St. Emilie's Catholic Primary School

Welcome back to Science

This term we are very busy learning about everyday materials. We’ve got straight into our ‘hands on’ learning with some interesting investigations across the year levels.

The Year One students are learning about everyday objects – what they are made of and their properties eg is the material shiny, dull, rough, smooth, heavy or light?

The Year Three students investigated whether ice melts quicker on a plastic tray or a metal tray.

The Year Four students investigated the materials used to make bags.

Mrs Cogger is very excited to announce that the Science department now has a set of lab coats. This means that the ‘focus faction’ for each term has first priority to choose a lab coat if they wish.

Toyota Dream Car Contest

February 16, 2021
Kerrie Cogger
· For Families · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4 · Year 5 · Year 6

Mrs Cogger has found this great competition to keep you engaged and occupied and to develop your creativity.

It’s the Toyota Dream Car Contest. We have so many quality and creative artists at the school. Why not have a go at designed your own dream car entry for this competition?

Students who are wanting to enter the competition are required to draw or paint a picture of what they imagine their dream car will look like.

There are three different age categories for the competition:

Under 8’s
8 to 11 year olds
12 to 15 year olds

The top three place-getter winners in each of the age categories will be chosen and one of these lucky students will be selected by the judges as the ‘Australian Dream Car Contest Champion’.

The child who wins first prize in the competition will win a $2,500 VISA Gift Card for their school, and another $2,500 VISA Gift Card for themselves. There are also eight $275 VISA Gift Cards to be won for the other winners across the age categories.

Here are a few important questions to consider

When do students have to get their artwork in by?:
The competition closes at 11:59pm AEDT on the 28 February 2021, so it’s a great activity to do this week while you are at home.

Do students basically have to be Picasso in order to enter this content?
Nope! It’s about creativity, not perfection. Each entry will be individually judged based on its message, uniqueness and art characteristics.

Do students have to post their artwork in? Do I have to post it for them?
Not this year! This year the Dream Car Competition is accepting entries online, so there is no need to package and post your class entries. Head to the Dream Car page and follow the bulk upload process. Remember to keep your original artwork in a safe place. You’ll need it in order to be eligible to win the amazing prizes.

Here is a link to the competition with all the further and important details.

All students are welcome to bring their drawings to school and Mrs Cogger will make a display. Make sure you scan in your drawing to enter it. Mrs Cogger cannot do it for you.

Toyota Dream Car entry portal

Year 6 Science inquiry present their mini-sprinters

December 18, 2020
Kerrie Cogger
· Science · Uncategorized · Year 6 · Year 6 Blue · Year 6 Gold

This week our Year 6 Science Inquiry students presented their mini-sprinters to an invited parent audience.

Kieran demonstrated the angle of the solar panel.

Then the students took their vehicles outside to race them on the track.

Congratulations to all the students who took on the challenge to build a mini-sprinter this year. It was a challenging task with lots of modifications required along the journey.

Mrs Cogger knew it was going to be a very hot day so she treated all of the students to a soft drink can after they had raced their vehicles.

ATOM photography winners

December 10, 2020
Kerrie Cogger
· Classroom News · Science · Year 2 · Year 2 Blue · Year 2 Gold

Congratulations to Alicia Chow and Aisha Dhillon who both won the Lower Primary category in the the ATOM Photography Competition this year.

The winners were acknowledged in a ‘virtual’ celebration. Click on this link to see Alicia and Aisha talking about their photo. Alicia speaks at about the 47 sec mark and Aisha at 1min 4 secs.

ATOM photography

Congratulations again to Alicia and Aisha for representing St Emilie’s and doing so well int eh competition.

Learning about seashells in Year One

December 10, 2020
Kerrie Cogger
· Science · Year 1 · Year 1 Blue · Year 1 Gold

This week our Year ones learned about the interesting creatures that live in shells in our oceans. Each student was given a shell and a magnifier to do their own observational drawing.

Here are a few photos of the students enjoying the experience.

Celebrating Science 2020

Mrs Cogger has created an Imovie showcasing some of the wonderful investigations that the students have enjoyed so far this year. And we are nearly finished…..

Enjoy!

Celebrating Science 2020

Recycling services resume

September 18, 2020
Kerrie Cogger
· Classroom News · For Families · Kindy · Pre-Primary · Science · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4 · Year 5 · Year 6

Just a reminder to all families, that our Year 6 Environmental Committee offer the following recycling services to our school community.

Greenbatch

Greenbatch Foundation partners with schools allowing students to collect their old PET plastic bottles through recycling, providing PET which is used in research and development for 3D printer filament. By recycling through Greenbatch we can save plastic from entering landfills, oceans and waste incinerators.

As from Term 3, our green and purple Greenbatch bins will return to the undercover area on Wednesday mornings. You are very welcome and encouraged to bring in your HDPE 2 and PET 1 plastics. PET plastic is the type found in drink bottles and food packaging such as strawberry punnets or peanut butter jars, and has the number 1 inside the recycling symbol.

Battery Recycling

We will also continue to offer our battery collection. The yellow battery bin will be placed out in the undercover area on Wednesday morning along with the Greenbatch bins. Please bring along your unwanted batteries and place them in the bin. Once the bin is 3/4 full we contact the City of Gosnells and the batteries are taken away for recycling.

If you bring your batteries or plastics to school on any other day you will find yellow battery bin in the undercover area and the purple Greenbatch bins parked up by Learning Hub.

Thank you for your continuing support and to our students for their efforts at contributing towards the health of the planet by conducting these recycling projects.

Science this week – enjoying forces and circuits

The students in Year 2 this week learnt about levers by making their own simple machine with a fulcrum and beam. The students tested out different materials on their lever.

The Year Six students had some very tricky fun making these paper circuit cards with an LED light, 3V button battery and copper tape.

Finally our 5G students had fun testing out their parachutes in a fair test investigation to see which size canopy would give a skydiver the gentlest landing.

Last chance to vote for St Emilie’s

September 9, 2020
Kerrie Cogger
· Messages · Science · Year 1 · Year 2 · Year 3 · Year 4 · Year 5 · Year 6

Just a reminder – if you haven’t entered your vote for St Emilie’s Bush Forever Journey, please get your vote in soon as voting closes this Sunday.

St Emilie’s Catholic Primary School has submitted an entry in this year’s Quality Catholic Education Awards. Many other schools throughout WA have also submitted entries – approximately 80 in total.

Our schools entry is called the St Emilie’s Bush Forever Journey. It documents some of the learning opportunities that have taken place in our bushland setting over a long period of time 2013 – to the present. In our submission we have included two statements (100 words and 500 words) as well as supporting documents (web posts, learning plans and Open Night displays) about our journey.

This year there is a People’s Choice Award so we are encouraging all our families to vote for St Emilie’s. Please click on this link and you will be taken to the nomination page.

People’s Choice Vote

Part of our submission includes a video which you can view by following this link.

St Emilie’s Bush Forever Journey

Thank you for entering your vote.

Voting closes 20 September 2020.

Move it investigation with Year 2

August 9, 2020
Kerrie Cogger
· Science · Year 2 · Year 2 Blue · Year 2 Gold

This term the Year 2 students are learning a new unit from Primary Connections and it is a very exciting topic. The topic is all about the fascination children have with machines. From an early age their world is surrounded by machines that move, make noises and light up.

Some machines are so simple that they might not be considered to be a machine at all, such as ramps and seesaws. However, all machines wither complicated or simple help us to do work.

The students were introduced to Rube Goldberg. Rube Goldberg made simple tasks more complicated by creating and constructing intricately designed machines to do every day simple tasks. The majority of forces in a Rube Goldberg machine are push and pull forces.

This week the Year 2 students made their first initial attempts to construct a Rube Goldberg machine by investigating ‘What different ways can we push or pull a toy car to make it move?’ Here are a few photos of the students at their team investigations.