ingridscience

Discussion of what wind is and does: wind is moving air.
Wind is measured by where it comes from. Wind comes from different directions at different times, and brings us different weather.
Make a wind vane to find out where the wind is coming from.

Tape two washers/coins near to the point of the triangle without sticking over the sides (for weight).
Balance the cardboard flat on your finger to find the balance point, then tape a tube over the balance point with the open end facing the outer edge of the cardboard.
Put a skewer inside the tube/pen cap, to make a pivot, and hold the wind vane up to catch the wind. The point of the triangle will face the way the wind is coming from.

Use a compass to check for exactly which way the wind is coming from.

Look at live interactive map of Earth’s winds and find your place on it: https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-…

Temperature tells us how hot or cold it is.
Use a thermometer to measure temperature.

Optional: show chart of Vancouver temperature going up and down with the seasons.

You will each use a thermometer to measure temperatures.
Show the bulb that measures the temperature, which must be surrounded by the thing you want to measure the temperature of.

Start by measuring air temperature in the classroom, to check students are able to read the thermometers correctly.
Optional: write up/graph results and discuss why they are slightly different - air temperature varies slightly around the classroom; my thermometer are not the best, so are not calibrated so accurately.

Then do other temperature measurements:

The temperature of their finger, by placing their finger over the bulb of the thermometer. The bulb can be cooled again by blowing on it. This is useful for seeing the temperature rise, then fall, rapidly.

The temperature of hot and iced water (in insulated cups if you don't want the temperature to change quickly).
Optional: add salt to iced water to make it even colder (can be combined with the frost activity and use a metal can).

The outside air temperature (may be with another outside activity).

Optional: talk about digital thermometers, that look different from these ones, that are in weather stations and other equipment.

Print out the spot and cross image, or use the photo above.
Cover your right eye and hold the spot and cross image at arm’s length (or put your head at arms length from the computer screen), with your nose centred between the spot and the cross.
Stare at the cross, then slowly move the paper towards you/move your head towards the computer screen. Keep staring at the cross all the time; keep your nose centred; keep your eye covered.
When the paper /screen is 20-30cm away from your face, the spot disappears, as the spot is over the blind spot of your left eye.
This can be a tricky activity for some students - make sure you are staring at the cross the whole time.

The opposite can be done: cover your left eye, and stare at the circle while moving towards the image. The cross will disappear as it moves over the blind spot of your right eye.

We have a blind spot in each of our eyes where the optic nerve passes through the retina in the back of the eye. There are no light-sensitive cells in this area so it can not make images.

Hold the laser pointer up to the lens, and show how the light bends as it emerges from the lens.
The lens in our eye does the same thing, to project light from what we are looking at onto the back of our eye.

Use the lens to magnify newsprint or other small things.
(The lens in our eye can do the same thing).

Hold the lens in front of a white piece of paper to project an inverted view of a window or a bright light.
(The lens in our eye does the same thing).

Students look at their eye in the mirror.
Ask them to find their pupil. That is where the light comes in. It looks black because no light comes out again.
Find the iris, the coloured part. This is a muscle that opens and closes the pupil. What colour is your iris? What colour is your neighbour’s iris? Different people have different coloured iris muscles.
Students can find other parts of their eye e.g. eyelashes, sclera (white of the eye), eyelids.

Students can draw their eye.

We regulate how much light is coming into our eye by changing the size of the hole, the pupil.
Look at your eye in the mirror. Move the flashlight onto your pupil, then away, watching it.
Look for the pupil changing size. It should get smaller when the light shines on it, and larger when the light moves away.

Please note that in a class of students it is likely that one of them is at least partially colourblind (1 in 12 males are colourblind). As this is an activity distinguishing colours, these students will not be able to tell some colours apart and perceive some colours differently. The common red/green colour blindness means reds and greens (or colours containing reds and greens such as browns) look similar. More information at colourblindawareness.org and colorblindguide.com/post/the-advantage-of-being-colorblind.

Activity 1: Stare at the red and green cross for 20 seconds, then look at some blank white paper. Try not to blink after you move your gaze.

Activity 2: Stare at the black spot in the centre of the red circle for 20 seconds. Then slowly move the image away from your eyes, still staring at the black spot. You will see the inverse colour (light blue, or cyan) appearing as a halo around red circle.

The cells sensitive to a particular colour get tired when you stare at one colour for along time and stop sending signals to the brain. When you put white into the same field of view (either by moving your gaze, or by moving the image away from you), all the colour cells are now stimulated. The tired cells send a weak signal and the other cells send a strong signal, so you see the inverse colour from the original colour stared at.
(Staring at green makes green cells tires. Red and blue cells give a strong signal, perceived as magenta; inverse of red is blue and green giving cyan. Inverse of blue is red and green giving yellow).

Activity 3: Try making your own shapes from one or two bold colours. Use the method in activity 1 or 2 to play with colour perception.

About colourblindness:
About 1 in 12 men (8%) and 1 in 200 women in the world are colourblind, though not all the cases are extreme, and someone might not even realise they have partial colourblindness. Colour blindness is usually from a genetic cause (in your DNA and inherited from parents). The most common kind is red/green colourblindness, and is partial or complete loss of sensitivity to red and green colours. In the more extreme cases (protanopia - loss of red, and deuteranopia - loss of green) colours containing red or green appear yellow or brown, and blues and purples are confused. Less extreme cases (deuteranomaly - partial loss of green) are most common, where reds appear browner and purples appear bluer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness#/media/File:Color_blindne…
Find out what it is like to be colour blind: http://www.colourblindawareness.org