Bonjour!
In this unit of science, we learned about matter to answer the driving question: how does the behaviour of atoms influence the properties of solids, liquids, and gasses? It consisted of 3 keystones, an object description, a self-designed experiment and a video game pitch, for our final project, making a science video game to show at least one of the concepts we learned.
For the first keystone, we chose an object in the classroom. Then we determined its mass, volume, density and physical and chemical properties, as well as say if each characteristic was qualitative or quantitative. Then we put all the information together, without saying what the object was. I was happy with how it went, and I think that my measurements were mostly accurate, though it was hard to figure out the volume because it was so small. Here is mine, the answer to what the object post will be at the end of the post.
The second keystone, in small groups, we designed our own experiments, using gummy bears. We decided to put a whole gummy bear in one beaker of boiling water and a cut-up gummy bear in another beaker, also filled with boiling water, to figure out which would melt faster. I think that we had a well-developed experiment, that answered our guiding question and I also really like the Canva slideshow I made! Here is a presentation with the entire process, including our results. And thank you to my amazing group members: Esther and Meghan (names linked to their blogs)!
The last keystone was to make a short pitch for our science video games. Though my idea wasn’t super fun, it was simple and showed one of our key concepts, how temperature affects the state of matter. This is my pitch.
For our final project, we actually created the video games, using Scratch. I used the drawing feature to create little green dots, and I tried to add smiley faces, however they ended up upside down or sideways later. I figured out how to make the dots disappear when tapped, however I couldn’t get them to move around how I wanted, so I found a game where the particles moved around, by a former PLP learner, Teva (thank you)! I used her code for a reference and managed to get them to move around. Overall, Scratch was mostly simple, easy and quick to use and I am mostly happy with my game. In the future, I would make it so that it doesn’t seem like particles disappearing make the heat rise and the state change. This is my game, the instructions are on the side.
In conclusion, I really liked this project and learned a lot. Also, my secret object from Keystone 1 was a bottle cap! That’s all for this post.
Kaia out ♥︎