Rats and Fleas

RATS + FLEAS 

SPREAD DIAGRAM 

BASIC BODY PARAGRAPH - 

 During the pandemic, ‘The black death’ over 2 thirds of the population were killed by the plague. But what spread the plague and where did it come from? This is where rats and fleas come in as they were how The Black Death became so deadly. There were multiple ways of catching the plague but the most common was catching it from direct contact with a person who is infected with the plague. But for that person to become ill in the first place, they would have caught it off of fleas, fleas would bite the rats suck out their blood which is carrying the plague then jump onto a human and barf it all up into the person’s bloodstream. Infected people would then spread the plague through trading ports and the plague soon spread all throughout Europe. It started when 12 ships from the Black Sea docked at the Sicilian port of Messina within 3 years there was no place safe from the black plague. If a plague like the black death were to come about nowadays it would be less infectious as we have better hygiene rather than people living in the 13th century. During the 13th-century people would throw their droppings onto the streets this attracted rats who loved the dirt and grime, this caused there to millions of rats making the plague spread like wildfire. The more rats, the more fleas, the more rats and fleas the more people got infected, the more people got infected the more it would spread and the more people would die from this tragic pandemic. 

Evaporation Experiment

We have tried filtering to get a solid out of a liquid but this time we can't see the solid because it is dissolved in the liquid. If we heat up the solution then the solvent will evaporate off and we will be left with the solute. 

AIM - To use evaporation to separate a solution into a solvent and solute. 

HYPOTHESIS - I think that the water will evaporate and that the copper sulfate will be left in the bottom of the beaker in a cluggy state. 

EQUIPMENT - 

Copper sulfate solution, 250mL Beaker, heatproof mat, evaporating basin, element.

METHOD -

1. Set up element

2. Add 100mL of hot water to the beaker and place it on the element.

3. Add copper sulfate to the evaporating basin until it is quarter full.

4. Carefully, place the evaporating basin on top of the beaker. 

5. Turn on the element to 3

6. Heat the solution until most of the solvent has been evaporated and crystals of solute are forming. 

7. Turn off the element- be careful not to touch, as it will be hot for a long time.

COPPER SULFATE SOLUTION - 

Solvent - Water 

Solute - Copper sulfate 

Cannabis!

A few weeks ago we started a new topic in health, this was the discovery topic. For this topic, we got to choose what the topic was going to be. I decided on cannabis as I thought it was fitting as I started back when there was a referendum on legalizing cannabis. We started off by creating 5 big questions that we were going to answer in this presentation, my five big questions being,  What is cannabis? Why would people be for/against cannabis?, What are the positive and negative outcomes of cannabis? who does cannabis affect? How do we minimize harm? What are the short and long-term effects of cannabis? Afterward, we gather some information so that I could answer the questions properly. Next was the fun part where we got to choose how we presented our learning, for this I decided to make a site using carrd. Altogether this was a really fun task and I learned a lot about cannabis and the health risks that may occur. 

                                                                     (PHOTO LINK)

Water Safety!

 Next week we are going on 3 exciting eotc days to celebrate the end of the year and the hard work we have put in. Over the three days, we will be going to Jellie Park, Adrenalin Forest, Christchurch city. To be prepared for these fun days we are doing a task around that specific place, I choose to do a task around jellie park. Jellie Park is an awesome place but it can also be dangerous, that is why I created a poster with rules around water safety! 

Distillation!

Evaporation is the process of turning a liquid into a gas by adding heat. When you add heat to the liquid the kinetic energy in the heat makes the particles in the liquid move around faster causing the particles to move farther apart, turning the liquid into a gas. Condensation is the opposite of evaporation, it is the process of turning gas into a liquid by cooling the gas. This is something we can see on our windows as the warm air from inside touches the cold air from outside it creates little drops of water on your windows, this is condensation. 

AIM - To separate a solute from a solvent in a solution using distillation. 

EQUIPMENT - 

Coca-cola, Conical flask, Heatproof mat, a delivery tube and bung, Bunsen burner, Tripod, Gauze mat, Retort stand, Boss head and clamp, Boiling tube. 

METHOD - 

Step 1 - Set up the equipment as shown in the diagram below.

Step 2 - Add approximately 50ml of coke to your conical flask

Step 3 - Light your bunsen burner open the air hole and slowly push the bunsen burner under the tripod. 

Step 4 - Heat the solution until most of the solvent has been evaporated, then turn off your bunsen burner. 

HYPOTHESIS - 

Once the liquid part of coke (water) has been evaporated i think that there will be a sludgy mess left in the bottom of the conical flask, my guess is that this will be the flavoring for the coke and the sugar. 

RESULTS - 

As we turned the orange flame to blue the coke zero inside the conical flask heated up very quickly and was boiling in no time, along with the massive bubbles there was also lots of condensation gathering on the glass. attached to the conical flask was the tube thing wich slowly started pumping small amounts of clear liquid into the test tube that was dumped into a beaker full of ice. Coming out of the test tube was a ongoing stream of smoke. During the 20mins the coke zero slowly went down till there was barely any left, the colour was now almost black kinda like soy sauce but a shade darker. When all the water evaporated from the coke what was left was a small puddle of inky black. 

CONCLUSION -  

Serial Dilution!

 AIM - To do a serial dilution.

METHOD - 

1 - Grab 6 test tubes and fill 5 of them with 5ml of water, and 1 tube with 10ml 

2- Add-in potassium permanganate into the tube with 10ml of water. 

3- Move 5ml from test tube one (The one with the potassium permanganate)  into test tube 2 and so on until you get to the last test tube. 

MATERIALS- 

1 - 6 test tubes
2 - Test tube stand 
3 - 35ml of water 
4- Measuring tube 
5 - Dropper thingy 
6 - Potassium Permanganate 

HYPOTHESIS - 

My hypothesis is that the original color of the potassium permanganate (purple) will slowly dilute to almost no colour at all, I think that it will be mostly clear but will have a tint of purple that you can see clearly but isn't as strong as the original colour. 

RESULTS - 

The end result was like a gradient amongst the test tubes, test tube number one being the most concentrated because it had lots of potassium permanganate, and then test tube number  6 being the most diluted, it was almost a clear color with a hint of purple meaning it had hardly any potassium permanganate particles in the diluted solution and had more water particles. 

Mixing and Separating

For today's 2 hours of science, we are doing two in one experiment! We are going to make our own mixture then we are going to create a filter to filter the mixture we are creating.

KEYWORDS -  

solvent - The thing doing the dissolving (Liquid)
solute -  The thing being dissolved (Solid)
Solution - The mixture that has formed
filtration - Separates particles based on size
filtrate - liquid after it has been filtered
mixture - 2 or more substances together
solubility - ability to dissolve

AIM - 
To separate a solution from a precipitate (Precipitate is the name for a solid that forms in a liquid during a chemical reaction.)

MATERIALS - 

Copper sulfate
Sodium carbonate
Beaker
Funnel
Filter paper
Conical flask
Stirring Rod 

METHOD - 

1 - Add 50ml of sodium carbonate + copper sulfate into your beaker.

2- Mix the two liquids together with your stirring rod.

3- fold your filter paper into quarters and fold it out so it is in a funnel shape and slip it into the funnel. 

4 - Place your funnel and filter paper into the conical flask 

5- Pour in your mixture from the beaker and watch the magic happen! 

RESULTS - 

We added 50ml of each (Sodium Carbonate which was clear and colorless + copper sulfate still clear but had a twinge of light blue) They are both clear but when mixed together become an opaque blue. When the mixture was filtered the filtrate came out clear and colorless just like how the sodium carbonate had started off. What was left were the bigger particles that couldn't get through the filter paper and had become solid. The particles that remained on the top became a very gluggy texture that reminded me of glue, which was unlike the liquid filtrate. Though the remains on the top were really chunky, almost a slimy texture the filtrated mixture came out in a steady flow of drips that joined the transparent liquid down the bottom. The filtrate was the sodium carbonate and the blue solid was the copper sulfate.