A Pinch of Salt

Today's post is brought to you by one of our advisory teachers, Jane Winter

The weather is getting colder, and our thoughts are turning to icy windscreens and slippery roads! As gritter lorries gear up for action, a useful way to link this seasonal change to the science curriculum is with CIEC’s A Pinch of Salt. This free resource provides a real life context in which children can apply learning objectives and practise vocabulary from the science curriculum. 

It's working! Watching the clear salt solution drip through the filter paper.

In one activity children are first invited to compare a sample of pure salt with some rock salt. They are asked to consider how they could extract salt that was pure enough to use on food from the rock salt that is used for gritting roads. The process starts by dissolving the rock salt sample in water before filtering it to remove all the undissolved solids. The water is then evaporated from the salt solution to leave behind salt. The evaporation can be sped up by leaving the solution on a radiator or by using a tealight. 

The resource contains all of the information that you need to carry out this easily resourced activity.

 If you would like to try this, or any other activity, from A Pinch of Salt you will find that it is fully supported with teachers' notes and activity sheets for children. There is also safety guidance including information about NOT actually using salt purified in this way on food and the safe use of tealights. We would love to hear about your experiences of using this, or any other CIEC resource, and will send a hard copy of our acclaimed 'Working Scientifically' to anyone who shares their experiences with us.

New sustainability science activities from CIEC

This blog post it brought to you by Jane Winter, one of CIEC's advisory teachers

CIEC has started the new academic year by adding some more activities to the existing sustainability resource.  Like most CIEC publications these engaging and easily resourced investigations link real life science solutions to environmental problems and the primary science curriculum. 

Sponsored by Innospec, a company that develops personal care products, the investigations support children to consider the environmental impact of products such as soap and shampoo.  In one activity children explore the efficacy of solid and liquid formulation of soap and research the different transport and packaging requirements of these everyday products.  In another they plan an investigation to assess the suitability of different packaging materials, including an innovative soap wrapping that Innospec scientists have developed which dissolves the first time that the soap is used, thus reducing waste.

Children are motivated to work on these challenges to find out how science can provide solutions to environmental problems

As well as linking to the materials strand of the KS2 curriculum the activities provide ample opportunities for working scientifically including observation over time, secondary research and planning a fair test.  There are also cross curricular links including producing written reports for the scientists at Innospec and creating tables and graphs to display measurements taken during the investigations.  

The PowerPoint, which is included in the resource, provides open ended starting points for classroom discussion, letters from the scientists at Innospec and a short video highlighting the long term environmental impact of single use plastics including packaging. 

The resource contains a short video which provides a context for the investigations

These activities, and many more, are free to download from the CIEC website.  If you use this resource in your classroom we would love to hear from you to hear how it went.  Get in touch (preferably with photographs) at CIEC@york.ac.uk and we will send you a hard copy of some of our resources to say thank you.

An Eggciting Easter Challenge

Today's blog post is brought to you by Mackayla Miller, one of our advisory teachers based in the North East.

Happy Easter folks! Here at CIEC, it’s no yolk that we’re egg-stremely eggs-cited about inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers, but we’re also partial to a few terrible egg puns at this time of year.

Mackayla has been working with the year 6 children at Levendale Primary School to deliver our egg-cellent Children Challenging Industry (CCI) programme. The ‘Eggs-press Delivery Challenge’ was a tough challenge indeed, but this egg-ceptional group of pupils were willing to whisk it all and refused to be beaten. Working in teams with a budget to spend, the groups hatched their plans, packaged their eggs, shelled out for their materials, and are now eagerly awaiting the arrival of their packages in the post to see to see whose eggs survived the journey.

John Baker and Paul Bickley from Teeside plastics manufacturing company Alpek Polyester UK Ltd, joined the classroom sessions via Zoom to give the children an insight into their jobs and engage them in a remote site visit, including an exciting interactive bottle-drop investigation. But it’s not just the children who benefit from the Children Challenging Industry experience. Here’s what John Baker, HSEQ and Technology Director has to say about getting involved:

“I’ve been involved with CCI for nearly 10 years now and every session, whether face to face or more recently using video conference, is great. The engagement from the children in the classroom is fantastic, with them often asking challenging and thoughtful questions. As well as trying to get across what we do in industry and the rewarding careers from STEM subjects, it is an opportunity to speak directly to teachers about what can be quite limited in the curriculum on science and engineering. In some sessions, explaining what we in industry think is obvious can, when seen through different eyes, put a whole new perspective on things, so it is not just a one-way street. The practical sessions show the children the scale of our operations and seeing their sense of wonder reminds me of my primary school teacher who inspired me into my career (he was a nuclear physicist!). I would recommend anyone in STEM careers getting involved as it is a rewarding session.”

If you would like help to get cracking with your STEM education why don't you contact ciec@york.ac.uk to see if you could become involved in any of our initiatives to link schools with science based industries.  Alternatively, you could try this activity with your class as full teacher notes are available for free from our website.

Full activity notes are available in this free CIEC resource including teacher guidance and safety advice

Potatoes to plastic: Cross curricular opportunities

In the third and final post in this series linked to CIEC's latest free resource Potatoes to plastic, Jane Winter explains how it can be used to make meaningful cross curricular links.

The OFSTED report, Maintaining Curiosity, confirmed what experienced teachers already knew, it can be beneficial to both subjects when meaningful cross curricular links are made. However, it is important to do this in a way that values both subjects rather than using one as little more than a vehicle for the other.  In English lessons the teacher should be concentrating on English learning objectives and in science upon science learning objectives. One of my pet hates is when schools, with the very best of intentions, insist that writing has to be as good in other subjects as it is in English. We don't need Vygotsky's zone of proximal development theory to tell us that children are able to do more with support than they are able to do independently. The level of writing in an English lesson is achieved because of skilled teacher support which is not available in a lesson where the teacher's energy is focused on other skills.  Having said that, I have seen great writing about science which has been done in a subsequent English lesson, the children's writing benefiting from an inspirational science experience.

It is important to give children the support that they might need with English during science lessons, but this should not be at the expense of good quality science teaching.

With the value of cross curricular approaches in mind Potatoes to plastic has suggestions for a series of lessons which can be used for English teaching.  They are designed so that the teacher concentrates upon the English learning objectives, and is not trying to juggle too many plates at once.  However, the content is likely to raise children's science capital as it is based upon the biographies of six of the scientists currently working in the award winning Green Chemistry department at the University of York.  Although the focus of the lesson is on reading and writing children learn about the range of exciting jobs that the scientists do, and also find out that scientists are 'normal' people, just like you or I with families and hobbies beyond science.

When reading about real scientists in an English lesson children learn that scientists are normal people with a range of activities and hobbies, from making lego models with their children to enjoying skiing.

The final section of this free publication concentrates upon the range of other solutions to the problem of waste that scientists have developed, from extracting citronella from orange peel to turning cocoa husks into paper bags.  There are a set of downloadable playing cards which can be used for a range of games including 'Memory pairs', 'Old Fossil' and 'Go Recycle' which highlight science solutions to environmental problems.  These could be used as an activity during a science or environmental day.  Alternatively, the link and game instructions could be shared with families so that the cards could be used at home.

The previous two blog posts in this series are still available.  You can find the one about extracting starch from potato peel here, and the one about making bio-plastic from potato peel here.  If you use any of the activities we would love to hear how you get on.  It is feedback from teachers like you that helps us to know what we are doing right and how we can get even better in the future!  

Full instructions for the English activities and the card games as well as how to turn potato peel into bio-plastic are included in this free to download publication

This is what one teacher had to say after using this resource with their class.

Our current topic is all about Endangered Species and a large part of this has been around the dangers of plastics in the oceans and different habitats; so this lesson in particular was a great experience for cross-curricular discussions, the content of which were deep and enriched. In addition to this, the vocabulary resources that accompanied the investigation were a fantastic tool to help deepen the children's understanding and allowed them to speak freely, scientifically and accurately about the processes they were undertaking. Both pupil and teacher thoroughly enjoyed the lesson.

 

Potatoes to plastic: turning potato starch into plastic

This is the second in a series of three posts about CIEC's latest free resource: Potatoes to plastic.

In the previous post I described how potato starch could be easily extracted from potato peel using simple equipment that is readily available in the primary classroom.  Here I will explain how the extracted starch can be used to make bio plastic in a few straightforward steps.  As this quote from a year 5 teacher shows, this activity is not only very engaging, but makes relevant links to the topic of Materials in the English and Northern Irish primary curricula, Earth's Materials in the Scottish curriculum and Myself and non-living things in the Welsh curriculum.

"They have absolutely loved this learning. Thank you for the opportunity to engage Year 5 in such an exciting and relevant project, which has reinforced their previous scientific learning of properties of materials (and has done so in a real-life context they will not forget!) as well as their scientific thinking. This project has led to many wonderful opportunities for cross-curricular links to reading, writing and maths too".

The procedure is even better if you are able to borrow a magnetic hotplate from a local secondary school or University, as can be seen in this demonstration.  However, even without access to this piece of scientific equipment the activity can still be carried out in a saucepan on a cooker hob.

To turn it into plastic, the potato starch need to be mixed with a small quantity of water, glycerin and white vinegar before it is heated.   The mixture is then spread out on a petri dish or saucer and left to harden.  After two or three days these simple ingredients will have set into bio-plastic.  The properties will vary depending upon the exact ratio of the ingredients and how thickly it was spread while drying.  The resource gives guidance as to how children could then investigate the properties of the finished plastic as they explore how it could be used in place of plastics derived from petrochemicals.

Children are invariably delighted with the finished bio-plastic

Experienced teachers will know that even the most engaging activity needs to be planned carefully if the potential learning is to take place. Consequently, the resource gives additional  guidance  including vocabulary prompt cards which support children to use the correct terminology as they describe what has happened.  This also supports them to link the experience to past science learning.

Children using the list of vocabulary to support them to talk about the activity in a more scientific way.

In the final post in this series I will explain how this resource can be used in English lessons and to develop children's understanding of how science is working to find solutions to other environmental problems.  

Full instructions including health and safety advice can be found in the free resource available from our website.

This post was written by Jane Winter who is one of our advisory teachers who works in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.

Potatoes to plastic: Extracting starch from potato peel

This is the first in a series of three posts which have been written by one of our advisory teachers, Jane Winter.  They are based upon our latest free resource: Potatoes to Plastic

Frequently, scientists are the bearer of bad news.  Every day we read about mounting evidence of climate change, loss of bio-diversity and the prevalence of micro-plastics in the ocean. However, did you know that as well as identifying environmental problems scientists are able to develop solutions to some of them?  The world leading Centre of Excellence in Green Chemistry where scientists work on finding new ways to overcome ecological issues is based at the University of York.

CIEC has been working with some of the scientists from Green Chemistry to develop our latest resource, Potatoes to Plastic which looks at how scientists have been able to develop useful products from a range of waste materials which might otherwise go to landfill.  As well as looking at several examples of this scientific approach to environmental problems, this free publication looks at one example, making bio-plastic from potato peel, in more depth.  Teachers are supported to carry out some straight forward activities with their class which link closely to the materials strand of the KS2 science program of study.  They extract starch from a waste product, potato peel, and then turn that starch into plastic.

Extracting starch from potato peel does not require a lot of expensive equipment. 

I have found the raw material for this activity easy to source.  Although not all chip shops peel their own potatoes, once you find one that does they will almost certainly be prepared to let you have the peel for free. Alternatively, you may find that your school dinner provider is able to give you some.  Another possibility is to use wrinkly old potatoes that have started to sprout and which might otherwise have been thrown away.

Blending the potato peel with water

First of all you will need to blend the peel and a generous quantity of water in a food processor or blender. Give each pair of children a small jug full of the mixture each.  They will need to filter the peel and water mixture by squeezing it through the foot of an old pair of tights or pop socks.  This will produce a white liquid which is a mixture of potato starch and water.  The rest of the solids are left behind and can be disposed of on a compost heap.

Pouring the blended potato peel and water into a pop sock.

After a few minutes the potato starch will start to settle at the bottom of the container.  Once this has happened the water can be poured carefully off to leave behind the wet starch.  At this point children will be amazed to find that they are left with 'oobleck' which is usually made by mixing cornstarch and water.  That is because the starch found in potatoes is exactly the same as starch found in corn.  Once children have finished playing with the oobleck it will need to be left in a shallow container such as a saucer or petri dish to dry.  After a few days all of the water will have evaporated and you will be left with dried potato starch.  

In the next post I will explain how you can turn the potato starch into plastic.  However, if you cannot wait why not check out the full instructions for both activities on the website.  This includes teachers' notes, children's activity sheets and health and safety advice.  This is what one teacher who recently carried out the activity with their class had to say about it.

'Absolutely fantastic! The children have never felt so alive, enthused and engaged in a science lesson that I have taught. They absolutely loved the practical element of blending the potatoes, filtering the starch and using interesting 'ingredients' to create the plastic. Their scientific skills were so clear and they were all extremely careful in measuring their resources and ensuring the investigation plan was carefully followed. The time taken for the excess water to evaporate and leave the powdered starch behind kept them even more engaged as they spoke about nothing for days until it was ready to use'.

Water for Industry: Leaky pipes

This post is by Jane Winter, one of our advisory teachers who works in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.

I have always been a massive fan of teaching outdoors; children are more engaged and motivated and, in my experience, behaviour is much better.  The noise is less intense when not trapped by four walls and, much to the caretaker’s joy, any mess is in the playground instead of on the carpet.  In the current pandemic there is the added benefit of less risk of transmission of Covid-19.  The first half of the autumn term is a particularly good time to use your outdoor space as the weather tends to be at its best; no need for sunscreen or too many outer layers either.

Top tip: Make sure that families know that you will be regularly teaching outdoors and ask them to provide suitable warm clothing.  It may be worth having a supply of spare jumpers and coats (ask for donations of outgrown ones) so that one or two cold children don’t scupper the lesson for everyone.

Although today’s activity can be carried out indoors, it also works very well outside as the equipment is sturdy enough not to be blown away if it is windy.  Moreover, instead of mopping up any spills you can just leave them to evaporate.  This activity is cheap to resource and uses empty food cans which you could ask children to bring from home, although you will need to double check that there are no sharp edges and that the cans have been thoroughly cleaned.  If they have not been adequately sanitised they will also need quarantining for 72 hours.

Full details of the activity, including list of equipment and safety advice can be found in our free resource Water for Industry

The children are asked to test different potential sealants to see which is the best for connecting pipes and preventing leaks.  This is an engaging way for children to work on the Y5 objective ‘give reasons, based on evidence, for the particular use of everyday materials’.  Equally it could be adapted for use with Y2 children who need to ‘identify the suitability of a variety of everyday materials for particular uses’. The activity also gives children the opportunity to practice accurate measuring and making graphs.  Asking them to report their findings to a pipe-line company provides extra motivation and would be a novel way for children to record their findings.

Our Leaky Pipes IndusTRY AT HOME activity is ideal for you to share with families. Why don’t you put a link on your school website?

Sustainable Stories: Which Plastic?

This blog post is brought to you by Jane Winter, one of our advisory teachers who works in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.

Although the materials for this investigation are free and readily available, they can be a little tricky to source.  However, it is well worth taking the trouble to do this as, once you have, everything else is very straightforward.  When I have done this activity I have found that there is a real buzz in the classroom.  Moreover, you could easily provide enough equipment for a whole classroom full of socially distanced youngsters to do the activity at the same time.

The tricky bit

You will need samples of some different types of plastic. 

Sample 1: The thin clear plastic that often comes around packs of Christmas cards and in some other packaging
 Sample 2: Foam plastic (expanded polystyrene, PS) used as for takeway foods such as burgers and chips

Sample 3: Polystyrene, as used for the lids of takeaway coffee cups. The name of this plastic surprises the children, as ‘expanded’ polystyrene is commonly referred to as polystyrene, but for scientists, there are two types, and this one is un-expanded!

Sample 4: The plastic used for milk bottles (polythene, HDPE)

Each child will need a strip of each plastic cut to approximately 8 x 1 cm.  They will also need a bowl, jug or tub of water large enough to put their hand into and some table salt.

Top Tip 

This is one activity that you really must try out for yourself before letting your class lose with it.  Manufacturers sometimes change the formulation of their plastics and so they don’t always behave as you expect them to!

The fun bit

Children test each sample to see if it floats in water or in salt solution (brine) and how it reacts to being folded.  The results of their tests will let them identify what each sample of plastic is made of.  For example, PVC and polystyrene will both sink in plain water; but if salt is added the polystyrene will begin to float.

This is an important thing to be able to do as different plastics are recycled in different ways so we need to be able to identify them.  At this stage I have found that providing children with a simple table helps them to organise their data as they carry out the tests.  

Full instructions, including safety notes, for how to do the activity are provided in this free to download resource.

This activity builds on the work that children have done on materials in KS1. It helps them to develop their skills of working scientifically by sorting in a more sophisticated way.  There is a simple sorting key on activity sheet 5 of the resource which will support children develop their understanding of how keys work, as they use it to classify their plastic samples.

As children start to think about the reasons that we might need to be able to classify materials more precisely they can begin to consider why and how this science might be used in industry.  A class discussion will help them to understand that being able to use post-consumer waste makes processes more economically viable as well as more environmentally friendly.  These sorts of links help to raise children’s science capital as they see how the science that they do in school has real life applications and is relevant to their lives both now and in the future.

To coincide with InternationalWomen in Engineering day we have published a new IndusTRY AT HOME activity for you share with families.  Why don’t you put a link on your school website?

For a broader set of activities linked to this topic, please go to http://www.ciec.org.uk/resources/plastics-playtime.html which expands the topic to look at the heat insulation and shock absorption properties of plastics – and children design and test packaging to protect parcels of fragile crisps, which they post back to themselves in school – the ultimate test of their designs!

Sustainable Stories: Which washing powder?

This month’s blog is brought to you by Clare Docking, one of our advisory teachers who works with industry and schools in the East of England.

I love sharing this activity with our partner schools. children really enjoy getting stuck into cleaning the stains off fabrics using different washing products whilst at the same time improving their investigation skills.  The activity lends itself to being run with a small number of children in a mixed aged classroom – something that is a reality for many teachers at the moment.  Children can also work outdoors if the weather is fine.

Getting Ready

As the free resource explains, the only kit you will need is readily available household equipment.  Asking children to bring small samples of different washing powder, liquid or gels from home will give you a selection to compare without any unnecessary shopping trips.  You could also include the children in the preparation by working with them to produce the stained fabric ready to test.

Full details of the activity can be found in our free publication and incudes teachers’ notes, children’s activity sheets and national curriculum links.

Planning the investigation

I have found that the interactive planning tool  is a great way for children to organise their thoughts as they plan how they are going to carry out their investigation.  If children haven’t used one before, work with them to show them how they can use it to record all of the possible variables and to decide what they are going to measure and what they are going to keep the same.  They may find this easier to do if they have the opportunity to ‘have a play’ with the materials first and therefore begin to formulate their ideas about which product they think might be the most effective.  They can then decide how they can prove that their hypothesis is right!  With this in mind, make sure that you have plenty of spare stained cloths and washing product so that you still have enough left when you begin the main investigation.

Instead of using the interactive planning tool you may choose to use the post-it planning template which is provided with the resource.  This will be particularly useful if you are working outdoors.

Sharing results

In my experience children can be just as engaged when it comes to sharing their results as they are when carrying out the main activity.  Two approaches that I have seen used effectively are asking children to write to the manufacturer to advise them of their findings and writing an advertisement extolling the virtues of the most effective product.  I find that children love using phrases such as ‘Scientists found that XXX was more effective at xxx than the brand leader’ knowing that they are the scientists that carried out the test!

Perhaps children could shoot a TV commercial to explain to consumers why they think that they should buy a particular product?

I usually round off the session with our PowerPoint presentation showing the children how the scientists at one company have been able to produce a more environmentally friendly washing product. It protects fabrics from damage and prevents colours from fading during washing.  This will help children to understand that science can help us to tackle environmental problems and that science could be a worthwhile career choice for themselves in the future.

Visit  our IndusTRY AT HOME page to find a version of this activity that can be shared directly with families

Science of Healthy Skin: Investigating what happens when oil is added to water

Full details of the activity can be found in the CIEC resource 'Science of Healthy Skin’ which can be downloaded from: http://www.ciec.org.uk/resources/science-of-healthy-skin.html

Based upon the extraction of lanolin from wool grease, the activities in this resource include testing immiscible liquids using oil and water and investigating the effects of adding detergent to produce emulsions which in turn reduce the efficiency of the separation of oil from water.

The Activity: Fleece to Grease

Resources 

• 300 ml water
• 300 ml sunflower oil
• 50 ml clear water - sample A
• 50ml clear glycerine - sample B
• 50 ml clear detergent - sample C
• 50 ml white vinegar - sample D
• 4 clear plastic mini pop bottles or lidded containers around 30ml per group of 4 children
• Pipette x 1 for each child
• Teaspoon or similar for stirring
• 100 ml measuring cylinder 

Objectives

• To describe changes that occur when materials are mixed
• To make systematic observations and measurements
• To know that that some liquids do not mix, can be separated easily and are termed ‘immiscible’
• To observe that detergent can cause immiscible liquids to mix, producing an emulsion

What happens when oil is added to water?

Each child in the team of 4 to pour 10ml of water and 10ml of oil into one of the containers.

Ask them to wait for 1 minute to see what happens to the oil and water.

Tip the containers upside down four times and ask the children .....

• Did the oil and water mix?
• Did shaking make the liquids mix?
• Why do you think this happened?

The oil and mixture quickly separate when they are on their own.  But will adding any of the other ingredients make a difference?

Investigate whether adding sample A, B, C or D affects the separation of water and oil.

Using the pipette, add 10 drops of sample A to one of the bottles, 10 drops of sample, B to another bottle and 10 drops of samples C and D to the other two bottles.

Ask children to observe how long it takes for the oil and water to separate after 4 shakes.

Ask them to consider how they will record their observations.

Health and Safety

Remind the children not to drink their samples.

Links to the National Curriculum for Science:

Working Scientifically

Learning Objectives

• planning different types of scientific enquiries to answer questions, including recognising and controlling variables where necessary
• Taking measurements, using a range of scientific equipment, with increasing accuracy and precision, taking repeat readings when appropriate
• Use observations, measurements or other data to draw conclusions

Subject Knowledge

Learning Objectives

• Know that changes occur when materials are mixed and some of these are reversible