Science experiments you remember from primary school

[letsgomaths]

I used to love it when we did practical science at primary, I'm not sure how much time children have to do this nowadays! Let's share some things we remember doing, here are some of mine:

Finding out what colours make black: putting a black mark on blotting paper, and then putting it in water. The idea that black was made of colours blew my mind.

Testing for acids and alkalis, using (stinky) red cabbage water which changed colour.

Using straws to make a boat, which could hold cargo and float.

Seeing sound: banging a drum to make sugar vibrate on stretched cling film.

Learning about the human body: our teacher brought in actual lamb's lungs!

Lots of experiments with batteries and bulbs.

I remember doing an experiment to see which supermarket's carrier bag was the strongest, by stringing the bag up to a beam in the classroom and putting weights in until the bag broke . I remember the teacher telling us to stand well back, but i can't see health & safety allowing that these days .

I was at primary during the 70's. I don't think scince had been invented grin] we certainly didn't do anything science-related at school. I can remember my amazement at the whole new curriculum when I started at the Girl's grammar - mind blown!

TBH I don't really remember doing much at primary beyond maths and English. We did the occasional bit of painting, some vague history on the Tudors and Stuarts, and rounders. I couldn't believe what my DCs did at primary! There's much to be said for the national curriculum.

I was a primary school during the late 70,s and early 80,s seeline we did do science but more as an after thought I think it was because we had a teacher that they didn't quite know what to do with and he probably liked science I can't remember doing very much tbh.

I remember doing the carrier bag experiment. My friend Louise and I won - we beat the (80's strength) carrier bag. I remember making kites and testing them, also vehicles using elastic bands wound up as power. This last came back to me 30+ years later this Easter as I helped my 8yr old son make a boat to carry an egg across a pond for the school competition.

Ds does actually do a fair bit of active learning at school, his class were doing some experiment using a chalk line and a mirror in the playground this week, they had to follow the line by looking only in the mirror as they are doing stuff to do with light this term. Last term it was volcanoes and they have all made the obligatory fizzing volcano out of soap and string (or whatever).

We did jam jar over a candle. Twice. And as far as I remember nothing else.

Plant in a cupboard.

Our teacher attached a brick on string to the hall ceiling, held it up to his nose and let go and stood very still to demonstrate that it wouldn't quite swing back as far.

Can't see that one getting the go ahead these days!

Those are 2 separate experiments ^.

Not in primary but in secondary we burnt nuts to see the fat content. I went to put the nut on the mounted pin, slipped and the pin (width of a knitting needle) went straight through my thumb. I still have the mark from it......

Dissecting a bull's eye.

Primary in the 70s and early 80s only remember one science experiment when I was about 8 which was taste bud test- sweet, sour areas of the tongue. Primary school was maths, English, country dancing and projects on various things.. occasionally music with bbc radio programmes for schools

I remember standing outside the classroom squeezing an empty plastic pop bottle with a lit cigarette in the end.

The bottle was a lung and it was some kind of anti smoking topic to collect the tar or something...

We did making a spinner with lots of colours, which would look white when spun, to show that white was made up of lots of colours.

Learned about convex and concave mirrors, using spoons.

To learn why we have two ears, we tested our directional hearing. One child would clap, and some others (who were blindfolded) would point at where they thought the sound came from. Then they had to do this while covering an ear: much harder. We made tables and charts of the results.

@JanuarySun That sounds like "Smokey Sue". I saw it in an educational supplies catalogue: a rather creepy-looking doll into which you could put a real cigarette, to show the effects of tar in the lungs. We didn't do that experiment at school!

I remember the teaching saying that the next person to loose a tooth should bring it in ... the first few were rejected then the stronger one was dropped in a glass of coke.

Oh and for taste we had to wear blindfolds and feed each other starburst

We didn't do very much at all about science in infant/junior school. The only thing I can remember was growing beans in jam jars lined with damp blotting paper.

The excitement of Bunsen burners, playing with mercury, carboys of acid and fume cupboards all came with secondary school!