2024 School Visits

In 2024 our society held its meeting in Freemantle, WA and accompanying this we organised to take a forerunner of our Crystal-A-Con in a Box to a couple of schools.

Three activities were run for each group of students, firstly an introduction to crystallography and what a crystal scientist does, then building diamond models with kits made from the disassembled Big Diamond, and finally making cubic, body-centered cubic and hexagonal lattices out of lollies and toothpicks.

At Attadale Primary school the activities were run with a Year 4 (32 students) then a Year 3 (36 students) class. The Year 3 students were challenged by building the diamond structure and could relate the shape the crystal models made to the 3D shapes they had been learning. The Year 4 students had been learning about rocks in science, and so had some understanding of crystalline minerals. They were very excited to learn about all the different types of things that can be crystals too!

The visit to Nedlands Primary School ran slightly differently, starting off with a presentation to all the year 4 and 5 students in the school – over 100 kids! There were lots of questions about crystals, including some tricky ones! After this, we separated to go into two year 5 classrooms to run the diamond and lolly activities. The older students were extended by joining their individual diamond models together (and avoiding making Lonsdaleite).

We went through 6 kg of lollies and ~2000 toothpicks, and a good time was had by all!

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Thank you so much for today! The kids have not stopped coming up to me and talking about the session they had with you!  I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind sending me the PowerPoint you used from today. I am going to do a shortened version of your lessons today if that’s ok? I feel bad for the other year 4 class, as they’ve all been hounding me!!

 Tanaya Barnes

Science Specialist, Attadale Primary School