As part of Year 6’s STEAM week - Mission Moxie - MIT and Nord Anglia challenged us to do some research in line with the very exciting news of the new Perseverance Rover landing on Mars this week.
One of the Rover’s tasks is to filter out the dust from the air and so we were tasked with designing and carrying out our own experiment to test a variety of filters. We brought in a collection of filters from home, including face masks, vacuum filters, coffee filters, sieves and water filters, as well as using some materials found in the classroom, such as felt, tissue paper and paper towels. We then discussed in groups how we would test out the filters before carrying out our experiments. We used water containing lots of dirt to test the filters and discovered that some of the filters, such as the sieve, were not very successful as their holes were just too big. Some filters seemed to be waterproof or too absorbent and so they didn’t even let the water through – this was true for the vacuum filter and our trusty face masks.
In conclusion, we decided that coffee filters actually produced the cleanest water and therefore are the best filters for our purpose!
6AR
