The Rumbai/Duri Middle School Field Trip 2015

The Rumbai/Duri Middle School Trip to Sulawesi was exciting! We went snorkeling, hiking, and boat riding. I have been to many trips in my five years living in Rumbai. It was one of the best!

The best part to me was seeing the sea turtles. They were 60 feet below our faces. All you could see was blue when you looked below. Suddenly you would see a green oval swimming in the distance. It was a green sea turtle! That was the best part for me because I have never seen a sea turtle when snorkeling. 

Another fun part was seeing the dolphins flop up and down. We went on a motor boat, speeding to our next snorkeling location. Suddenly there was a loud splash, and another! Everyone looked around to see what it was. Spinner dolphins! There was a large pack of them swimming eight feet from our boat. They jumped up and down splashing in the sea. It seemed like they were more excited seeing us, than us seeing them. 

Tarsiers was very enjoyable as well. We went on a major bus ride and hike to get to see the Tarsiers. It was worth it. I didn’t even know the animal existed! I haven’t seen any photos or anything. I didn’t know what I was looking for. We kept hiking, then we showed up at a large, gigantic, tree. The tour guide shined his black flashlight on the tree. There was a little, furry, brown leg. I will give you one guess on what it is. A squirrel! No, just joking! It was a Tarsier. After about one minute it came out and showed it’s self. It was super small. But it has the largest eyes ever! It actually has the largest eyes out of every mammal! It was marvelous!

The main reason we went on this trip is to form friendships with the kids from Duri. I hardly knew any kids there. Now I think I can name of every one of them. Without the kids from Duri this trip wouldn't have been as fun. We also went on the to see the impacts of man destroying nature and nature stabbing back at mankind. There was lots of trash in the ocean and on the shore. But nature was also taking over humans. There was an old, beat up, house that was taken over by leaves and vines. 

Overall it was one of the best trips I have been on. It was fun going with all my friends and making new ones from Duri. Seeing the dolphins, sea, turtles, starfish, and other marine life/animals was extraordinary! I will cherish that week forever! 

Written By: Aiden Sullivan

Photos: Mrs. Clare, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Drew, Aiden Sullivan

Archimedes Interview!

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”

- Archimedes

Check out more about Archimedes

Vocabulary: 

Fulcrum: The point on which a lever rests or is supported and on which it pivots.

Lever: A rigid bar used to help move a heavy load with one end when pressure is applied to the other.

Load: The weight on the other side of the lever. 

What we did in this experiment was we got a fulcrum, load, and a lever. And we had a sensor that measured in nodes. We had to use the ruler (lever) and the sensor which we pushed down hard on the other end of the ruler. We had a fulcrum underneath the lever located in the middle. We would move the fulcrum to out finger each trial. A real life example would be like when you put a rock underneath a spoon and the spoon has mashed potatoes, then you make the spoon balance by evening the weight out. Then you push on the spoon, that is an smaller scale of what we did. The spoon is the lever, the rock is the fulcrum, the mashed potatoes are the load and your hand pushing down on the spoon is the input force. 

Here is our data!

Archimedes

Image from: http://lexfridman.com/blogs/training/files/2013/11/leverage-fulcrum.png

Cool Interview!

Edited and Created by Aiden Sullivan

   

The Levitating Pencil!

In this science challenge we had to make a levitating pencil! We had 6 magnets, a pencil, a mirror, and a ball of clay. We had to figure out which magnetism the magnet was, attraction or repulsion. We had to switch and turn the magnets to make the magnetic pole just right. The attraction or repulsion between magnetic poles is called magnetic force, which is basically like negative and positive, like numbers, the same with magnets. Thank god for magnetic fields, because that allows the magnets to interact with each other, like move up and down which creates a levitating pencil!



Facts from: Buckley, Don. Interactive Science. Boston, MA: Pearson, 2011. Print.

Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.

Cool video on what happened!

(Edited By: Aiden Sullivan)

Science Fair Week 8!

Foam: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tile

Tile: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tile

"Foam." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.

"Tile." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.

Me Playing on the Electric Guitar!

Science Fair: Week 7!

Grade 6 2015 Science Fair Week 7

Indonesian Angklung Instrument

An angklung is an Indonesian instrument made of 3 bamboo rods attached to a bamboo square. They are carved in a fashion were there is a certain beautiful sound. They are used in Indonesian songs and bands. It is very popular near South East asia. It requires practice, concentration, and coordination to play this epic instrument.

Facts and Photos from:

http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2012/133/0/6/angklung__traditional_instrumen_in_west_java__by_fp93-d4zodd3.jpg

    and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angklung

Science Fair Blog Post: Week 6!

Found a cool sound wave game try it out:

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/ages/9_10/changing_sounds.shtml

Citation: N.p., n.d. Web.

Science Fair Blog Post: Week 5

Science Fair Blog Post: Week 4!

This week in the amazing science fair, we have been working on out Interim Report. We have filled it with everything we have done so far. Our, research, question, variables, and bibliography. 

We completed out hypothesis we think that If the recyclable material is plastic then, the sound waves that penetrate the soundproof wall will go slower, because the plastic bottle contains air which is a gas, and gas makes sound waves travel slower. 

We decided that we will be using wool, plastic, and wood to build three walls. One with wool, one with wood, and another with plastic bottles.

 Our next step is to gather all the materials and resources we need and start to build each wall. Can't wait to begin!

Science Fair Blog Post Week 3!

This week we worked on our question and our variables. Our independent variable is our recyclable material and our dependent variable the amount of hertz that goes through the wall. Our controlled variables are the location, pitch, and distance. Our question is "How does the recyclable material affect the hertz that penetrates the soundproof wall." Our next step is to start to make the soundproof wall using recyclable material.

Science Fair Blog Post: Week 2!

In class today we played with sensors!

We had a tuning fork and had a block of wood holding the string. We pulled the tuning fork back and it hit a cylinder of wood. Then we put the sensor up to the tuning fork and recorded how many Hz the fork made. We did this with different sizes of tuning forks. I enjoyed it and it was very fun. Our project is to make a soundproof wall. This is going to be helpful in our project because we are going to need to know how to use the sensor. We all know hot to now. Next we will get the resources we need to build our soundproof wall. We still need to know what sound does not go through. That is all I got for this week in science!

Social Studies Readers Theatre Blog Post!

On Friday morning at Community time the 5/6 class did a Readers Theatre on Egypt. I thought we did good memorizing our lines, making props, and projecting our voices. Most people don't know about Hatshepsut and I feel like we did a good job of teaching them about her life and the things she did. I think since we have been studying Egypt for 2 weeks and we know the background of the story. When we presented the skit, I think some of the adults and children were confused on what was going on. What did you think about it?


Here is an interview on one of the teachers thoughts
on the readers theatre.

Hatshepsut is a Egyptian Queen. She became pharaoh when King Thutmose II died. His son Thutmose III took his place but he was so young. So Hatshepsut took his place. She made a trade expedition to punt. Where she got animals, incense, wood, and lot's of gold for the people of Egypt. She expanded trade to many different places and she rebuilt monuments.

Pinewood Derby 2015

Science Fair Blog Post: Week 1! It Begins!

This is a video of me explaining the 6th graders science fair project. Please enjoy and click a feeling below!

Today we played with the sensors. We have tuning forks of all different sizes and we are going to bang them and the sensor will collect the amount if Hz (Hertz). We are not sure how we are going to bang them without banging to hard or too soft.

Mesopotamian Drawing!

This is my drawing of Mesopotamia. It is a village of people doing jobs of everyday life. There are people chopping down trees with axes. Egypt had no trees so they had to use mud brick from the Nile to build homes and building. Mesopotamians built wood houses with trees. Down by the lake is a man scooping up water for the crops with a bucket. The lake provided water, fish, and transportation. Egypt had used the Nile for the same reasons. Mesopotamians built canals to bring water to their village. Farmers had to work hard to feed families. They made lots of foods like vegetable stew, fish, and fruits. To the right there is an animal pen. Cows were used for milk and meat, pigs were used for meat, and chicken were used for eggs and meat. There are dirt and rocky roads because cement was not invented at the time. My drawing shows many details of Mesopotamia that relate to Egypt and there are also differences between the two.

Science Physics Roller Coaster Post!

In science class I made a roller coaster out of tubes, and used tape and string. My coaster has a big drop then it shifts over to a loop then rolls around a stool and has another dip and then lands in a cup. I chose it because I thought it was fun, I would enjoy it if I was on it. I would probably change my place I constructed it. It was hard to build and some things got in the way like walls and boxes. My knowledge of kinetic and potential helped me with this project. In fact, I couldn't have done it without it. Because if I started down low then the marble wouldn't have enough kinetic energy to go up the hill. So I started up high to give it potential energy, which means if I put a big drop then it will give the marble speed/kinetic energy to go up the hill and loop.

I ran into a lot of problems. First my loop was too small so it made it have kinks. So I had to get clammers and put them where the kinks were. And then I put a nail in the wall at hooked a piece of string in the hose and tied it to the nail. The string kept on falling off the nail. I didn't do much to fix it. When it fell off I made the whole bigger with scissors in the tube and I would tie the string through the tube. Having a budget made it a little more intense. It kind of made it harder because I wasn't permitted to get what we needed and go! I had to keep track of how much money things were and what I bought. It took time off of building the coaster. But I feel like it did keep us organized because if we got what we needed then I would probably have a big mess. Friction had an impact because when I didn't have enough kinetic energy and add friction on to that I had to raise the hill higher and that would change the rest of the coaster. Argh, friction! I had to make a couple modifications. First the marble didn't have enough kinetic energy to go up the loop. So I made the loop smaller and it didn't get any kinks so it was a success. Then, the other mishap was the marble just flew out of the hose. So I put a cup to have it end and not go all over the place. So in the end it all worked out fine and dandy!

Here is my prezitation of my project.

Hour Of Code Computer Science

      When you click the link below you will see a rectangle that is a little game that I created. You click in the space and then your character will flop in the air. You want to keep on clicking and try to go through the gaps. Every time you go through a whole you get one point. How many can you get?


My flappy bird game: http://studio.code.org/c/5422

    The hour of code is basically you use a coding website or app, and you code for an hour! Everyone around the world is doing the hour of code, you should try it too.
I completed the "Make Your Own Flappy Bird Game".
At first I had no clue what to do because all I saw was a bunch of loops. Then after experimenting it became easy, I figured out I had to end up dragging loops to make it do what I wanted it to do.  I used http://code.org/ to complete my flappy game. If I had more time I would like to edit my game or try a new one like the "Angry Bird Code Game".

Science: Skate Park Assignment!

When distance changes then the kinetic and potential energy will decrease or increase. When you are going down then there is more kinetic energy because the skater is moving faster. When you move up then you have more potential energy because you are changing the distance from the ground. Kinetic and Potential energy interact with each other when potential is at it's greatest and kinetic is at it's lowest (or the opposite). Imagine a car going up hill it has more potential energy and then the car goes down a steep hill then it has a lot of kinetic energy. Energy can be transformed into the real world by a roller coaster, when the coaster going up a hill it has lots of potential energy because it is changing the distance from the ground (getting higher and higher). When it drops down then it the coaster goes fast because it has lots motion/speed. Friction affects the motion of objects by the surface the object is on and the object rubbing against each 


other. http://phet.colorado.edu/

Social Studies: My Fantastic & Breathtaking Roanoke Poster!

Poster 1

Poster 2

In this project we had to create a poster for the Lost Colony of Roanoke. Nobody knows what exactly happened but I had to use what I knew to make a theory. 

I took a big sheet of paper with boxes that looked like a comic. Then I wrote my captions and drew my pictures. Then I checked for grammar, spelling, ect. Then I colored my images and beautified my poster.

I feel great about my poster coloring and image wise but I forgot include the main part in the project. (Maybe next time) I liked this project because sometimes in projects you just have to read books and answer the questions but here we got to color and write out the poster. It was still learning but had a fun touch to it.