Churchill Science

We’ll be talking more about the Mars rovers – and Mars in general – when we study space in the spring.

Do you know what you’d like to name the new rover? Post a comment here!

Why was it important for Pierre to have a wetsuit? Post a comment on this entry!

We are starting to explore the solar system, and this is the first tool we’re using. It’s free software called Celestia. Click on the picture to learn more about it! We’ll be posting screenshots of what we find!

Some of the things 219 noticed this morning:
-The Sun has spots!
-Jupiter and Saturn have many moons.
-There are many satellites orbiting Earth.

Devon was very scientific in his approach to this game. He watched what happened, then changed one or two of the numbers a little bit, then tried again. Each time he did this, he got closer and closer to a perfect game. His highest score was 85 points.

If you use this method, you can get a high score too! We will post the highest scores as kids get to them.

Click on the picture to see Antarctica’s history in action!

Here’s another interactive about the same topic!

Click on the picture to take the quiz!

Can you dress the polar scientist? There are a LOT of layers!

This video from Lisa’s trip includes a short section that shows you all the layers she wore. You can also see icebergs, penguins, and even a top predator…

After the Australians took all the cats away, the rabbits were still there. You always have to have a top predator to make the other animals survive, because the rabbit population grew 100% and that is too much. They don’t have any more predators. The rabbits ate too much of the beautiful grass, so there was no grass to hold the soil in place. The water broke down the soil and it’s getting very muddy.

The people took the cats away because they were eating all the birds and the plants, but the birds are in danger still because of the erosion. Before they took the cats away, it looked like a quite beautiful rainforest, but since they took the cats away, now it just looks like people ruined the environment.

by Room 222

This is Macquarie Island. It’s part of the country of Australia. This penguin colony lives there. There are also other kinds of seabirds, cats, and rabbits on the island. About 9 years ago, Australia decided to get rid of all the cats so that they wouldn’t hunt the seabirds.

If you’ve ever played that Rabbits-Foxes-Grass game, you might be able to predict what happened next. What happened in our game when we didn’t have many foxes?

The Daily Scoop is a blog by one of our middle school students, Sofia. Go and check it out!

Cluster B has been studying ecosystems for the first half of the school year. We are getting to wrap up our study of living things on Earth so that we can debate whether we will find some living things somewhere in space…

But first, Lisa’s favorite ecosystem of them all… ANTARCTICA!

Click the picture to take the WILDERNESS CHALLENGE on the Discovering Antarctica website. How much do you know about Antarctica already?

Room 227 asked me to post some photos of their recent experiments with creating sugar crystals. The goal was to create rock candy, but instead they got crystals across the tops of their cups. Then they tried adding water to the cups and stirring, with some neat looking (but not very tasty) results.

Why didn’t the sugar and water mix turn into rock candy? Any thoughts?