Several weeks ago, at ICS, visitors from Science World and the Planetarium came to teach us a little bit about science and astronomy.
For the first part of the Science World show, there was a demonstration with a little box which had a long tube connected to it. The Science World scientists lit a match, then they asked for a volunteer to blow into the tube. And when the volunteer did, the little flame became a huge, orange, fireball for a brief moment! This taught us how fire needed oxygen to work.
Another favourite part of the show was when the scientists showed us a small metal pole with a globe attached to the top, also made out of metal. Next, one of the scientists brought out a metal rod and put it close to the sphere; we could hear the static electricity buzzing! The scientists told us that the static electricity was trying to escape the metal globe.
The scientists asked for six volunteers to link hands with one on the end holding a metal pole. Then they asked for one more to put his hand on the sphere. While the person’s hand was on it, you could see her hair sticking up in all sorts of directions!
Next the scientist asked the person on the end of the chain to link hands with the person holding the metal globe. What we saw then was very cool! The static electricity started traveling through all six people to escape the person holding the metal globe because there was another metal pole the static wanted to escape.
We walked into the gym… The first thing we saw was a black dome sitting in the middle of the room. Stephan, from the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, had come to talk to us about space and constellations. We then entered the dark dome, we looked up saw the night sky in Vancouver! Then, he should us a star called Polaris, also known as the North Star.
After that, he also showed us how to find different constellations after finding Polaris. He also told us that even though the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper are well known constellations, they aren’t official constellations because they are part of two bigger constellations the Big Bear and the Little Bear. He then put up pictures of planets in the inner Solar System, those planets were Mercury, Mars, Earth and Venus. After taking a good look at the different planets we took our spaceship ride back to Earth.
For more information on Science World and the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, you can visit their web sites: www.scienceworld.ca, www.spacecentre.ca.
Written by a Grade Six Student
