My Science Investigation #2 - Blood Pressure and Pulse Rate

LI: To learn about pulse rate and blood pressure.

Your pulse rate is the speed that your heart pumps blood through your blood vessels. Today, we performed an experiment that measured our high and low blood pressure when we do physical activities.

The activities that we did were sitting, jogging on the spot, throwing and catching a ball, stretching, star jumps and running as fast as possible on the spot. Each person in the group took turns measuring their pulse rate after doing these activities.

My Science Investigation

LI: To perform our own science investigation on the senses of the tongue.

Today for Tech, we were focusing on learning about the different senses of the tongue and our taste buds as well as learning about it in our own science investigation.

We learnt about the main senses of the tongue: sour, sweet, salty and bitter. We went over how they work and what allows our tongue to taste. The experiment we performed was tasting different solutions and determining if they were bitter, sour, sweet or salty depending on our taste buds.

Consideration should be given to the fact that not everyone has the same taste buds. The tiny microscopic hairs on our tongues detect taste and send messages to the brain, so it determines if it tastes sour, sweet, salty and bitter.

I enjoyed this science investigtion experiment session because I learnt about taste buds and the senses of the tongue. One thing I learnt that was interesting was that you have 10,000 different taste buds that reset every 2 weeks or so.

Topic 8 - Acids and Bases

LI: To learn about acids and bases.

For Today's tech session at Tamaki College, the Year 7's have learnt about what acids and bases are and how to determine the acidity or basicity of a solution.

First of all, we went over what pH is and how to find out the pH of a liquid/substance. The acidity or basicity of a solution is ranked on a scale from 1 to 14, 1-7 being acidic, 7 being neutral and 7 to 14 being a base.

We performed an experiment where we found out the pH level of different substances using litmus paper, a well plate and tweasers.

I enjoyed this session because I found it very interesting as well as fun to perform this experiment with the different solutions. One thing I found interesting was that the acidity or basicity of a solution is determined because of the hydroxide and hydrogen ions inside of the substance.

Science Exploration Topic 3

LI: To explore science equipment.

Our focus for the technological discovery regarding science exploration on laboratory equipment was based around understanding how the temperature of the water can change how quick a substance, such as sugar, can dissolve into a liquid form or substance solution and we used different types of scientific equipment to perform this experiment.

The creative task that we were set was to measure 100ml of cold water into a beaker using our knowledge of meniscus to determine an accurate measurement. Then, using a scale or weighing machine, we calculated exactly 10 grams of sugar on a petri dish disregarding the weight of the petri dish. Once we measured the sugar, we used a thermometer to determine the exact temperature of the water. Then, we poured the sugar into the cold water and used a stopwatch to see how long it took for the sugar to dissolve. We repeated this process for hot water.

I found this science task easy because I am familiar with measurement and performing accurate calculations regarding temperature and specific amounts. I enjoyed this task because I was able to use the different laboratory equipment to perform this experiment and I had a lot of fun recording and comparing results.

The information about the equipment we used can be found recorded and listed on the document above.

The temperature of the cold water was 20 degrees celsius.

The time it took for the sugar to dissolve was 59.66 seconds.

The temperature of the hot water was 75 degrees celsius.

It took 17.10 seconds for the sugar to dissolve.