Terrific Trip to Toitu and Gasworks

As part of our topic this term, Times of Great Change, Room 1 visited Toitu and the Gas Museum. Due to the frosty morning we cautiously hopped on the bus. We were keen to learn more about inventors and inventions and  we couldn't wait to get there.

Visiting Expert - Gareth Engineer

Today Gareth, Katrina's father, came to school to talk to us. He is going to be helping us to install our water tank and help us design our bike powered pump.

Gareth explaining Newtons Laws!

First he explained where our water comes from. The water we use in Dunedin comes from Deep Stream, which is 675m above sea level, then on to Deep Stream, which is 425 above sea level onto Silver Stream at 158m above sea level and then to the Macandrew Bay tank above Jane St which is 124 m above sea level.
 Water needs to come from a height to give water pressure. When a place is very flat, like Invercargill, they use water towers. Naseby uses water races based on the Roman aquaduct system.

Our water tank will be about 10m above sea level so we will have very low water pressure.  We need to create the pressure using a pump which we will attach to a bike. We did experiments working our how much pressure and flow we need to water our garden.

We had to time how long the hose took to fill a 10 litre bucket.

It took about 37 seconds. In the classroom we worked out how many litres per second it took.

Pumpkins From Our Garden

Room 1 and the enviro children from last term and this term made pumpkin soup using the pumpkins we harvested from the school gardens. We softened the pumpkin skins in the microwave so they were easier to cut. We also added onion and bay leaves to the soup. The soup  was delicious!! For Maths Room 1 had to estimate the weight of each pumpkin, weigh them and then add the weights together. The total weight of the seven pumpkins 18.033kgs. We only used two pumpkins to make the soup so we have five left over. Each class has been offered a pumpkin. well done Room 4 on taking up the offer. We can't wait to see what you make with your pumpkin. We have collected the seeds and hope to grow pumpkin plants for our garden next year.

Seven lovely pumpkins grown in our school garden.

Maths! Estimating and weighing the pumpkins. Over 18kgs in total.

It taste great, thumbs up from Room 1