5th Class Antarctica Project

For the month of September 2011 5th class were working on the theme of "Antarctica". In geography we focused on learning about the continents of the world.  We examined an atlas and discovered there are 7 continents - Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, North & South America and Antarctica.  We investigated Antarctica a bit more under the headings of location, weather and animals (whales, penguins, seal) and wrote reports on them.

             

In history we focused on the life of the great Irish explorer Tom Crean who famously made 3 expeditions to Antarctica in an attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole but he never achieved his goal.  However he did play a very important role in these dangerous trips and made some brave rescues and is an Irish hero.  In groups of 4 we made timelines of the important events in Tom Crean's life.  We also did alot of drama about his life.

                                     

In science we learned about the force of "buoyancy" and we investigated it by designing a boat (from plasticine) that could hold the maximum number of passengers (5c coins).   We discovered that the shape of the boat is extremely important. A simple ball of plasticine will sink, however, when moulded into the shape of a boat it floats. We discovered that the flatter and wider the base of the boat the more passengers (coins) it could hold.  We recorded everyones results - MoreBlessing's boat held the most coins, over 30!   We made it a fair test by giving everyone the exact same amout of plasticine and we all used 5c coins as "passengers".  Finally we wrote up our experiment in our Science copies.