and explore how these same fields protect worlds like ours from the solar wind. Then, by making a magnetic slime that swallows magnets whole, we will finally discover what makes the red planet so red.
PERIODIC
PIONEERS
Some elements are so vital that they need an entire session. But carbon will need two! We start by exploring carbon in its many forms. It can be as brittle and lacklustre as pencil lead and as hard and dazzling as diamonds. But we are most familiar with it as carbon dioxide. Previously, we used it to make fountains of fizz, but this week, we will go subzero! Cool it to -80 degrees C (colder than Antarctica!), and it will skip being a liquid and freeze solid. With this dry ice, our chemists will turn the lab into a real-life potions class filled with eerie fog and heaps of bubbles.
