What’s happening in Year 4 – Week 4

To celebrate Science Week, year 4 investigated an enquiry linked to their current unit of work, States of Matter.

Their key question was: How does the number of pieces of chocolate affect the melting rate?

The children used their prior knowledge of melting and changing states to help them make a prediction about what they expected to find by the end of the enquiry. Some thought that the number of pieces would have a small impact on the melting rate, as the microwave produces quite a lot of heat in short spaces of time; others thought that the melting rate would significantly increase with the number of pieces of chocolate.

The class were split into 5 groups and shared the responsibility of timing, stirring and recording the results. Once all groups had finished, they shared their results and used the outcomes to spot patterns and make further predictions. The children found that the time did generally increase with the quantity of chocolate, however one result didn’t quite fit the pattern. They thought about why this could be and decided that there are many factors, like the handling of the chocolate before the enquiry and the heat inside the microwave after it had been used a few times, that could have affected these results.

The class presented their findings in bar graph, which clearly show the patterns and anomalies that were discovered.