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 Welcome to another packed parcel of science news and information. This week, print off a science passport and join us on a journey into wildlife, the inner ear, and the ancient Greek art of spinning juice cartons ... and discover what a box of muesli and a hairdryer have in common with a fractionating column... Here we go: 01. Primary to Secondary: SCIENCE PASSPORT 02. ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK: Spinning Juice 03. ROYAL SOCIETY PARTNERSHIPS GRANT SCHEME 04. Mouses at the ready for: WILDWALK AT BRISTOL 05. WHERE'S THE SENSE IN THAT: HEARING 06. Anyone for an ANALOGY IN ACTION? 07. RECOMMENDED WEBSITE OF THE WEEK 08. ROBO-WINNER from last week's draw 09. JOKES OF THE WEEK |
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01. PRIMARY TO SECONDARY: SCIENCE PASSPORT
If you're in charge of a class that's just begun their final year of primary school, here's a chance to issue them each with a 'science passport' that will help make their eventual migration to secondary school a little bit smoother... The passport is a full colour downloadable document availabe on the Planet Science website, which looks (well, almost) like a real EU passport - especially if you can get to a colour printer. There's a space for the pupil's name to be inserted on the front, and inside, pages in which the pupil can stick in a photo, and fill intheir date and place of birth etc, just like in the real McCoy. Less conventional questions such as "can you roll your tongue?", "what is your hairstyle?" and "do you have a hitch-hiker's thumb?" are covered on the following page. Once they've had fun personalising their passport, they can spend the rest of the year acquiring various 'investigation visas' which will later enable their secondary science teacher to see exactly what they've covered and what their understanding of science is. The resource is completely free of course, being courtesy of Planet Science, and designed by the ASE. All you need to do is make sure you've downloaded the latest version of Adobe Acrobat - also free. Here's where you'll find it.  |
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| 02. ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK : SPINNING JUICE Next time you finish a carton of juice, here's something to try that might surprise you... You will need: * an empty 1 litre fruit juice carton * a piece of string * a pair of scissors * a washing up bowl * water What to do: 1. Poke a hole in the bottom left hand corner of each of the four faces of a 1 litre juice carton. (Get an adult to do this, it can be a bit tricky - and stabby) 2. Poke an extra hole in the top flap of the carton and tie a string through it. 3. Knot the string, so that you can hang the carton from it. 4. Pour some water into the washing up bowl so that it's about a quarter full. 5. Place the carton into the bowl of water. 6. Pour water into the carton until it is full to the top. (The reason you put water in the bowl previously is so that you can fill up the carton without water pouring straight out of the holes.) 7. Now lift the carton out of the water by the string and watch what happens! The carton will begin, in the words of Kylie Mingoue, "spinning around"... What's going on? Newton's Third Law states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So in this case, water shoots out the holes, and pushes back on the carton with equal force. A turbine is formed as the energy of the moving liquid is converted into rotational energy. Consequently the carton spins. This effect was first noticed by the ancient Greek, Hero of Alexandria, although possibly not using a juice carton. Hero (or Heron) (roughly 10AD to roughly 70AD) was an engineer and geometer. His most famous invention was the first documented steam engine, the 'aeolipile'. In this, steam was generated in a boiler and fed into a separate phere through a hollow spindle. The steam left the sphere via two narrow, angled nozzles and the reaction to the jets of steam leaving these nozzles made the sphere spin. To see an animation of Hero's Aeolipile, there's a good little animation here: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/6914/ereng.htm |
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| 03. ROYAL SOCIETY PARTNERSHIPS GRANT SCHEME If you're a teacher, professional scientist or engineer with a great idea for making science come to life in the classroom, the Royal Society would like to hear from you - and potentially give you the money to make it happen. Of course you probably have great ideas all the time, but what the Royal Society is particularly looking for with its Partnership Grants Scheme are projects that bring school pupils and 'real' scientists together to carry out an exciting bit of work that will give pupils both a serious wow-factor thrill and an insight into the excitement of science and engineering in the outside world. What's more, they're not concerned whether the project links in with the national curriculum - so long as it fits in with the 'inspirational' curriculum... Awards can be for sums of just a few £hundred, or up to £2500, and the idea is that this money will pay for materials or transport (or possibly teacher cover, it that's essential to the project). The closing date for the scheme is 22 October 2004, and in the meantime you can have a look at a few of the projects that were funded in previous years by clicking to: http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/education/partnership.htm You'll also find more details, and information on how to request an application pack. Otherwise, contact laura.fenton@royalsoc.ac.uk or give her a ring on 020 7451 2561. |
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| 04. MOUSES AT THE READY FOR : WILDLIFE IN BRISTOL If you're in or around the Bristol area and you're keen on natural history, get ready to email! We have a 4-person family ticket for the IMAX Theatre in @Bristol, and another for Wildwalk@Bristol, the 'living rainforest in the heart of the city'... From 9-13 October, the IMAX will be showing a range of amazing wildlife films from around the world as part of the 'Wildscreen Festival'. This is the world's largest wildlife film festival, and the 'Wildscreenings' include "Coral Reef Adventure", "Roar: Lions of the Kalahari", "Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees", and "Bugs! 3D" - so there's truly something for everyone, and on a giant screen too. Meanwhile over in Wildwalk, you can get up close with hundreds of live animals and plants, such as tarantulas, butterflies, leafcutter ants, frogs and chameleons. Have a peek for yourself at: http://www.at-bristol.org.uk/wildwalk/ Instead of offering both tickets to one lucky family, we've decided to give them away as separate prizes. So, if you'd like to get in the draw for the IMAX pass, send an email entitled 'WILDSCREEN PASSES PLEASE' to planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk On the other hand - or on both hands - if you'd like to get in the draw for the Wildwalk one, send one entitled "WILDWALK PASS PLEASE' to the same address, planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk The draws will take place at 5pm on Thursday 8th October... |
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| 05. WHERE'S THE SENSE IN THAT : HEARING This week, a word in your shell-like about that very useful sense: audio vibration detection - or HEARING. Your ears have been designed to pick up sound waves and communicate the information to the brain. Sound waves consist of vibrations, usually ones that have travelled through the air, but our ears can also hear vibrations in liquids (like when you're underwater in the swimming pool) or through solids. The rapidity of the vibrations, known as the 'frequency' of the soundwave is what our brains perceive as the pitch of the note. The amplitude, of the SIZE, of the vibrations affects what we perceive as the volume of the sound. The outer part of the ear is called the pinna (plural: pinnae). These are largely made of cartilage, and are covered with skin. The pinnae act as collectors of the sound waves, funnelling the vibrations into the auditory canal to the eardrum. You're artificially increasing the area of your pinnae when you cup your hands behind them to try and hear something more clearly, which really does help you pick up more sounds. Down inside the auditory canal is the eardrum, which separates the outer ear from the middle ear. The middle ear is connected via the structure called the 'Eustachian tube' to the back of the throat. Equal air pressure on both sides of the eardrum is needed for the eardrum to vibrate freely. If the pressures inside and out are not equal it can be very uncomfortable, but the pressure generally equalises on either side of the eardrum when the Eustachian tube is open, and you can facilitate this by yawning or swallowing, as you may have discovered for yourself on planes, or when scuba diving. The three ear bones next transmit the vibrations of the eardrum to the inner ear via what's called the 'oval window'. The inner ear contains a structure called the cochlea which is filled with a fluid. Because vibrations don't travel as easily in the fluid as in air, the ear bones help to amplify the vibration. In the cochlea, hair cells are put into motion by vibrations in the fluid, but each hair cell responds best to vibrations of a particular frequency only, a frequency at which it resonates; 'resonance' being the property whereby objects have a natural frequency at which they vibrate most readily. When a hair cell is stimulated by a vibration at its resonant frequency, an electrical impulse is passed to the brain via nerve fibres. Louder sounds simply stimulate more hair cells. The temporal lobe of the brain is the hearing centre, and this interprets the impulses as sounds of certain pitch and volume. Here's some ear- and hearing-related trivia ... * Your ear bones are the smallest bones in your body. * The ear bones are named the hammer, anvil and stirrup. You can see that a trip to the blacksmith was probably a common occurrence for the person or people who originally named the bones! * Tinnitus is a condition where a person hears sounds that appear to come from inside the head. In many cases no cause can be identified, and the sounds can be so distracting they keep the sufferer awake at night. The search is on for a cure ... * Many animals have muscles which can move the pinnae, so ears can point in different directions. This ability is virtually non-existent in humans. * Sound can also be conducted to the inner ear through your skull and its contents. Usually you hear your own voice partly through your head like this and partly through the air, which is why your it may sound strange to you on a tape recording in which all the sound will have travelled through the air. * Hearing impaired people may be assisted by hearing dogs, which will usually have a brightly coloured collar and lead. * The ear also contains semi circular canals, structures which help us to balance. * Snakes lack a middle ear and so 'hear' by sensing vibrations along the ground. * Ultrasound is sound above the upper limit of human hearing, above 20,000 Hz (20,000 vibrations per second). * If a bat's ears are covered, it crashes into things when flying, as it can't use its ultrasound echolocation. Some bats can hear ultrasound up to a frequency of 250,000Hz. * Catfish have among the best hearing of the fish world. * Different types of insects can hear higher and lower pitched sounds than humans, but have no ears! Insect 'ears' are tiny hairs on the antennae or other body parts which are sensitive to vibrations. |
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| 06. ANYONE FOR AN ACTIVE ANALOGY? We continue our quest for the best classroom analogies out there, and this week Sekeeta Crowley has come up with one that's not just verbal, but actual! It demonstrates how a FRACTIONATING COLUMN works, a fractionating column being of course, "a piece of equipment that allows compounds with close boiling points to be separated..." You will need: * a box of muesli - sugar free * a transparent, bendy plastic sheet * a sieve * a hairdryer And here's how to do it: 1. Tape a flexible transparent plastic sheet into make a cylinder, matching the diameter to a kitchen sieve, and then tape the sieve to one end of the column (this is now the bottom). 2. Put some muesli into the sieve. 3. Get someone (wearing an apron presumably?) to hold the contraption, and point a hairdryer upwards through the sieve. 4. Turn the hairdryer to the lowest power first, and switch it on. Et voila! The lightest particles (eg. oat flakes) will be seen to arrive more often at the top of the column, and the heavier particles (eg. hazel nuts) will stay at the bottom. The hottest part of the column is at the base where the hairdryer is. NB The type of muesli which works best is the one with no added sugar (you will lose the sugar straight through the sieve); don't use the one with sugar coated clumps in either. Sekeeta says: "I had great fun making it, and the kids loved it when I turned the hairdryer up too much and it all came out of the top. Do try it!" |
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| 07. RECOMMENDED WEBSITE OF THE WEEK Many thanks to Andrew Harmsworth and his wife for tracking down the following website recommendation in response to the request a fortnight ago for online resources for younger children. It is FIRST SCHOOL YEARS at: http://www.firstschoolyears.com/science/general.htm This is a site that's been created by a number of primary school teachers, and brings together a wide range of worksheet resources as well as online activities and links for many subjects, including science. There are one or two things for sale, but the majority of the materials are completely free for educational use, so long as you don't steal their stuff and use it elsewhere! The science subjects are categorised into: GENERAL SCIENCE OURSELVES PLANTS & ANIMALS MATERIALS FORCES ELECTRICITY LIGHT & DARK SOUND There are oodles of print-offable sheets, including loads of wordsearches, quizzes, word jumbles and 'fill in the missing words' sentences. There are also a number of online activities such as labelling pictures, and sorting objects. It's not a particularly colourful site, but there's such a library of material that it's a brilliant resource for anyone who works with little kids. Have a look for yourself ... |
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08. ROBO-WINNER |
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| 09. JOKES OF THE WEEK Jokes? Ancient artefacts more like. But many thanks to chief archaeologist Chris Parry for digging them up! Here we go: Q. What's grey and zooms through the forest at 20 mph? A. An elephant on a moped. Q. What do you call a hen with bad sunburn? A. A fried chicken. Q. What does a cow read every morning? A. A Moospaper. Q. What did the pencil sharpener say to the pencil? A. Stop going in circles and get to the point. Q. What does a baby snake play with? A. A rattlesnake. Q. What do you call a ghost's mistake? A. A boo-boo. Q. What goes up when the rain comes down? A. An umbrella. Q. What goes zzub zzub zzub? A. A bee flying backwards. And finally, we eavesdrop on the happy final session of a psychoanalyst and his client... "Mr Bigglesworth" the analyst says, "I don't think you need to have any more sessions with me ..." "Does that mean I'm cured?" his client asks. "For all practical purposes, yes," she replies, "I think we can safely say that your kleptomania is now under control. You haven't stolen anything in two years, and you seem to know where the kleptomania came from." "Well, that's great news, doctor!" he says, "I tell you, my sessions here have turned my life around. Is there anything I can do to repay you for helping me?" "You've paid my fee," she answers. "That's the only responsibility you have." "I know, but isn't there some personal favour I could do for you?" "Well ..." the analyst says, "Here's a thought. If you ever suffer a relapse, my son could use a nice portable colour television." - o - O - o - You can come out now, there are no more jokes for this week. Except to say: why couldn't the butterfly go to the ball? Because it was a moth-ball. Sorry, that one must have sneaked in under the door ...! Emma Lewis will be editing next week's newsletter, so if you have any contributions - or even just a good joke or two - send the details through to her on planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk. Meanwhile, have a great week! |
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