P7 go to the bingo!

P7 played multiplication bingo today to practise times tables.  Melissa did well by winning twice with James winning the other game.

Mr C

Holiday Reading: The first review

Oliver in P7 read "Codes: How to make them and break them" over the October holiday.  Here is his review.  "I really liked the "Murderous Maths" book because it's not only fun to read it's also educational.  Two things that I learnt was that codes are sometimes hidden in pictures to open safes and they can also be in words, letters and symbols."  Thanks Oliver, a brick on the wall for you.

Here are some more facts for you!  Victory in World War Two relied heavily on the British breaking codes sent by the Germans via the Enigma machine.  The most important code-breakers were mathematicians.  Also, did you know that the biggest employer of mathematicians in the world is the US secret services?

:)

Mr C

Big Cat Diary

Higher Biology have been studying pack and territorial behaviour, competition, adaptations and "survival of the fittest" etc. On friday we used the clips from Big Cat to look at lots of examples. You can keep up with what's happening on http://www.bbc.co.uk/bigcat/ and watch the action from iplayer. This is a picture of a Cheetah from their website and they have been following her and her cubs over the past week (not for the soft hearted!)

Holiday reading

Hooray, hooray, it's a holiday!  Some of P7 were concerned that they would be bored over the holidays and are going to occupy themselves with some "Murderous Maths" books they've borrowed from the school.  These books have got many children into maths like never before.  When they've finished their books they'll be blogging or presenting to the class some new facts they've learned.  You can get the books here on Amazon.

Have a great holiday!

Mr C

Strawberry Fayre

Today we visited the Cardwell Centre for our growing plants topic. We looked at mother of thousands with their runners, other indoor plants and then chose this lovely strawberry plant to plant in our school garden - we are looking forward to having them with cream next year!

DNA Extraction

S2/3 Biology extracted DNA from a kiwi fruit today.

Pealed kiwi fruit, washing up liquid and salt were placed into a freezer bag.

Gabriella and Megan are making sure the kiwi fruit is well crushed.

The freezer bag and contents were then placed in a water bath for 5 minutes.



The contents of the freezer bag were then filtered, as demonstrated by Craig and Daniel.



Ethanol was very carefully added to the filtrate.


Deborah, Robyn and Rebecca with their test tube of filtrate.

The DNA is suspended in the top layer, you can see this if you look very closely!

Prime Time?

The other story currently on the 'Numbers in the News' board is the discovery of the world's largest prime number which has over 13 million digits! (BBC story here).  A prime number can only be divided by itself and 1.  What possible use is that information I hear you cry?  Well, if it wasn't for prime numbers we wouldn't have internet security.  When you make a purchase online your details are kept secure by a process called encryption and it all relies on very large prime numbers.  S3/4 have been looking at encryption in Computing.

Many year ago an Egyptian dude called Eratosthenes found a good way of finding primes - get rid of the ones that aren't!  S1 followed in his footsteps.  In the grid above all the multiples of 2, 3, 5 and 7 are coloured red.  The numbers in white are all prime numbers.  Voila!

Mr C

New Head Boy/Girl

Last week Cedars School voted for our Head Boy and Head Girl for the session 2008/2009. The results were close but in the end the winners were David Ostrowski (Head Boy!) and Jennifer Mole (Head Girl!) Congratulations to them both. This week we will be voting in House captains for our various houses. The house captains and Head Boy/Girl will together make up our school council. This is a pupil council that meets with Mrs Speirs and staff each week to discuss and make decisions on a wide variety of issues affecting the school. Any pupils with an issue they would like to raise at the school council should take it to their House Captain.

Mr J:)

The Q.E.2 Leaves Greenock!

Yesterday the Q.E.2 visited Greenock for the last time. She is on her way to Dubai to become a hotel and she sailed up the Clyde to Greenock yesterday morning and stayed with us the whole day. Many of us went down to see one of the most famous ships ever to be built on the Clyde. At night, before the boat left there was a fantastic fireworks display and thousands gathered on the esplanade to watch, including many of us!

Mr J :)

Numbers in the News

"Numbers in the News" is a new display in the maths classroom and it does exactly does what it says on the tin!  Any news stories which highlight the importance of maths or numbers in everyday life will make it onto the display.  One current story reports the 10th birthday of Google.  Did you know that when you 'google' something the web pages are ranked according to a mathematical formula devised by its creators?  Stick in at your maths and you could set up a company that makes $4 billion dollars in a year!  See the full story here.  

Please e-mail any similar stories you may have to ac@cedars.inverclyde.sch.uk.  

Alternatively, pupils can bring newspaper or magazine cuttings to put up on the display.  A house brick will be awarded for any story that makes it onto the wall!

Thanks to Chloe of S1 for pointing us to the display.

Mr C

Periodic Table of Elements

S2 Chemists have been studying patterns in the periodic table.  One of the highlights was reacting lithium and sodium with water.  Mrs Speirs will be pleased to know we were not able to react caesium, you can see why if you watch the video below.

S2 also enjoyed the following song by Tom Lehrer, circa 1959.

If you are interested in finding out more about the periodic table you can look at the following website.

http://www.rsc.org/chemsoc/visualelements/PAGES/pertable_fla.htm

Even more food tests

we were testing for starch.It turned iodine solution from a brown colour to a blue black. cheesey picture Lara

More food tests

I was testing if there was protein in dried skimmed milk. I used Biurets Reagent. It started out blue and changed to a purple colour. This tells me that there is protein in the milk. Rebecca

Food Tests

Me and Iain were trying to see if our solution contained a simple sugar by testing it with Benedicts solution. It started off blue then when it was heated it changed to a brick red colour.

Olympics Report

S3 Chemistry

We have been looking at the uses of plastics and synthetic fibres.

Carbon Fibre helped team GB win 12 medals in the velodrom. It is used in the manufacture of cylcing helmets, brakes and chain rings. Javelins, racing cars, golf clubs and yacht masts can also be made from carbon fibre.


Making Waves ...
Teflon
Speedo won the battle of Beijing with more than 90% of the swimmers donning its LZR costume, cotated in water resistant Teflon. Teflon is also used in the manufacture of GoreTex and non-stick frying pans!


Silicon, Latex and Lycra are used to make swimming caps and cycling shorts.



Moving on to the winter olympics
Poly(ethene)
The most popular plastic in the world is used in manufacturing snowboards and skis.


It is also used to make bulletproof vests, knee and hip replacements, milk bottles and shopping bags - WOW!

Polymerisation - Nylon Rope Trick!

Food glorious food!

S2 were investigating how much energy is present in food. Here they are carrying out their experiments. They tested bread, cheddars and wotsits and found that the cheddars had the most energy. Of course those of us who diet know that cheddars have lots of fat in them this gives them a higher energy content that carbohydrate alone.