Yew Wah

Science Club Newsletter

27th June 2013 Volume 1, Issue 1

Inside this issue:

A letter from the Club Moderator Introduction
1

A Letter from the Club Moderator Teacher Mary

seven students signed up for science club; five from IGCSE I (Aoka, Ann, Grace Lan, Luna and Sophia) and two from IGCSE II (May and Laura). Later on, two more students (Jack and Stella) joined in the club. IGCSE II students couldnt participate due to their CIE Exams. All the other seven students worked cooperatively as a team. Every one happily agreed to write an article on one of the science activities that they have completed. They took on responsibilities to publish this news letter even though they had final exams ahead. I hope this will be a very good experience for the students and would like to encourage more students to be part of the science club in the coming years. Thank you, Mrs. Mary Sujatha Biology Teacher.

2 A frogs digestive system and its eyes

Making agar plates

My feelings about the 3 Science Club Making recycled paper Lets bake bread! Epilogue
3

The Group Members of the Science Club.

Dear All, 3 I am happy to announce that we have published our first science club news letter. Although we have had science clubs over the past several years, we havent been able to publish any newsletters like this until now. This semester we have had a bunch of enthusiastic students in our science club. Originally

Science Club Editorial Staff

Editor

I hope this will be a very good experience for the students and would like to encourage more students to be part of the science club in the coming years.

Grace & Luna

Publisher

Stella & Ann

Designer

Introduction
On every Tuesday we go to the Biology lab to do our experiments during the After School Activities sessions. During the first week, we made our Weekly plan for the next seven weeks. On each week we scheduled different activities. While we were doing our plan, our IGCSE II students suggested doing a rat dissection. Unfortunately we could not do it, but instead we did a frog dissection. We were very excited to do all these fascinating experiments. After we finished making a plan, we still had some more time left. So we made a Science club poster together. It was good. I am looking forward to doing some more interesting Science activities in the coming year. I love this Science club and I think everyone had the same feeling.

Aoka & Sophia

Distributor

Jack & Sophia

By: Aoka Yamamoto, IGCSE 1 A

Page 2

The Science Club News Letter

A Frogs digestive system and its eyes

First of all we had two live frogs to dissect. Most of the members were girls, but we were brave enough to touch and cut the flesh and muscles by ourselves. The first step was to anaesthetize the frogs with alcohol. Then we inserted air with a syringe in between their 2 eyes to kill them. For the first frog, we opened its belly to see the digestive system. It was very clear where the organs were located. In addiMost of the members were girls, but we were brave enough to touch and cut the flesh. tion, it was very helpful to us as we were learning about the digestive system in our class. The second frog was there to show us its eyes. Consequently, we removed the head and excised one of its eyes. Teacher Mary helped us to take out its lens as it needed to be done with care. To see how frogs were looking at things, we put its lens on a piece of paper. Then we figured out what the word magnified meant and it was amazing to see everything bigger through a frogs lens. The smell they gave out was not pleasant at all and it made us feel uncomfortable. Although it was a little cruel and scary to dissect frogs, it was an amazing and worthwhile experiment after all. I personally enjoyed it a lot! Special thanks and apologies to the frogs. :) By: Sophia Son, IGCSE 1B
The Dissection of a frog.

It was a good experience for me.

Making an Agar Plate

During the second week, we prepared Agar plates. Agar plates are a commonly used food medium for microbial cultures. Work sheets were given by teacher Mary with the prescribed procedure to follow. We followed the steps to prepare Agar plates. It took a long time to boil the Agar mixture because we used an alcohol lamp instead of a Bunsen burner. Finally, we could boil the Agar mixture and poured it into petri dishes until it cooled down. Then we put different samples, like tap water, saliva, aquarium water and hand samples on the Agar medium. We left these plates in the incubator. After three days we observed the Agar plates and noticed a lot of Bacterial growth on the Agar plates. It was amazing. I wish I could do this experiment again if I had a chance. It was a good experience for me. By: Ann An IGCSE 1B
The Group Members Making an agar plate.

Volume 1, Issue 1

Page 3

My feelings about the Science Club

Im glad to have participated in this exciting Science club. We have done so many things, such as observations of a frogs digestion system and eye lens. Besides this, we recycled paper, made bread, and observed growing Agar Plates. Although I did not attend while people were making an Agar Plate for the growth of bacteria, Im sure this was a new experience and an unbelievably exciting process for everyone who participated. I was one of the members who dissected a frogs digestion system; it was an extreme thriller for me, maybe for others too. Recycling the paper was successful, although we used more paper than expected. It was a new experience and I learned new information that we could never have known. Whats more, we made bread for our interesting party, and it was okay. (I think!) Overall, I was absolutely satisfied with this club. I dont know whether I can attend this kind of club again, but I hope this club will be here next year for new students and us. I would appreciate it if we could do this again. I express my gratitude to science club members and our most hard working teacher Mary. Overall, I was absolutely satisfied with this club I hope this club will be here next year for new students and us. By: Jack Wang, IGCSE 1B

Jack doing his work

Making recycled paper

To make recycled paper, we put the newspaper all together with water and we needed to shave newspapers more finely with a mixer. After we filtered the newspaper liquid, we put green and red dyes on it. Next, we mixed the dyed newspaper. Once more, we filtered the newspapers through a sieve so we could make it softer. When we finished this step, we put the newspapers into a special rectangular frame and tried to soak up the water from the newspaper. Following this, we dried the newspaper between 2 dry pieces of paper. Finally, we put weight on to the paper to maintain its flat shape and strength. Through making recycled paper, I now feel that we need to save our paper. Wasting paper will always lead to many harmful problems. By: Luna Lim, IGCSE 1B

Lets Bake Bread! Our Final Activity Day

Our finale was a party! To bake chocolate bread, we needed to prepare eggs, Ghana chocolate, sugar, oil, water, flour, and baking powder. Thankfully, these were mostly provided by teacher Mary and our generous classmate Luna. The procedure for making the dough smoothly continued on as before. We were having fun and enjoying making it. However, baking it in the oven took too much time. Inside, the bread was not baked, although the upper surface of it was already burned. Its flavor was satisfactory, but I thought we needed to put more chocolate in it. The quality of the bread that we made was a little wanting. Anyway, we had a happy and joyful time on this day to celebrate our last day of our science club activities. By: Stella Park, IGCSE 1B
The club members making bread.

Page 4

The Science Club News Letter

More Pictures!!
FROM OUR SCIENCE CLUB!!!!!!!

Boiling the agar

mixture

the ba Eating

ad ked bre

ogs eye Lens from the fr

Members of the club

Culture d bacter ia

Epilogue
This years Science club has been exciting. We did a variety of experiments and everyone was able to participate in it. We ended our Science club with a little bubble carnival. We put cleaning detergent on our hands and made fabulous bubbles! It was not a planned activity, but we had fun doing it and really enjoyed it. Now, at the end of the school year, we would like to express our gratitude towards our school, which has been very supportive; Teacher Mary, who came up with all those wonderful ideas, Teacher Wendy and the support department, which provided us the materials that we needed, and Teacher Maridith, who gave us useful suggestions, and also Teacher Chris, who helped us with the grammar and writing. We truly appreciate everything that they have done for us. Moreover, I would like to thank all our group members who really tried their best to create this newsletter. I hope that we can continue our Science club in the next school year!! By: Grace Lan, IGCSE 1B

Playing with bubbles.

We did a variety of experiments and everyone was able to participate in it.