Australia's Science Forum

Hi guys
I have had a request from a year 6 teacher for ideas for their topic of “Our Changing World” where they will look at natural disasters. She was hoping for some “clever experiments they could do that link to this topic”. I have the Snack Tectonics one but think that may be more to do with the structure of the earth, although it can be linked to earthquakes. I think they are focussing more on the weather type disasters. Any ideas?

They can make a cardboard box city on a tarpaulin or sheet and have all for corners held and pulled to replicate an earthquake.

Cyclone in a bottle?

You can get those little joiners from Science Toy type shops to screw two soft drink bottles together end to end. Coloured water looks pretty. Our little kiddies love it.

We have an iPhone app called iSeisomometer. If you can connect your iPad/iPhone/iPod to a projector, the kids can see the seismograme on the screen as they jump around the classroom

Convection currents in water? We have a small fish tank. An ice cube made of food colouring in water works well.

Plate tectonics? Get a map of the world and roughly cut around all the continents then see if they can rearrange them into "Gondwana Land" like a jigsaw puzzle.

Use the double cream Oreo biccies (warmed slightly). If you squeeze them, the cream comes up through the holes (volcanos) (We used to do similar with "Vita Wheats" and Peanut butter)

Cheers
Ian

http://www.iris.edu/seismon/

If they look up this site it'll show all activity today and over the last 5 years. It's a little scary also education links on same site which are good.