Science
Year 8 are learning about how sound and light travel. We began with a knowledge harvest which asked the learners to describe and write what they knew already about sound and light to a scientist from the 1800s in a letter. We will use this as a reflection tool to see how learner’s ideas have developed over the unit.
Learners have been exploring the different types of waves and developing their skills of drawing scientific diagrams by drawing waves to show how sound and light travel. They have begun to understand that energy cannot be destroyed and will constantly transfer from one form to another, which was very surprising to most learners.
Learners will be exploring how our ears and eyes work to allow us to understand sounds and images around us. We will learn more about why science fiction films are so unrealistic (sorry Year 8!) and how our vision and hearing is different to other animals.
Maths
Learners in Year 8 have faced some pretty big challenges this week in maths. They have been learning about what makes speed a compound measure. They have had to be particularly resilient with getting to grips with how you can perform calculations with measurements of time as it is non-decimal. They have had to be really careful to check their answers were realistic in their scale. To demonstrate their understanding learners had to work in their table teams to solve the “Speed Mystery”: namely how 4 friends made their way to Phnom Penh.
While most learners were practicing this skill, some developed this concept further to explore other compound measures: density and pressure. Through some pretty deep thinking about feathers and iron, as well as making great links to their learning in science, learners were able to find the relationship, and hence a formula, that connects density to mass and volume. They then followed the same process to formalise the relationship between pressure, force and area by considering the most effective way to burst a balloon.
In keeping with the themes of their unit, there was some great discussion about how the variables affect each other e.g. what happens to the density when you squash a sponge? What have you changed by squashing the sponge?
The next learning for Year 8 involves the learners investigating properties of 3D shapes before moving on to volume and surface area of 3D shapes.
Learners in Year 8 have faced some pretty big challenges this week in maths. They have been learning about what makes speed a compound measure. They have had to be particularly resilient with getting to grips with how you can perform calculations with measurements of time as it is non-decimal. They have had to be really careful to check their answers were realistic in their scale. To demonstrate their understanding learners had to work in their table teams to solve the “Speed Mystery”: namely how 4 friends made their way to Phnom Penh.
While most learners were practicing this skill, some developed this concept further to explore other compound measures: density and pressure. Through some pretty deep thinking about feathers and iron, as well as making great links to their learning in science, learners were able to find the relationship, and hence a formula, that connects density to mass and volume. They then followed the same process to formalise the relationship between pressure, force and area by considering the most effective way to burst a balloon.
In keeping with the themes of their unit, there was some great discussion about how the variables affect each other e.g. what happens to the density when you squash a sponge? What have you changed by squashing the sponge?
The next learning for Year 8 involves the learners investigating properties of 3D shapes before moving on to volume and surface area of 3D shapes.