Helpmyphysics

Magnetic field lines made visible by iron filings.

Happy New Year of 2009
My second year classes have been studying magnets and magnetic fields. We had a great discussion about magnetic fields. Our talk after our experiments included how vital is our planet`s magnetic field. We even managed to squeeze in a discussion about the Northern Lights.
Check out the cool picture of the magnetic field made visible around a magnet using iron filings.
If you want to find out about the Northern Lights click on the links below.

Northern Lights
Aurora

My Christmas Board

I asked my first year class to write on the board what a scientist would want as a present on Christmas morning.
There were some brilliant suggestions.
Anyway, I hope you have a merry Christmas and a great holiday.
Mr. Mallon

Hot on the heels of my first year experimenting with sound, my other first year class investigated light rays and how they can be reflected off mirrors and what happens when these light rays pass through different glass shapes.
The class had great fun experimenting with light, as can be heard with the whoop Kelsey Cullen made at the end of the movie.
Well done first year!

My first year pupils have been studying sound lately. After exploring some experiments they felt that they could put a small movie together. The amazing thing was they were given only ten minutes to come with these ideas.
Well done first year!

My second year science class started to ask about the famous physicist posters I have on my lab wall.
I promised to give them a link to the Physics Central website which has a colouring in book of the famous physicists throughout history.
Check out the link here: Physics Colouring Book

The last couple of days at St Andrew`s we have been investigating light and sound. One day we researched Isaac Newton and what happened when he passed white light through a triangular piece of glass called a prism.
Isaac discovered that white light is made up from all the colours of the rainbow. Suddenly there it was! Outside the window. Yes it couldn`t have happened at a better time… a rainbow!
Wow! This rainbow was much better than any picture we saw in the lab!
Isn`t nature so cool!

Rainbows from the MET Office
Isaac Newton

Peter Atkins wrote an excellent science book about the periodic table. His book was called The Periodic Kingdom, a journey into the land of the chemical elements.
Two girls in my second year science class, who are studying the periodic table, wrote a lovely story about an imaginary journey around their periodic table poster.
Olivia McKenzie and Eve Prentice recorded the above reading of their stories.
So sit back and enjoy their imaginary trips.

My first year classes have had great fun exploring light and how it reflects off mirrors and passes through glass blocks. For the past few weeks we`ve worked in the dark and discovered fascinating facts about light.
Here are some great ideas…
Light and mirrors helps your snooker!
Isaac Newton loved glass prisms and found a fabulous fact that white light is not what it seems.
Light rays can be bent.
Have some fun looking at our presentation, sound will follow.

This is a wonderful experiment we did in our science classes during Halloween week. Water with some red dye is pushed up a pipe into a conical shaped flask. How does it happen?
Well it has to do with air pressure.
At the start of the experiment some water is brought to a boil in the conical flask. Some of the water that is boiled changes state into a gas which takes up the whole space of the conical flask.
The conical flask is closed with a stopper with a long pipe inserted into the stopper. The flask is then turned upside down and the long pipe is inserted into a beaker containing dyed water.
The water gas cools back into a liquid and his causes a vacuum to exist in the conical flask
This vacuum has much less pressure than the air presure pushing down onto the red dyed water. This results in the red dyed water being pushed up the pipe into the flask. This cools the water gas more causing a bigger vacuum which makes a bigger presure difference. The dyed water the is pushed harder and a fountain appears in the conical flask.
Listen out for a horrendous noise as Dracula sooks up the last of his blood…..
Thanks to Maria Devlin for kindly videoing the experiment.

In our science lab the other week we tried a very puzzling experiment. The class added together 40millilitres of alcohol and water. Surprisingly the mixture added up to about 78 millilitres amd not the expected 80 ml.
Like a good science class we tried the experiment a couple of times and yes it still gave us the same result.
We found out that 40ml of water added to 40 ml of alcohol gave 78ml!
Ciara McGhee, Chloe McMullen and Leanne Moan recorded their ideas about this experiment. Have a listen!