Year 4 experience hands on science investigations

On Thursday, the Year 4 children enjoyed a Science day focusing on changes in state. They were lucky enough to be given the chance to enter the Science lab and experience a variety of hands on investigations.

The children delighted in being able to use Bunsen burners to investigate the different melting points of a variety of solids from cheese to candle wax. Through this experience, the children found out about reversible and non reversible changes and watched carefully as the newly created liquids, returned to a solid state.

The children were also challenged to find the most effective thermal insulator. Pingu needed his ice lolly to be kept cold and so it was up to the children to determine which covering was the most effective at keeping the heat out. This task required them to make predictions as to the most and least effective insulators and gave them the opportunity to practise measuring and recording temperature changes.

The day’s investigations also helped develop the children’s understanding of the movement of heat. They observed how cold water rose in temperature and hot water dropped in temperature, creating a line graph to represent the data. They then used their observations to estimate how long it would take for the water to return to room temperature.
An informative and exciting day was had by all!