MEET US.. UM FUTURE SCIENTIST

          It’s finally lab session day! And boy were we a mess. Well, not much but a few failed demonstrations (proves that science is all about try-and-error) and last-minute flour (and plasticines) bulk-buying later, it’s safe to say that we’re not doing that hot. Still, all those unavoidable minor mishaps aside, our lab day could be said as a moderate success!

               Our day started as usual, at 6 in the morning (bless the alarm clock..), but instead of setting up at the hall, we set up our apparatus in the lab (right across the hall,) and waited for the arrival of the kids. The aforementioned kids being the selected 30 students who did so well during the previous test (so much genius, future so bright shaaa~~~) who all looked very excited to start the lab session.

            As usual, our resident MC Jia Ming started the session by briefing the students on what activities that will be done, and dividing the students into 3 groups, each headed by 3 of our members ; Tow Jie, Jia Yen, and of course, Jia Ming himself. There were altogether 3 stations with 3 different sets of experiments; the Dancing Raisins, the 'Magical Colored Flame' and Supersaturated Solution. 

Jia Ming is conducting the programme

students were divided into 3 groups

So.... I'll go one by one.

First, 'The Dancing Raisins'. For this experiment, all we need are raisins and a soft drink. Theoretically, raisins are denser than liquid in the soda, so highly initially they sink to the bottom of the glass. the carbonated soft drink releases carbon dioxide bubbles. When these bubbles stick to the rough surface of a raisins, the raisin is lifted. Why is this so? This is because of the increasing in buoyancy. When the raisin reaches the surface, the bubbles pop and the carbon dioxide gase escapes into the air. This causes the raisin to lose buoyancy and sink.This rising and sinking of the raisins continue until most of the carbon dioxide has escaped, the the soda  goes flat. Furthermore, with time the raisins get soggy and becomes too heavy to rise to surface.

Tow Jie is demonstrating 'The Dancing Raisins'

(ouh uh! sorry for any inconvenience)  Sorry guys i cannot upload the video for this experiment as the file is too big. But if you interested to watch it you can go to this link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0LxZXyOOEk


Next we go to the second experiment.. Magical Colored Flame.

Corresponding colored flame:

• Copper acetate : Green
• Potassium iodide : Violet
• Lithium carbonate : Blue
• Strontium nitrate : Red
• Sodium chloride : Yellow

The materials we needed in this experiment are, beaker, ethanol and metal or metal salts as mention above. Basically, when a metal or metal salts is added to a flame, a combustion reaction ensues. This reaction excites an electron in the metal from its ground state to a higher orbital. In order to return to its ground state, the electron releases the additional energy in the form of light. Different metal electrons emit different wavelengths of light to return to their respective ground states,. Therefore the flame colors are varied. These flames can be used to produce atomic emission spectra of the elements combusted. Using known values of emission spectra, one can perform a flame test on an unknown substance by gather an emission spectrum from it, and determine which elements are presence in the particular unknown substance.

                 

                       Jia Ming is explaining about the substances used

Next, Supersaturated Solution. What is supersaturated solution?? There is a point when a solution contains more solute than the solvent can dissolve. This solution is known as a supersurated solution. You normally cannot see the solute in a solution because it is fully dissolved. You are able to see the solute in a supersaturated solution because all of the solute doesn't fully dissolve into the solvent. I bet I can bring to a mind a supersaturated solution that has come across your life. Think about making lemonade. Lemonade contains water, lemon juice, and sugar. Water is the solvent, and both the lemon juice and sugar are the solutes. Maybe the lemons you used were extra tart, so you can decide to add more sugar to offset the tart taste. As you continue to add sugar, you will reach the point where the solution cannot contain any more sugar. If you continue to add sugar past this point, then there will be too much sugar to dissolve into the water. You ended up with lemonade that wasn’t sweet enough for you, and it has sugar floating in it rather than dissolved in it.

                

our crew are explaining about the solution

           After the students had gone through all the stations, they were (again) given a test to be answered as a group. Though this time the test was much different than the previous test, no more MCQ only subjective, and the difficulty level was much much higher because (surprise!) there were hampers to be won! And the team with the highest marks will receive the first place hamper and so forth. There’re actually hampers for all groups so yeayyy everyone’s a winner!

the students are very focus in answering the quiz

              The second part of our lab session started after the students (and us) finished their recess, and it’s time for volcanooo! As mentioned before (see paragraph 1 line 1-2), our volcano preparation demonstration/s failed a few times (hey, try-and-error remember?) but alas we finally get the gist of it and managed to show the students how it’s really done. And then we asked them to do create, shape and construct the volcano (in their previous groups) according to their group creativity. And then we asked them to present what in the world does their volcanoes represent (one group brings forth human flesh etc. as we watched in horror. Kids nowadays…). 

group 1 volcano

group 2 volcano

group 3 volcano

         In this amazing and interesting experiment, we need materials such as, water, vinegar or HCl, dish detergent, food coloring and baking soda or NaOH. When the model has been built, the students put all the materials except for the baking soda into the volcano. When they were ready for an eruption, they add the baking soda into it. The baking soda will react with the vinegar and this will cause the eruption. It's quite interesting experiment and can be carried out at home. Try it and you can see volcano eruption just in front of our eyes :)

        After the experiment, we asked the representative from each group to present about their volcano model. Yeah they're funny and happy kids. From that presentation we could hear a various type of volcano names that we never heard before. Kids just being kids :p

group 1

group 2

group 3

      Creativity (and marks of previous test) decided the winner of the day and the kids in Group 2 (Jia Ming’s gaggle of children) brings home the first-place hamper, though other groups also won hampers, just…first place, man. That’s a legit bragging right for decades to come, so congratulation Jia Ming’s kids! Wohooo!

group 2 as the CHAMPION !!!

group 1 as the first runner up

group 3 as the second runner up

CONGRATULATIONS KIDS. YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!!

Before we went back, our leader, Chng Chuang Yi on the behalf of our group gave a souvenir for the school administration. We have nothing much to give but we do appreciate all the opportunities that have been given to us. Thank you for everything SMK Damansara Jaya !

      Alas, our programe came to an end, and the kids and us parted with good memories and exchange of very valuable knowledge. Goodbye kids, let’s no see each other again yeah? You guys are so tiring to deal with. Just kidding : P See you kids at UM in a few more years

see you again :)



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That's all from me, and for your information mostly I'm not in the pictures as I'm so busy all the time taking pictures (yeah I'm the camera woman). So till then from me, Fatin Nur Haziqah. See you. Bye Bye

so... this is me :p