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Year 3 enjoy science fieldwork at Juniper Hall

It may have been raining rather a lot, but year 3 had a fabulous time carrying out some scientific field work on their residential trip to Juniper Hall. They worked really hard to think about the adaptations of the animals and plants in the various habitats and took part in a great range of activities. They set humane mammal traps and were very excited indeed to find a vole or two. The voles ran away very quickly, but not before we managed to get a good look at them. Many invertebrates were collected using sweep nets, sheet traps and pooters in the meadows and under the trees. We were amazed to find that our invertebrate colour predictions turned out to be correct. It was great fun to then go pond dipping and look at what we found under microscopes. Thank you so much to the Field Studies Council – it was an amazing trip! Year 3 will tell you which of the teachers had the best invertebrate “moves”!

 

 

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GDST Junior Science Conference at the Royal Institution

Engineering 2018

The second ever GDST Junior Science Conference was held at the Royal Institution on May 2nd. It was an incredible privilege to take over such an iconic building for the day, which over the centuries has been the workplace of such scientific giants as Michael Faraday and Humphrey Davy. Year 5 pupils from the GDST schools entered via the Grand Staircase ready for a day full of scientific excitements. They worked in the L’Oreal lab looking at the chemistry and physics of colour, took part in a workshop about the perception of colour, heard a talk from the RI Heritage team about the significance of the building and it’s scientists, and completed a quiz as they explored the building and the museum. It was a truly special day for the year 5 girls as they made new friends and were inspired by all they saw and took part in. Parents joined us at the end of the day for the Science Spectacular which with all the explosions and demonstrations was definitely spectacular! Mrs Farrer also got a very special treat… she gave a presentation in the famous Faraday Lecture Theatre, entitled “What does a scientist look like?”. Certainly a very hard moment to beat for a science teacher!

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Keio Yokohama Elementary School visits the STEAM space!

We were delighted on Friday to welcome students from Keio Yokohama Elementary School in Japan. They had been taking part in exciting lessons, trips and events all week and this was their last lesson whilst on their visit to England. Time for some STEAM fun! They were challenged to make slime in different colours and then test their slime to find out more about it’s rather strange properties. We looked at, and timed, the slime flowing in our slime races, measured how high it could bounce, and also had a good play of course. It was then time to build some spaghetti towers. The students found this much more tricky and as they only had 25 spaghetti sticks and 10 marshmallows in each team, it was challenging. They were tasked with building the tallest freestanding tower. Tricky decisions had to be made – all in a day’s work in the STEAM space!

Bye – bye to you all. We loved seeing you and we look forward to seeing you again in October in Japan!

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Engineering Tinkering 2019 at Kingston University

Calling budding engineers and their families!
The Institute of Mechanical Engineers is running a fun family event at Kingston University from 5.30-8.30pm on Wednesday 3rd April to showcase STEM careers and activities. The event is free, but tickets are essential. All information is on the poster. It looks like a great event for all of the family to get involved with some engineering, so do consider popping along if you can.
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First LEGO League Junior Expo at LEGO HQ!

Our team of enthusiastic year 4 pupils visited the LEGO Corporate Headquarters this week to take part in the First LEGO League Junior Expo “Mission Moon”. For the last few months they have been designing and building a moon base using LEGO WeDo 2.0; exploring, creating and testing and then sharing their ideas. Their moon base included a gym, a science lab, a store room, a rocket delivering supplies, an ice smasher, an ice transporter and a moon buggy. They had to research a great deal of information about the Moon, before deciding on their final design and work as a team to make all the elements. Then it was off to LEGO HQ (which was very exciting indeed!) to show our work. We got to tour the building, play with LEGO and meet LEGO engineers. It was fantastic! There was LEGO at every turn. The team did brilliantly and won medals in the Innovation and Construction category. Well done everyone!

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Years 5, 6, 7 and 8 visit the Big Bang Fair 2019 in Birmingham

On Friday 15th March a group of year 5, 6, 7 and 8 pupils travelled to Birmingham to attend the Big Bang Fair. The Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair is the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths for young people in the UK. The various shows, stalls, exhibits and workshops certainly did bring science and engineering to life. We watched a show on Deadly Diseases, took part in the Shell Salt Water Car Challenge, carried out riveting with the RAF next to a Red Arrow, raced robots round a maze and held cockroaches. That is just a flavour of the very varied activities! You can see more information about the event here.

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STEAM Explore Lectures coming up soon!

Don’t miss the exciting Explore lectures coming soon – all with a STEAM theme! Explore Lectures are suitable for those in years 9-13 and start at 4.30pm, with refreshments available from 4.15pm, in our purpose-built Rutherford Centre. Lectures generally last 40-45 minutes with an opportunity for questions at the end.

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National Physical Laboratory visits Junior School

Andrew Hanson, a physicist from the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, visited the junior school last week to talk to us about temperature, solids, liquids and gases. He brought with him lots of liquid nitrogen and inspired and intrigued girls in years 3, 4, 5 and 6 with his demonstrations. The girls had many questions to ask and loved all of the physics that Andrew told us about. Outside in the playground at the end of the assembly Andrew made sure that we wouldn’t forget his assembly for a very long time! Thank you Andrew – you were amazing.

If you would like to find out more about physics look out for family events at NPL, including the Water Rocket Challenge, that families are very welcome to take part in.

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Year 12 meet ISG engineers at Wellington House

On a rather dark, cold November evening a group of intrepid year 12 aspiring engineers climbed to the top of Wellington House to find out more about structural engineering. Huge thanks to Tony and Alex from ISG for giving us such an informative tour. It was great to hear about the problem solving and engineering challenges and see it all in action. We were treated to a fantastic view from the top despite the rather grim weather conditions!