With our overarching theme of 'Community' 6G has explored living communities within the natural world. We have learnt that there are living things all around us, including under our fingernails!

This term our overarching theme, which we explored in both science and social science was 'Community.' This was an exciting premise which saw the exploration of living things all around us. 

We began with a trip across the road to the Avon River where we drew diagrams of the river environment complete with labels. We discussed the plants and animals which call the river home, and considered the human impact on them. 

We made aquariums from recycled soft drink bottles before our trip, and at the river we stirred up the sediment and filled our aquariums with river water samples. Back in class, after the sediment had settled, we were able to observe the small insects which we collected in our water samples. 

We also looked at the living communities which are so small we can't even see them. We wanted to know if there were micro-organisms living on our skin, so we designed an experiment to test this. Using petri dishes prepared with Agar, we tested a number of different independent variables. Before pressing a finger on the Agar to transfer any micro-organisms from our skin, each group prepared their hands in different ways including washing hands with hot water, soap and drying thoroughly; washing with cold water and shaking dry; not washing hands at all; washing with hand sanitiser.  We  also set one dish aside as a control. Over the following days we were able to watch the bacteria colonies grow and observe them through a microscope. As you can imagine the group that didn't wash their hands showed the most bacteria growth... YUCK!