Newker Primary School The use of ICT to link with other schools to enhance Science.

Summary of Content This is an excellent example of how the school have used the internet to create science e-pal links with a school in Australia. The whole community (pupils, teachers and parents) exchanged ideas, planned new activities and tested theories suggested by each other. It includes some great ideas on how to take this forward in the future too, using video links. Look out for their “Water down the plughole” investigation!

What the school says We had previously used e-pals in Australia for a Geography project but this time, there was an added science twist. Our Year Three children linked with Grade Two pupils in Australia, who were also studying magnets as children had expressed an interest in this. The activities included: –weekly s from pairs of children. –questioning and science communication. –exchanging photos of science work. –involvement of parents via homework investigation.

The impact for our school was..... This was a very worthwhile project and proved exciting for children, parents/carers and staff! We found that making e-pals resulted in cross-curricular enrichment not only within science and lCT, but also literacy and geography. It also deepened science learning when communicating to others using ICT. Australian children made a magnet maze and so did we. This was then shared with children in our Reception classes during science week, reinforcing their understanding.

Science Subject Leaders Comments The science e-pals project generated a lot of excitement and each morning children enthusiastically checked their s. A homework link meant that many parents were just as excited to be involved. The exchange of ideas between schools, using lCT, resulted in classes planning and carrying out new activities suggested by their e-pals. If you are interested in making links with a school in another country try contacting :- or

- Example 1 hi our names are D and C C likes swimmng and playing with frisbys and looking in books D likes swimming and playing board games do you call sweets lollys do you have toys do you have pets do you have houses we live in chester le street Dear D and C we do have toys and we do have a house and we call sweet lollies lollies we both have a dog. from B and S. Dear B and S how do you get water? do you have taps? hav you seen a kangaroo? From C and D Hello This is C. D isn't at school today. I am wearing blue clothes today because it is non uniform day usually I have a red uniform. have you got a magnet that floats on a pot of water? we have and it always points north. From C

- Example 2 Dear J & K In our science session, we have learnt about what is attracted to magnets & what is not attracted to magnets.There are lots of types of magnets like the Horse shoe magnet that is shaped like a horse shoe. With the Bar magnets, if you attract north with south, they are instantly attracted other than if you put north with north or south with south, they push against each other to move away because they are not oposites. We discovered that if you have things that are titanium (that is a type of metal used on planes ) is not attracted to magnets other than metal poles or staples, arer attracted to magnets. As you can see, some metals are attracted by magnets & some magnets aren't. What conclusions did you come up with? Do many forms of ice crystals form in England ? How did you make the fridge? PS: THANKS FOR THE PHOTO EEE---PPPAAALLLSSS!!! LOVE FROM D & S

Answering Questions - The Fridge Using ICT, we could answer our e-pals’ question about the fridge immediately by attaching a photograph.

Using Ideas – Magnet Maze Hi A and T Yes we know horse shoes and fridge magnets and liked your cool picture. What we are doing at school is a magnet maze what you have to do is you make a maze in partners and you could do teleports, snake pit's, lava or anything and our teacher does science so she teachers us science it's cool and fun. Which one of you is A and T in the picture? From L and A When we heard about the magnet mazes that our e-pals made, we just had to try the idea for ourselves!

During our e-pals exchange, a Y3 homework link was included, suggested by children and inspired by the TV programme ‘Bang Goes the Theory’. We carried out the same plughole investigation on both sides of the globe’. The homework link meant that parents were just as excited as children to find out the results and actively asked when we would find out!

Response from e-pals school in Melbourne, Australia. It has been a fantastic project, teachers and students have really enjoyed it. I am sure the children would be happy to continue ing next year. They will move to Grade 3 so we might have to re-partner up at this end as the grades will be mixed. I am happy to do this in February and keep the link going. I am just on my way to post some Christmas cards and clip on Koala key rings to you all. I hope they arrive by next Friday! I'll keep my fingers crossed! The key rings did arrive before the end of term!

What we will do next At the moment “E-pals” are on-going via and we now have plans to set up a blog with the Australian school. Other possibilities for the future include video conferencing and Skype.