Natural Science 5º: Creating your own habitat

Natural Science 5º: Food chains

Natural Science 5º: Animal foodchains and webs

Natural Science 5º: Biotic and abiotic factors

Natural Science 5º: Five or six kingdoms?

There are many different theories on how to classify living things (biotic factors) in our world. We studied the five kingdom classification in the second term, which you cannot forget as we are going to use it for this third term!!! 

Natural Science 5º: Our plant kingdom

Natural Science 5º: Photosynthesis

Natural Science 5º: Phototropism

Phototropism is the ability of plants to grow towards the sunlight. This ability can be easily tested with the following experiment, which we have been growing on our class during these two past weeks.

You can recreate this experiment at home with these instructions.

Natural Science 5º: Plant adaptations

Natural Science 5º: Poisonous plants

Some plants can be very dangerous if we eat, smell or touch them. In some botanical gardens, such as the Blarney Castle's garden in Ireland, they have these so called Poison Gardens in which all the plants in there can either kill or harm you. 

Source: http://inspiringtravellers.com/

If you do a little research, you can find out that some parts of well-known fruits and vegetables are toxic: 

• Apples: The seeds in apples contain cyanide, which is very toxic if you eat them. 
• Potatoes: Green potatoes are toxic.
• Cherries: The cherry stone, as the apple seeds, contain cyanide. 
• Tomatoes: Unripe tomatoes can cause stomachaches. 

Do you know any more poisonous plants?

Natural Science 5º: I can eat a whole plant!

Can you eat a whole plant? Do you eat roots? Or leaves? Or stems? Are you sure? Let's check it out with this simple game!

Plant Parts We Eat from K-State College of Human Ecology on Vimeo.

Natural Science 5º: Self watering recycled bottle planters

Hey everyone! Some of you were wondering how we did our self watering planters with recycled bottles so you can do them at home.

It is a really easy craft, but you will need some help from your parents to cut the bottle and make a hole in the cap. Remember, safety first!

Here are the instructions:

Natural Science 5º: Photosynthesis in a nutshell

Natural Science 5º: Experiment with the growing conditions of a plant

Natural Science 5º: Plant life cycle game

Natural Science 5º: Photosynthesis game

Natural Science 5º: Parts of a plant

Natural Science 5º: Petri dishes experiment

Hi there! I hope you are having a great Christmas break! It's been over a week (two days left) and bacteria and mould are growing in our Petri dishes as you can see:

This one is the one I showed you last week.  It's a VERY BIG (and smelly!) green fuzzy spot. We might as well call it "Bacti" and adopt it as the Classroom Pet... No way!

On the left, Ana Zurrón's agenda. As you see, full of green lines (germs!!!). On the right, the blinds strap, apparently cleaner, only a few white spots. 

On the left, the computer, which only has a teeny tiny white spot. On the right, the door handle with a big fuzzy white spot and a few tiny white spots.

This one looks promising... On the left, the table swab which presents A LOT OF spots: big, small, tiny, huge, white, green, grey, fuzzy... On the right, the schoolbag handle, which also has quite a few spots.

On the right, not much happening... It looks like the light switch was clean. On the right, we can see a big fuzzy green and white spot (which is mould) and some other clear and white big spots. 

You might have noticed there is one Petri Dish missing, the one that includes the floor and pen swabs. I cannot take a clear picture as it has condensation and I am not willing to open it (Remember they should NOT be opened and they all smell funny...) We will see if it clears for Wednesday. 

I hope you liked the experiment. We will see the final results on Wednesday. 

Natural Science 5º: Norah's Nutritional Challenge

Natural Science 5º: Diabetes comic

We have studied Diabetes as a non-infectious disease and, consequently, a non-contagious disease. Diabetes is caused by high amounts of sugar in the blood and it is treated with insulin. You can read this comic to understand better this disease. 

Click on the picture to read.