Wednesday 12 December 2012


The Food Chain

 

Every living thing needs energy in order to live. Every time animals do something (run, jump) they use energy to do so.

 

Animals get energy from the food they eat, and all living things get energy from food. Plants use sunlight, water and nutrients to get energy (in a process called photosynthesis). Energy is necessary for living beings to grow.

 

A food chain shows how each living thing gets food, and how nutrients and energy are passed from creature to creature. Food chains begin with plant-life, and end with animal-life. Some animals eat plants, some animals eat other animals.

 

A simple food chain could start with grass, which is eaten by rabbits. Then the rabbits are eaten by foxes.






Here's another food chain, with a few more animals. It starts with acorns, which are eaten by mice. The mice are eaten by snakes, and then finally the snakes are eaten by hawks. At each link in the chain, energy is being transferred from one animal to another.

 


There can be even more links to any food chain. Here another animal is added. It goes grass to grasshopper to mouse to snake to hawk.

 


There is actually even more to this chain. After a hawk dies, fungi (like mushrooms) and other decomposers break down the dead hawk, and turn the remains of the hawk into nutrients, which are released into the soil. The nutrients (plus sun and water) then cause the grass to grow. It's a full circle of life and energy!!

 

 

So food chains make a full circle, and energy is passed from plant to animal to animal to decomposer and back to plant! There can be many links in food chains but not TOO many. If there are too many links, then the animal at the end would not get enough energy.
 

Saturday 8 December 2012

Magnet

A magnet is any object that has a magnetic field. It attracts ferrous objects like pieces of iron, steel, nickel and cobalt. In the early days, the Greeks observed that the naturally occurring 'lodestone' attracted iron pieces. From that day onwards began the journey into the discovery of magnets.
 
 
 


 
 
These days magnets are made artificially in various shapes and sizes depending on their use. One of the most common magnets - the bar magnet - is a long, rectangular bar of uniform cross-section that attracts pieces of ferrous objects. The magnetic compass needle is also commonly used. The compass needle is a tiny magnet which is free to move horizontally on a pivot. One end of the compass needle points in the North direction and the other end points in the South direction.The end of a freely pivoted magnet will always point in the North-South direction.  
 
 
 
 

Friday 7 December 2012

Performance at my school


Electrical Circuit

 
An electrical circuit is a path which electrons from a voltage or current source flow. Electric current flows in a closed path called an electric circuit. The point where those electrons enter an electrical circuit is called the "source" of electrons. The point where the electrons leave an electrical circuit is called the "return" or "earth ground". The exit point is called the "return" because electrons always end up at the source when they complete the path of an electrical circuit. The part of an electrical circuit that is between the electrons' starting point and the point where they return to the source is called an electrical circuit's "load".
 
 
 
 
 
This activity allows pupils to investigate simple circuits by dragging circuit components into place to make a working circuit. The activities form an introduction to practical work exploring circuits. Pupils have the opportunity to experiment with switches to control components in order to find out that a circuit will not work if there is a break in it.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Tuesday 4 December 2012

Solar System


What Is The Solar System?

The Solar System is made up of all the planets that orbit our Sun. In addition to planets, the Solar System also consists of moons, comets, asteroids, minor planets, and dust and gas.

Everything in the Solar System orbits or revolves around the Sun. The Sun contains around 98% of all the material in the Solar System. The larger an object is, the more gravity it has. Because the Sun is so large, its powerful gravity attracts all the other objects in the Solar System towards it. At the same time, these objects, which are moving very rapidly, try to fly away from the Sun, outward into the emptiness of outer space. The result of the planets trying to fly away, at the same time that the Sun is trying to pull them inward is that they become trapped half-way in between. Balanced between flying towards the Sun, and escaping into space, they spend eternity orbiting around their parent star.

How Did The Solar System form?

This is an important question, and one that is difficult for scientists to understand. After all, the creation of our Solar System took place billions of years before there were any people around to witness it. Our own evolution is tied closely to the evolution of the Solar System. Thus, without understanding from where the Solar System came from, it is difficult to comprehend how mankind came to be.

Scientists believe that the Solar System evolved from a giant cloud of dust and gas. They believe that this dust and gas began to collapse under the weight of its own gravity. As it did so, the matter contained within this could begin moving in a giant circle, much like the water in a drain moves around the center of the drain in a circle.

At the center of this spinning cloud, a small star began to form. This star grew larger and larger as it collected more and more of the dust and gas that collapsed into it.

Further away from the center of this mass where the star was forming, there were smaller clumps of dust and gas that were also collapsing. The star in the center eventually ignited forming our Sun, while the smaller clumps became the planets, minor planets, moons, comets, and asteroids.
 
 
 
 

Sun

The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields. It has a diameter of about 1,392,684 km, about 109 times that of Earth.



The real face of sun