Step 1 - Science - Living Things - How Do Plants Drink?

In Ms. Kelly’s Senior Infant class, we investigated how plants drink.  

Firstly, we discussed all the ways we thought that a plant might get water. We had lots of ideas!   

For our experiment we used glasses, water, celery and  food colouring. Our control was a piece of celery placed into a glass of water without any additive. This control makes sure our experiment is working properly. 

We filled the glasses with an equal amount of water and marked the water level with a marker. This will show us how much water the plant drinks. We added green food colouring to one glass and red food colouring to another glass. Nothing was added to the control.

We split the stalk of celery in two and put one half into the green food colouring and the other half into the red food colouring. 

The next day we came back and observed our experiment.  We could see that the water level in all glasses had decreased. The control had not changed but the other piece of celery had started to show signs of discolouration.

We then documented our experiment by drawing a labelled diagram. We found that the coloured water had travelled through tubes inside the celery stalk and into the leaves of the plant!

Step 1 - Science - Energy and Forces - Which Magnet is the Strongest?

In Ms. Kelly's Senior Infants' class, we investigated the strength of different types of magnets. We took a trip to the Science Room and had great fun testing the different types of magnets. In order to test the strength of the various magnets we counted how many paper clips each magnet could hold. Back in our classroom we then collated the information we had gathered onto a bar chart. We were able to see clearly which magnet was the strongest.

We had free play with the magnets first and tested different materials for magnetism.

Hypothesis

We thought that the biggest magnet, the horseshoe, should be the strongest.

Method

1. We identified and named the different magnets.

Box of magnets

Bar magnet

Paddle magnet

Horseshoe magnet

Green disc magnet. 

2. We decided to use paperclips to determine the strength of the various magnets.

3. We tested the different magnets.

*We also found out that we were able to control the baubles inside the Galileo thermometer and move them up and down using a magnet!

Result

We found that the paddle magnet was the strongest and held 11 paper clips. See results on our bar chart below:

Note: If we were to do this experiment again we would not use the paper clips as we found that the amount of paper clips each magnet held changed when we repeated the experiment.