There are some fabulous talks and animations on the Royal Institution’s You Tube Channel which can be found here.
Dan Plane, who many of you will remember from his visits to Wimbledon High, even explodes a few pumpkins! Perfect Halloween viewing…
Young Scientists Journal for 12-20 year olds
Have you seen the Young Scientists Journal website? Lots of interesting articles to read and also the opportunity to publish an article of your own. Take a look here
You may well find something that interests you, for example this article is all about the physics of rowing!
Nancy Rothwell Award
Love biology and art? The Nancy Rothwell competition closes on 31st July and is for 7-18 year olds. Take a look at all of the details here.
Maybe there might be another winner from Wimbledon High?! See above for Leslie Lee’s amazing drawing!
Wimbledon High welcomes Year 8 students from Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle de Londres
Hafsa from Year 8 tells us all about the morning we welcomed year 8 students from Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle de Londres to the Library at Wimbledon High.
On the 11th of February, our Spanish class were lucky enough to meet with a group of French students from Charles de Gaulle Lycee. We waited in the Library for them to arrive and once they did we all found out what we were going to do. We had to make a circuit to ensure that a lizard would not enter a hole by making an alarm system. This STEAM activity was based on the book Holes that the French students were reading at that time. My group came up with an alarm system which made a sound when the lizard came close to the hole. If the lizard approached the hole, it would step on a piece of foil, a conductor. We carefully placed the foil so that all the pieces surrounded the hole, not in contact. As soon as weight was applied, all of the foil pieces would touch, completing the circuit and making the buzzer go off. Other groups came up with various different ideas like trapping the lizards and using bulbs instead of buzzers. After this activity, the French students gave presentations of their own. These presentations were based on the same book, but overall were very contrasting. One group had made mathematical worksheets while another performed their favourite extract. It was interesting to see the sort of style that the French students used to express their learning and was quite an eye opener. To end the session, we all said goodbye and thanked the school for coming over and working with us. I really enjoyed this experience because I got to see the presentations from the students and work with them. This experience made me realise the similarities that their school had with ours. I honestly did not expect this because I had never really thought about what education would be like in other countries. This makes me wonder how much our school has in common with other schools around the world.
Thanks go to Hafsa for capturing so brilliantly the excellent morning the two schools shared. We are very much looking forward to future initiatives with the Lycée!
Year 8 tackle the Wind Power Challenge
As part of their Geography lessons, Year 8 gamely tackled the Wind Power Challenge in the STEAM room. This session was prompted by year 8’s lessons on the UN Global Goal of Clean and Affordable Energy and fitted in very well with their renewable energy studies. Although a lot of fun, this challenge had a serious message. Over 1/3 of the world’s population has no access to electricity which has many repercussions. A simple wind turbine, perhaps sited on a roof, may help to tackle that. Year 8 had to design and test a wind turbine and ensure that it would lift a paper cup containing 10g masses from the floor. A variety of approaches ensued…some more successful than others! Skills of problem solving and team work were developed, as well as working under pressure and resilience as the challenge was quite frustrating at times. It was very exciting when success was achieved as the shouts of year 8 confirmed!
The Y12 ORBYTS team get to question a NASA scientist
For the last 3 months year 12 students from Wimbledon High have been working alongside students from Ark Putney and RR6 (Ricards Lodge and Rutlish sixth forms) on the ORBYTS project. Our ORBYTS project involves original research into how the plasmasphere changes during geomagnetic storms. We use Van Allen Probe data, with the students taking the lead in carrying out the data analysis using Python. The project is part of the ORBYTS scheme, and more information about that can be found here. The project aims to provide the students with hands-on experience carrying out original research, as well as giving them opportunities to meet relatable role models and scientists at all stages of their career.
Our project, like most science, is inter disciplinary. We are using a great variety of skills including coding, teamwork and physics and mathematical knowledge.
This week we were so lucky to be able to talk (via Skype) to Lauren Blum, a NASA scientist. It was so interesting to talk to Lauren about her work on GTOSat, and her own career path. The students had a great number of questions. Thank you so much Lauren!
Cindy Rose (CEO of Microsoft UK) “pops” into the STEAM room!
Teen Tech Club were absolutely delighted to have the opportunity to pose questions to Cindy Rose, CEO Microsoft UK via a live link up. They asked some really probing questions about her role, her advice and her ideas, and had the opportunity to ask for her feedback on thier innovations they are putting together for the Teen Tech challenge. Thank you Cindy – it was great to talk to you!
Year 12 find out more about the Earth’s plasmapause!
We are so excited to begin this year’s ORBYTS project with UCL. ORBYTS stands for Original Research By Young Twinkle Students and this year our project is led by astrophysicists Jasmine and Andy from UCL’s Mullard Space Centre. We will be working alongside other year 12 students from Ark Putney, Ricards Lodge and Rutlish School in the sessions in the STEAM space at Wimbledon High. In our project we will be looking at the erosion of the Earth’s plasmapause during magnetic storms, using data from Van Allen probes. We will be using Python as a tool to help us do our analysis and we will be presenting our findings at UCL at the end of the project. More information about ORBYTS can be found here.
