The Great Evaporation Race and A Photographer

We are learning how to do a fair test. You have to do fair tests when you are experimenting so that you know the experiment is working correctly. This is Experiment Number 2. We are finding out which container water will evaporate from first. We made the test fair by putting the same amount of water into each container, putting the water in all at the same time, and putting them in the same place with the same amount of sunlight from the same direction. We learnt that a hypothesis is a sensible guess at what will happen in an experiment. Our hypothesis was that the water from container 1 would evaporate first because it the most thin and shallow container, as well as being the widest. We thought container number 2 would be last because it has the tallest sides and the smallest gap at the top so the sunlight can't get directly into it. We set up our experiment on Thursday afternoon (23rd February), and today, Friday, our hypothesis about the winning container was correct!

This morning, Darryl Torckler came to our school to tell us all about the rocky shore. He is a photographer and diver who takes interesting, colourful, exciting, incredible, stunning close up photos of the plants and animals on the rocky shore. He told us to wear covered in shoes when we are exploring so we don't cut our feet on the oyster shells, or kina. He told us to be quiet and patient when looking for the animals because big loud clompy feet would scare them away! When we are looking at the rock pools we should keep an ear or eye on the waves to make sure they don't come splashing over us. Darryl takes photos with his special underwater camera. Some of his photos are of both above and below water. The only time he has been attached by an animal was when he was bitten by an eel when he was taking a photo of a crayfish! His blood looked green because he was 12 metres down and no red light could get down so far. He managed to get a shot of the eel. He said the scariest thing in the sea is a sea snake.
This week we learnt that seaweed is a protist, a one celled lifeform.  It is kind of like a plant and kind of like an animal. We think this is a bit confusing and we need some more information. Please leave a comment to tell us anything YOU know about seaweed. We also learnt that a sea cucumber throws up its whole stomach if you annoy it. We can't wait for our trip to Cornwallis!

What Makes A Living Thing?

We had an enormous discussion today about what makes a living thing. Here is the list we came up with:
All living things:

• have babies that are born, hatch or germinate
• die
• need nutrition
• breathe
• move
• grow
• have senses
• have a type of liquid inside them like blood or sap
• make a noise
• have a habitat
• excrete (get rid of ) waste

We debated if these were true or not, and we came up with justifications and reasons why most of them should be on our list. There are a couple of them that we are not sure about though. Leave a comment letting us know what you think, and if you can find examples that prove our list right or wrong!

Welcome to our blog

Welcome to Room 16!
This term we are looking at the Rocky Shore, and the animals and plants that live there. Our big question is: Habitats-Paradise or Prison? Harry and his family spent the weekend at Kawau Island and gathered all these amazing things for us to have in our classroom. This week we will be start finding out all about some of these animals, what they are called, where exactly they live and what they eat.
Have you ever explored rock pools at the beach? Leave a comment telling me all about what you have seen there.