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.

CHEMISTRY - LOTS OF MIXING

I used the chemistry set to find out what happens when you mix certain chemicals in my chemistry set with water. I wanted to find out which chemicals dissolved and which ones did not. These are the chemicals I tested:

• Copper sulphate
• Sodium chloride (which is the chemistry name for salt)
• Calcium carbonate (which is the chemistry name for chalk)
• Sugar
• Pepper

 

Libby and I predicted which ones would dissolve and which did not. Here are our results. My predictions were correct except for calcium carbonate and copper sulphate. I predicted that the copper sulphate would not dissolve (insoluble), but it did. I predicted that the calcium carbonate would be soluble, but it wasn't. We also heated the chemicals to see whether the heat made them dissolve more quickly.

 

 

I learned some chemistry words:

 

Dissolve - when a solid mixes with a liquid and becomes part of the liquid

Soluble - the solid substance dissolves

Insoluble - the solid substance does not dissolve

Solvent - the liquid you are trying to dissolve something in

Solute - the solid substance you are trying to dissolve

Solution - the final mixture which includes the solvent and the solute

SUPER SWEET GEOLOGY

We made some yummy treats to help me to learn more about geology. I learned about the three main types of rock.

FUDGY IGNEOUS ROCKS

Igneous rocks are formed when very hot runny rock goes hard. This happens with volcanic rock that turns from lava into basalt.

I made some fudge which is formed in the same way. You start by melting the ingredients together and then it sets hard.

METAMORPHIC BROWNIES

Metamorphic rocks form when rocks get very hot and squeezed under pressure. Marble is an example of this kind of rock. Marble starts off being limestone (which is a sedimentary rock) and gets squeezed and heated up because of volcanic and seismic activity deep under the earth.

My brownies were made in a similar way. The ingredients started off looking a certain way and changed into something different (something harder) after it had been heated up in the oven.

SEDIMENTARY SUNDAE

Sedimentary rocks are formed from many layers of rock piling up on top of one another. Sandstone is a good example.

I made a sedimentary ice cream sundae by putting layers of brownie, ice cream, fudge (for igneous boulders) together. Yum!

PUMPKIN SCIENCE

I grew a lovely fat pumpkin in the garden this summer. I did an experiment to find out about a substance called CELLULOSE.

What is cellulose?
Cellulose is the substance that makes plants tough and woody. It is found in plant cells. The reason we have to cook some vegetables is because we need to break down the cellulose so that we can digest it. Animals like cows do not have to cook grass before they eat it because their digestive system is able to break it down. We would get very bad tummy ache if we tried to eat grass.

I cut up three pieces of pumpkin and boiled them up in these different liquids:

1. Plain water
2. Bicarbonate of soda (alkaline)
3. Apple cider vinegar (acid)

I wanted to find out which one would get softest the quickest.

 

 

 

THE RESULTS!

 

 

The pumpkin with the apple cider vinegar got softest first, followed by the plain water and then the bicarbonate of soda. I have found out that our stomachs have acid in them (a bit like the vinegar) which helps to break down the food.

 

 

After I finished my experiment, we made the pumpkin into a jack o'lantern.



ROCKWATCH COMPETITION!

I was so excited to win first prize in the Rockwatch competition for a video I made on rocks and fossils. Here is a link to my video which I put on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/BvyO-UKK148

I went to London to the offices of the big mining company Anglo American to collect my prize which was a cheque for £100! I met lots of other children who are interested in Geology including a girl called Eloise. She won second prize for a video she made about trilobites. A geologist gave a talk and I asked a question and won a special geologist's magnifying glass.

We also went to the Tower of London to see the thousands of poppies that were put there to commemorate the First World War.

I was super excited to see my picture in the Rockwatch magazine.