As a grade 9 student at Terry Fox Secondary School, I have been participating in as many additional activities, such as math contests, garden club, wrestling and of course the science 9 honours activities, so that I can advance my knowledge and skills. On this page I will share some of the science 9 and science 9 honours activities that I participated in and enjoyed doing.
I was saddened that activities were cancelled this year, but I have lots of hope for grade 10. I aspire to learn more about physics, biology, computer sciences, and, of course, chemistry. I enjoyed the fiery demonstrations of chemistry but next year I would love to learn more about creating polymers and to learn more about biological systems and how things work, such as how signals are sent through the nervous system or how muscles work together to make us move.
Halloween Science Demonstrations
On Halloween there was a demonstration of some activities/experiments, mostly involving fire, and I took this video of elephant toothpaste in a pumpkin.
I learned a bit about chemical reactions, but most of what I remember related to fire, such as how the oxygen in the elephant toothpaste bubbles could relight and make a larger fire, likely as the oxygen was more concentrated in the bubbles than in the air. The bubbles in the elephant toothpaste were just oxygen and soap, as the reaction demonstrated was of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) splitting into water (H2O) and oxygen.
In STEAM science we got to make our own elephant toothpaste trying different reactants, although the only one I can remember is yeast, which was the fastest but created larger less interesting bubbles. The reactant that was used in the below photo had the slowest reaction, but over all created the most elephant toothpaste.
The demonstration was very interesting and I was very excited to possibly do some of the experiments shown, but as most of the activities were cancelled I will just have to wait and hope to learn more chemistry next year.
Microbity
I do have any photos or videos from this activity, but I found an assortment of files in the linked folder that were from the right time to be from that activity. I have no way of knowing what the files do though, other than what the name says it does, as I do not have a microbity to test them on. I do remember testing the shaking/buttons and possibly making a program where the microbity would get upset and play a noise if you shook it/stopped shaking it. Most of what I played around with was making annoying noises.
I used a bit of what I learned from this, a bit from tutorials on the internet, and lot from ICT 9 to make my temperature sensor smart device for a drafting project later on.
Crystal Growing
In STEAM science we got to grow borax and alum crystals. For the borax crystals, we created a very saturated solution of borax in water and hung pipe cleaners into it which grew many small crystals. For the alum crystals, we dissolved around 20 grams of alum into 200ml of water and poured a bit into a petri dish to grow seed crystals. We then harvested the seed crystals and hung one of them into the beaker of alum solution with string or fishing line (my group used fishing line). We let the crystal grow for about two weeks before filling out the worksheet about it and handing it in, and my group has left the crystal in the solution for around another two weeks and will remove the crystal on 2022 05 26.
This was a fun hands on learning experience, where so of us learned how to properly use the equipment and grow crystals, and some got a lot of borax into their eyes as they refused to use equipment safely, add small amounts of borax at a time, or wear any protective eyewear.
I enjoyed this project and seeing how small changes could effect the crystal. While making the borax crystals I was so inspired that when I got how I boiled some water and dissolved as much salt as I could into it to see if I could grow salt crystals. This didn’t work as expected, but I saw how the string absorbed the solution instead of having crystals grow on it, and something salty and interesting formed at the top of the string.
Chemical Etching
In this project we got to etch a design into a rectangle of metal. I missed the first day of the project so I don’t know how it works, but we used nail polish to create a canvas where the the metal was not exposed and therefore could not get marks from the etching. When the nail polish was dry we scratched a design through the nail polish using a nail. We then used alligator clips to connect the piece of metal to a machine which I believe would send an electric current through the metal, we connected a second alligator clip to that machine on one end and to a piece of cotton soaked in a solution that seemed to conduct energy well. We would hold the cotton down where we wanted marks to be on the metal and the solution would bubble a bit. If you were to hold the cotton down in one spot for long enough the metal there would darken, and after leaving it in the classroom for the weekend the metal darkened more. My design is that of a cat, possibly resting its paws on what could be a human skull, or not.
In conclusion,
I enjoyed learning new things about science this year in both regular and honours science, and I hope to continue using what I learned to do and create more, and that it can help me over the next few years of learning. I am probably most proud of my big crystal, as it is quite big and I did a lot of the work on my own, and continued to tend to the crystal after the required amount of time, and I plan on learning more about crystals on my own time and growing more.