Heat up your Primary school science with the Datalogger!

Calling all primary teachers in Oxfordshire and Bucks – why not turn up the wow-factor in your science lessons with our Datalogger kit loan! Find out which cup keeps your tea hot for the longest, who makes the loudest noise or how deep to dig your school pond.

Dataloggers are a great cross-curricular resource – they can record temperature, light and sound levels and the information can be read directly off the screen, converted into pictograms or displayed as a graph over time, so they’re suitable for both KS1 and KS2.

Our kit loan comes with a set of eight, which are perfect to use with your class.

Not sure where to start? Why not try out some of our ideas?

• Challenge groups to find the noisiest, quietest, hottest, coldest, darkest or lightest places in your school. For a trickier task, ask groups to create the steepest graph that they can (this could be a great opportunity to use the temperature probes to plot temperature change over time).
• Use the light sensors as part of an investigation – your pupils could find out which fabric is the most transparent or the most reflective or test how many layers of paper are needed to stop the light from a torch.
• Use the sound sensor to investigate which musical instrument is the quietest, which group can make the most noise or how sounds change with distance.
• Use the temperature sensor to help your students find out which cup keeps your tea hot for the longest, who has the warmest hands in the room whereabouts is be best to store packed lunches to keep them cool.
• For a change over time investigation, children could test which batteries power a torch for the longest, how the light changes in your classroom over the day or which light levels mean that a plant grows best.
• Hide dataloggers around school and then show children the graphs they will have made. Ask your students to decide whereabouts the dataloggers must have been to make those graphs.
• Does your school have an eco-club or council? If so, the dataloggers are a fab resource – measure changes in light levels to decide if you really need the lights on in the hall, test how different draft excluders help to avoid using so much heating or investigate how temperature and diversity of wildlife changes with depth of water to work out how deep to dig your school pond.

Our dataloggers come with a neck strap to prevent any accidents and you have the option to add the temperature probe (included in the kit) to take the temperature of liquids as well as the datalogger’s surroundings.

For anyone keen to gain an even better understanding of the kit and what you can do with it, learnstem.co.uk has a fantastic video resource that explains in detail and is completely free and, of course, the Science Oxford team are on hand to answer all your questions – just drop us a line at [email protected].

Find our more about our Dataloggers, kit loan and shows and workshops here.

Are you a school member yet?

We’d love for your school to be part of our growing community of member schools across Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. Your school will immediately be eligible for a 20% discount on all outreach bookings as well as a whole host of other benefits including kit loan. Find out more here.