Writing Science Reports, Arrays and Prime Numbers

All the grade 5/6 classes assembled today in Mr Moore's room for a presentation all about how to write up a Science report. The session went for forty minutes and there was question and answer time. All of the grade 5/6 teachers presented some aspect of the presentation. Students were also shown samples of works done by students from lasts years grade 5/6 classes. They have four weeks to write up their reports. Students all have this guide which can serve as a check list in their Science books and I gave my students an additional copy to take home and keep near their computers. Students without  access to computers at home, which is a third of my class, will be given some time in class to word-process drafts they have written. 

 Here is the guide they were given:

Writing up an investigation as a scientific report

Step 1 Background /Introduction

Write a section explaining about what moulds are then...

• Briefly outline what you are going to investigate.
• Give a reason why the research is important and why you and other people would want to know the answer to the question

Step 2 Hypothesis

• Your prediction(what you think) will happen.
• Give good logical reasons to support this.
• Refer to the information you already know

Step 3 Equipment and materials

• A list of equipment

Step 4 Method

• Use clear sentences to explain each step taken to set up and undertake the experiment
• Order paragraphs so that each step is a new paragraph
• Make sure they are in the correct order
• Include a discussion of how you are making sure the experiment is a fair test.
• Be clear about which variables you are controlling and how.
• A digital photo of the equipment set up or a diagram would be useful to illustrate what you are saying.

Step 5 Results

• You need to have kept good observations all the way through your investigation
• Look at how you can put your observations into a table or graph
• You may have a selection of photos or written observations

Step 6 Discussion

• This section explains your results and gives a chance to discuss why you think certain things happened
• You can include a section of what worked well and why
• Discuss what didn’t work well and why
• Think of ways you would improve the investigation if you did it again, e.g. were there variables that you could or should have controlled?
• Suggest ways to build on from what you have done; another experiment to take the investigation further or to investigate new questions you have.

Step 7 Conclusion

• What you have learned and why this is important to know.

Step  8 References/Cited Sources/Acknowledgements

A glossary could be included

Following this session we continued on with our arrays work started earlier in the week. This will be marked and returned to students on Monday morning.

After recess we spent thirty-five minutes completing the boundary walk of the school grounds to ensure the students knew where they can and cannot play during their recreational breaks.  It was then straight onto looking at their bread samples to make observations and to work on the bread mould unit up until lunch.  I assisted two students setting theirs up as they missed the lesson yesterday. So for them this was day 1. One pair of students found that one of their samples already had mould growth which was visible to the naked eye.

Students can access photos of their samples on the student drive. Students now all have their individual log-ons.

After lunch we did a lesson on prime numbers and looked closely at Sieve of Eratosthenes. 

We discussed instructional texts and they way they are set out. Students had to read this with care in order to sieve out the prime numbers. The solution was then displayed on the board.  

We finished the day with the second half of the story I started yesterday called The Sorcerer's Apprentice and looked at the use of alliteration in the book as well as a lot of new vocabulary.  I also added some Colin Thiele books to the classroom bookshelves. Nearly all the students have read Storm Boy. We will be viewing the film soon.