Making Sherbet

Today we made sherbet. I mixed a part of baking soda, citric acid, raro and icing sugar all together. My hypothesis was that it wouldn’t react to my tongue and that it would just taste sweet. It felt like a big bang when the sherbet touched my tongue. I could feel it fizz and foam all around my mouth. The citrus taste was from the raro and citric acid and the sweetness was from the icing sugar. I think the foaming reaction came from the baking soda.

Science Investigation : Exploring the Chemicals

We are learning about chemical reactions. Today, we mixed different acids with different bases. We used test tubes to place our liquids and teaspoons to collect different acids. To mix the two different things together we used popsicle sticks and a glass beaker.

My hypothesis for citric acid and vinegar together would be for it to fizz up and foam. When we added the vinegar to the citric acid it foamed and turned yellow/brown in colour. It also smelt very bitter from the vinegar.

My hypothesis for the raro and lemon juice was for it to bubble up. What really happened was that the two dissolved. It smelt like orange juice and looked fizzy. The colour of it was very concentrated as well.

My hypothesis for tartaric acid, baking soda and vinegar was for it to fizzy, foam and bubble up. It did exactly what we thought it would. At the bottom of the beaker the baking soda and tartaric acid which wasn’t touched by the vinegar turned crystally and hard.

My hypothesis for chalk, raro and lemon juice was for it to go bubbly and hard. When we poured the acid into the base it didn’t have a very big reaction. When we mixed the two together with a popsicle stick it just dissolved and turned red in colour.

Manaiakalani Student Leaders Conference 2013

Last Friday I was lucky enough to attend the first ever Manaiakalani Student Leaders Conference at Tamaki College. I was one out of four people to represent my school at this years student conference.

When we entered the foyer people handed us schwag bags filled with different goodies. Tamaki College’s hall filled up quickly with different leaders from all the schools in the Manaiakalani cluster. After a quick introduction from Mrs Burt we had to mix and mingle with all the other students there at the conference.

Later, Andrew Patterson had a very inspiring talk about technology and our future. He introduced different websites including TED.com and khanacademy.com. Five students from Tamaki College advertised their business, ‘Geek Cafe’. After their talk we had a delicious morning tea  which was provided by Tamaki College’s Year 13 Catering and Hospitality students. Lunch was also catered by them.

We then did a design challenge provided with smartphones from two people from Telecom, Devon Stewart and Dion Keating. We worked with the students sitting with us at the table which were the leaders from Pt England School. The scavenger hunt was difficult because we had to download different aps and we had to text in our answers. We ended up coming in second place to Stonefields who came first.

Our second challenge was to make a video using the ap dropbox. In our little video we involved our highlight of the day which was how we needed three things to get to our dream job. They then showed all the videos on the big projector.

After a long day at the Manaiakalani Student Leaders Conference for 2013 I learnt about how important it is to have a plan B if your plan A doesn’t work out. Overall, the whole day was very inspiring. It made me think that if you have a goal you’ll need to have a strategy or a plan to get there.