BENDY BONES

OSTEOLOGY is the study of bones. I have learned what some of the bones in the body are called, such s the humurus (thigh bone), tibia (shine bone) and patella (knee bone). We watched The Happy Scientist show us how to tell whether a skeleton is a male or a female, e.g. the pelvis is a different shape and the back of the skull is too. He also did an experiment to make bones go from hard to floppy by putting them in vinegar. We tried it too.

SOLAR ECLIPSE 20 MARCH 2015

 

It was a bit cloudy when the eclipse started but we could see some of it safely through the clouds with our sunglasses on. When it became clearer we looked at it through our telescope by projecting the image onto a piece of white paper. It was amazing!

AMAZING MAGNESIUM

We lighted some magic candles and had fun watching them go out and then start burning again. How does this happen? It is because they contain MAGNESIUM. Magnesium is a METAL ELEMENT.

 

 

HEATING A MAGNESIUM STRIP

 

 

WARWICK MUSEUM STORES VISIT

Today I was very lucky to meet a geologist and museum curator Dr Jon Radley who took me on a tour of the museum stores.

When I arrived at the stores, I thought that it might be a bit strange, but when I got inside I went, “Wow!” This is because I was excited to see so many brilliant rocks, fossils and minerals. There were lots of big shelves with over 200,000 specimens that had been collected since the Victorian times. Dr Radley showed me some very exciting and very old specimens, which included:

A giant ammonite fossil and some smaller ones:

 

A fossil of a lake bed.

This is a fossil of a prehistoric straight-tusked elephant that lived in Great Britain up to 115,000 years ago. Dr Radley told me that it used to be hunted by prehistoric hunters that were a bit different to us. Our scientific name is homo sapiens, but they were called homo heidelbergensis. This fossil was found near Stratford on Avon.

A fossil of a dinosaur's footprint.

 

A fossilised tree from the carboniferous period. I can’t believe that it used be like a rainforest around where I live!

 

 

 

There have been quite a few ichthyosaurs found in Warwickshire. This is a baby ichthyosaur. He would have been a fun pet because he was a bit like a dolphin!

 

These are ichthyosaur teeth fossils.

 

My favourite fossils were the trilobites because you can get them in different shape and sizes, and they look like perfect models of the real thing. This is what makes them so interesting.

 

 

I had a great time and learned a lot from Dr Radley.

 

TECHNOLOGY GROUP

Nearly every month I go to a technology group at the Worcester Resource Exchange with other children who are also home educated. We have a great time making toys and gadgets with electronic components, such as motors, battery packs crocodile clips. We have been learning how to build electric circuits and to make sure they work properly.

The first thing I made was brush monster. It moved around because the motor caused the bristles to vibrate.

We then make a chair-o-plane for Lego people, which was brilliant.