Middle School Students Visit Pepperdine

Our Lady of Malibu School students recently participated in a Science outreach to Middle School students conducted in the Natural Science Division Laboratories at Pepperdine University, hosted by Dr. Thomas Vandergon, Professor of Biology.

Sixth-grader Sophia Williamson checks in with Patch to describe her experience. 

Safety is the first thing we talked about at Pepperdine’s science lab. We discussed what we should and shouldn’t touch; we wore lab coats so we didn’t get anything on our clothes. Dr. Vandergon wanted to make sure we didn’t touch the hot water or the hot plate.

Magnetism is the first thing we learned about. We learned new things, like what a galvanometer is. A galvanometer is an instrument that watches electrons move. We also learned about atoms and force. Atoms are made up of three parts: a proton, a neutron and an electron. Magnets apply force on electrons.

The next thing we talked about were the tectonic plates. We looked on the Internet at all the different tectonic plates. I learned that we live on the Pacific Plate and not the North American plate. I now know that the San Andreas Fault is the border line for the North American plate and the Pacific plate. An interesting fact I researched is that in about 15 million years, Malibu will be under water.

The third thing we talked about were earthquakes. For an experiment, we cut a circle out of a piece of paper, then cut it into three parts (the circle represented the Earth). Each of the three pieces represented one of Earth’s plates. We put our homemade world into a graduated beaker with water, and the beaker was put on top of a hot plate. After about 15 minuets the water was boiling and it made our world have earthquakes. We also looked at earthquakes that happened as far back as 5 years ago on a live internet map!

The last thing we talked about was the Earth’s structure. In the center of the Earth is the inner core. The layer around it is called the outer core. Around the
outer core is the mantle. A small layer called the crust covers the mantle, the crust is where we live.