Mossburn School pupils were left with several intriguing questions after their special three days of science exploration with guest teacher Lloyd Esler recently.
"Listening to how sound travels and trying to reverse the direction from which you hear sound along with making whistles from whistlewood occupied the students initially, "Mr Esler said." With screws and levers on the second day we found that screws go in clockwise and come out anticlockwise."
The pupils marvelled at where nature has invented a screw in the seeds of the animated oat which screw themselves into the soil when they get wet. Even the smallest children could lift him up using a crowbar, showing the efficiency of a lever.
Using pulleys occupied another day, practising threading a pulley with a rope and lifting a load. Students in groups used pulleys to problem solve how to save a whale, get a giraffe back on its feet and pull a cat out of a mousehole.
Students remarked that they learned that pulleys are very efficient when they are wanting to move something heavy and that a three block system makes it three times easier to pull a whale.
