My class has been learning, and experimenting with plants. We had to come up with a question to experiment with. My group decided that we would, instead of providing our plants with plain water, we would provide our plants with salt water. My hypothesis was that if we put salt in the water, then the plants would die because the salt would soak up the water. Our controlled plant has plain water, sunlight, fertilizer, soil, and two seeds. The manipulated, has salt, water, sunlight, fertilizer, soil, and two seeds.

Our controlled plant grew 3 ½ cm over the past week. The plant has always been green. Now, the plant is medium sized and is leaning a little to its side because of its weight. Before our manipulated died, the salt water made it stop growing. Our plant kept shrinking, but then it grew up to 6 cm. Our manipulated plant was green, but the stems started turning white. The plant slowly dropped lower and lower as the days went by, and eventually, the plant died and was not standing up at all.

This is a picture of our controlled plant and manipulated plant. The controlled plant is the one that is green and healthy, the manipulated is the one that is drooping a lot.

What we did today that worked was we got the train across the track! We put two strip magnets on the edges of the track. That allowed the train to run smoothly. On the train, we put two strip magnets aligned with the strip magnets on the track. Before we tested it, we made sure that the all of the magnets had the same pole facing each other.

What we did today that failed was that the edges of the magnets on the train, attracted to the edges on the magnets on the tracks. Because of that, I learned that even the edges of the strip magnets are magnetic. To fix the error, we moved the magnets on the tracks toward the middle of the tracks a tiny bit. This aligned the magnets on the train to the magnets on the tracks perfectly!

In our next design, we are putting weights on our trains. We have to improve our train so that it works with weights on it. My goal for next session is to put more strip magnets on top of the other strip magnets on the tracks. This way, the force of the magnets on the bottom will be stronger. Hopefully, it will work and be able to hold the weights!

A maglev train is a train that “floats” or levitates. This is possible because if you face two like poles towards each other that causes them to repel. Therefor, the magnet on the top, levitates. My group’s idea was that we could put three strip magnets on the track, and a disc magnet on each corner of the train.

What I did today that worked was that the train levitated above the tracks. This means that the magnets were facing each other the right way. What I did today that failed was that when I gave the train a little tap, it moved a little bit, but then stopped. We need to find a way to get the train all the way across the track.

My experience working with my group was good. We all did a great job of taking our turns of sharing our ideas.What was challenging for my group was agreeing on our final idea. Eventually, we came up with our idea. Overall, I think my group did a good job!

This is my expert book about cats. I chose this topic because I have a cat at home so I know a lot about them.

I had to think about what I do for my cat, and what he likes and doesn’t like. Then I had to make my chapters. When I was done making my chapters, I started writing them. I thought about the facts that I needed to know to care for my cat. I figured out a way to put them into my book. For my pictures, I found pictures that matched my writing. I wrote captions that matched my pictures.

I enjoyed putting all I knew about cats into my book and finding really cute pictures! What was challenging was writing detailed captions.

I hope you learn a lot about cats from my book and that you enjoy reading it!