Is geothermal energy the answer to our climate problems?

Lucy in Year 10 looks at issues surrounding climate change and the damage our current ways of living are having on the planet. Might geothermal energy offer the UK, and the world, a solution for us to clean up our act?

We are in the midst of a climate crisis; the UK government has recently made a commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 to help stop further damage to the environment. The burning of fossil fuels to generate power is a significant contributor to the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, so the use of renewable energy sources is critically important to meeting this commitment to achieve net zero emissions. There are already many established sources of renewable energy, such as wind, solar and tidal power, but geothermal energy might be an unexpected solution to the UK’s problems.

Geothermal energy: a solution to a cleaner future?
Picture from https://www.britannica.com/science/geothermal-energy

Geothermal energy uses the natural heat from within the Earth’s crust to heat water and create steam.  This steam then powers a turbine in a similar way to the production of energy using fossil fuels, with the key exception that the heat comes from the earth instead of from the burning of coal, oil or gas.  So, like other forms of renewable energy, geothermal energy produces far less CO2 than fossil fuels do.

The key advantage geothermal energy offers over many other forms of renewable energy is consistency.  Solar cells and wind turbines rely on climate and weather conditions to operate, which means that the amounts of energy produced varies and can be unreliable.  Geothermal energy doesn’t have that problem. No matter what happens, a geothermal plant will always produce the same amount of energy. The problems caused by inconsistent energy provision have already been seen; only weeks after setting a new wind power generation record, a breezeless day in January 2021 resulted in a shift back to fossil fuelled power and a tenfold surge in spot energy prices.[1]

Geothermal energy is currently in the news due to a recent announcement to build the first ever geothermal plant in the UK, in Porthtowan, Cornwall.  It will produce enough energy to power 10,000 homes[2] – enough to power almost all of Birmingham. So, why don’t we build them everywhere?[3]

While geothermal energy does have significant benefits, it also comes with its own set of problems.  The most prominent of these is the very specific characteristics of the Earth’s crust needed to be able to superheat the steam and power the turbines. As opposed to somewhere like Iceland, on the boundary of a tectonic plate, these locations are few and far between in the UK. Some will unfortunately be located in populous areas, where the negative aesthetics of a power station would outweigh its benefits. Another worrying fact about geothermal plants is that their construction, and the drilling of geothermal wells into the earth’s surface, have been the cause of several earthquakes over the past decade (5.5 magnitude earthquake in Pohang, South Korea in 2017).  While this is less of a risk for the UK, being geologically more stable, it still is a factor to be considered. I would hasten to add that this risk is less than that of CO2 from fossil fuels or the toxic clean-up of a nuclear power station!

While geothermal energy plants are undoubtedly an effective and positive use of the Earth’s natural resources to create a sustainable and consistent supply of energy, the problems that their construction and capabilities raise mean that it would be impossible for them to become the sole provider of the UK’s energy. However, it is undeniable that their existence and use could aid the UK greatly in our battle against greenhouse gases and the climate crisis. While geothermal energy cannot solve the climate problem alone, it should definitely be a part of the UK’s, and the world’s, solution to the threat that is the climate crisis.

 


REFERENCES

[1] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-energy-answer-is-not-blowin-in-the-wind-xbntdm6pv

[2] https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24032000-300-supercharged-geothermal-energy-could-power-the-planet/

[3] Check out https://cornishstuff.com/2019/09/11/successful-drilling-at-uks-first-deep-geothermal-plant-in-cornwall/ to see the new Geothermal Plant take shape

 

Will we ever be able to live on the moon?

Isabelle in Year 11 looks at whether we will ever be able to live on the moon, and what this might involve.

 

Ever since man first stepped onto the moon, the possibility of one day living there has become increasingly prevalent. NASA’s several lunar missions have brought back information that shows the potential of a new home for the human race and, with Earth slowly becoming less inhabitable due to global warming, it is now more essential than ever to find a (potentially radical) solution. In our solar system the other planets have extreme temperatures and pressures that would make it impossible for us to survive and, since technology has not advanced enough to send life beyond the moon, it is unlikely the habitable planets outside of our solar system are within reach in the next 100 years.

Astronaut on the moon
Above: Astronaut via Pixabay

Data collected by NASA has shown that the moon’s surface (made up of regolith) has a consistency and cohesiveness of baking flour and although it is similar to sand on the Earth’s surface, it has very different properties. A build-up of electrostatic forces causes the regolith particles to stick to equipment and astronauts’ suits and clouds of dust could become trapped around the wheels of vehicles rendering them immobile. It would definitely be difficult to build infrastructure on this type of surface but a planned Artemis mission in 2024 will send scientists and engineers to the surface to examine the potential.

Water is an essential for humans and although the moon lacks liquid water, molecules can be found trapped in the rocks and minerals or in the form of ice at the poles. This water can be extracted to sustain human life for some time – certainly not the entire of Earth’s population but potentially enough for a moon base. Oxygen for breathing can also be found in the moon’s surface as it makes up 42% of the regolith. This can easily be extracted by robots which NASA have already built prototypes for, and used as fuel for rockets alongside hydrogen. So, the moon already has the raw materials for 2 necessary conditions for humans to live.
Food is a little more complicated. In previous space missions, astronauts have brought light, compact packets of non-perishable food but going back and forth from the moon bringing food every few months would cost a huge amount and a whole civilisation would require a lot more food compared to 3 or 4 astronauts. The moon’s soil contains toxic elements that would kill plants before they would have the chance to grow but experiments have found that if you add human manure, the soil becomes safer to use. This sustainable way of producing food would only need seeds to be brought in the spaceship.

A major difference between the moon and Earth is the strength of gravity. The moon’s gravity is around a 6th of the Earths. This has a negative impact on humans as the weightlessness causes bone density and muscles to deteriorate as they are not being used and heart rate and blood pressure to decrease dramatically. Fitness levels of astronauts have been shown to drop as aerobic capacity reduces by 20-25%. However, there have been no deaths related to lack of gravity over a long period of time and medicine can help our bodies to adapt to the new norm.
Cosmic radiation rarely affects us on Earth due to the ozone layer that protects us from most of the waves however the moon doesn’t have anything like this. Scientists have found that hydrogen can act as a shield and have considered wrapping a form of it around infrastructure. Another option would be to use regolith to create bricks to create housing as this would also protect humans. Much like the Earth, the moon’s poles receive sunlight almost 24/7 and so that would be an excellent option for providing power through solar cells.

Scientists have really thought about just about everything to sustain a base or civilisation of the moon. The problem with this all is the cost. There haven’t been very many missions to the moon due to the expense of building a rocket that contains all the necessary things and the advanced technology such as the rovers that are used to transport astronauts around the surface of the moon. It would currently be impractical as even a handful of people would still require several rockets and as well as robots and technology the idea of sending enough people to even create a base would be impossible for the near future. The dream is not dead yet though. Elon Musk recently became the richest man in the world and he has set his sights on building a small civilisation on the moon among other things through his SpaceX programme and with all the information gathered this could become a reality for the next generations.


Sources:

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/a-few-things-artemis-will-teach-us-about-living-and-working-on-the-moon

https://www.iop.org/explore-physics/moon//how-could-we-live-on-the-moon#gref

https://theconversation.com/five-things-that-happen-to-your-body-in-space-52940

How can studying our surroundings enrich historical enquiry?

Emily Anderson, Head of History, reflects on how the pandemic has thrown the department’s thinking about place into relief, and how this is manifest in the History classroom and in inter-disciplinary thinking.

Let’s observe, Attenborough style, the historian at work. What comes to mind as you peer tentatively into your imagination, careful not to disturb? I would be certain that, to some extent, you would gravitate towards a library, or an archive, and rightly so. For this is where the historian finds their treasure, following lead upon lead to synthesise their research into new understanding, often of people and events far removed from our own experience. Whilst the primary location for our WHS historians is the classroom rather than the archive or library (with a healthy engagement with the latter, of course), the principle remains; understanding emerges through study of the sources.

And yet, how much poorer our understanding would be if we stayed in the archive. Venture outside, and our surroundings become another historical source, there to challenge and broaden our thinking. The potential of this has long inspired me: my Master’s dissertation in 2014 considered how far the political context of the debates over Home Rule in Ireland influenced the construction of Belfast City Hall, building on both an element of my undergraduate study but also my teaching at A Level at the time. Recently, I have felt the draw towards such lines of enquiry particularly keenly, as our world has shrunk due to the pandemic and the opportunities normally available to me and my department to explore the world for ourselves and, crucially, share this with our students on trips (always a wonderful experience) have not been available. Talking with family, friends and colleagues, I know that we are not alone in this.

Within the curriculum

We can, however, still incorporate the study of places into our curriculum. At A Level, we teach a study of the British Empire from c1857-1967. It is, of course, a very wide-ranging unit in terms of geographical reach and this is one of the things which drew us to it; the opportunity, not widely available at A Level, to study global history. The uniting focus of the course is Britain, but to only study the impact and debate from this perspective would be a severe dereliction of our duty as historians. The impact of the European empires on the physical landscape of periphery and metropole alike is striking – the more you look, the more you see and traditional narratives are disrupted. In our city, Notting Hill, now a by-word for the celebration of multi-culturalism, has become so because of migration from what was the Empire. To wander the streets and museums of South Kensington is to experience, to my mind, a showcase of the imperial project. Reading the testimonies of those involved in the Morant Bay uprising in Jamaica, and coupling these with the incredible sense of place evoked by David Olusoga in his documentary work, means that even sites of memory far away and currently inaccessible to us can be explored in the classroom.[1]

At GCSE, our course looks at Berlin during the Cold War. I find the city both wonderfully vibrant and hauntingly evocative, and love taking our students there to experience it for themselves. It is the unexpected, small-scale artefacts that intrigue the most – the oversize floodlight which lit up the approach to the Berlin Wall, still on the front of an apartment block though the Wall is long gone; the first memorial to the Holocaust, barely registered by those who pass it in the suburb of Schöneberg; the American-style cinema built for the occupying troops but more at home in the Midwest. The questions students ask both on such trips and back in the classroom show how such experiences enable them to see the history they study in new ways. Excitingly, our new GCSE, which the current Y9s will study from September, gives us the opportunity to conduct a study of Spitalfields, an area shaped and enriched by the diverse communities which have settled there. Classroom and in-situ enquiry will work together to bring our understanding to life.

At Key Stage Three, we are embarking on a total overhaul of our curriculum. This gives us the exciting opportunity to reconsider how we incorporate our surroundings into historical study, and how we can use trips to their best advantage to complement it. Inspiration has abounded – one of the upsides of the past year has been the extraordinary availability of online seminars and training. We have been trialling some new enquiries with Year 9, including ‘What secrets of the past are hidden within the walls of a house?’, which uses the BBC programme and book ‘A House Through Time’ as a starting point for a study of social change in Liverpool in the 19th and 20th centuries.[2] Again, we have found ourselves drawing on a place – here a home – to focus and enrich our historical thinking.[3]

Inter-disciplinary opportunities

An interest in place, in all its complexities, is something we share with our colleagues and friends in Geography. You will have seen Dr Stephanie Harel’s article in October on this blog and this sparked thinking about how we could collaborate to share expertise and experience and develop understanding.[4] The Y12 History and Geography students participated in an initial exploration of themes around place during the STEAM+ event in November, and led the first joint session of Geog On, History Girls and Politics Society, sharing what they’d discussed. We are continuing our joint meetings this term.

I hope that this has given you some insight into an aspect of our current thinking as a department. We would love the wider community to be part of the conversation about our curriculum. Please do get in touch if you would like to via email or Twitter.


Further reading/ideas – along with the material referenced in the post

There are some wonderful walking tours of London which I would thoroughly recommend – some are online at the moment. Try www.open-city.org.uk, https://sixinthecity.co.uk/ and https://www.womenonthewalk.co.uk/women-on-the-march.

Brian Ladd’s ‘The Ghosts of Berlin’ – a wonderful reflection on this most fascinating of cities.

‘The Companion Guide to…’ series – for in-depth itineraries around different cities and countries.

[1] P. Gopal, Insurgent Empire, London, Verso, 2019; Black and British: A Forgotten History, D. Olusoga, BBC, 2016

[2] A House Through Time, D. Olusoga, BBC, 2018; D. Olusoga and M. Backe-Hansen, A House Through Time, London, Picador, 2020

[3] With thanks to Holly Beckwith for masterminding and planning this enquiry

[4] http://whs-blogs.co.uk/teaching/positive-geographies-covid-19/

How are organoids going to change biomedical research?

Microscope

Kate in Year 13 explores how organoids are going to contribute to biomedical research. 

At the moment, biomedical research is almost exclusively carried out in animal models. Although this has led to a better understanding of many fundamental biological processes, it has left gaps in our understanding of human specific development. In addition to this, the variability of human individuals is in sharp contrast to inbred animal models, leading to a deficiency in our knowledge about population diversity.

These limitations have forced scientists to invent a new way of looking at and understanding how the human body works; their conclusions were organoids.

An Organoid (Wikipedia)

Organoids are a miniaturised and simplified version of an organ produced in vitro in 3D which shows realistic micro-anatomy. They originate from renewable tissue sources that self-organise in culture to acquire in vivo-like organ complexity. There are potentially as many types of organoids as there are different tissues and organs in the body. This provides many opportunities such as allowing scientists to study mechanisms of disease acting within human tissues, generating knowledge applicable to preclinical studies as well as being able to offer the possibility of studying human tissues at the same if not higher level of scientific scrutiny, reproducibility and depth of analysis that has been possible only with nonhuman model organisms.

Organoids are going to revolutionise drug discovery and accelerate the process of bringing much needed drugs to reality. Nowadays, the process averages around 20 years from conception to reality. This is a lengthy process mainly due to the fact that the pharmaceutical industry has relied on animal models and human cell lines that have little resemblance to normal or diseased tissue – possibly one of the reasons behind the high failure rate of clinical trials adding to the high cost of drug discovery – an average of $2 billion for each new drug that reaches the pharmacy.

Organoids can help this development by using human cells instead of animal cells due to the improved compatibility, making it quicker and more efficient. Organoids are also able to provide a better understanding of human development.

Organoid graph
Above: Uses of organoids from https://blog.crownbio.com/key-organoid-applications

The human brain, especially the neocortex (which is the part of the mammalian brain involved in higher-order brain functions such as sensory perception, cognition, spatial reasoning and language), has evolved to be disproportionally larger compared with that of other species. A better understanding of this species-dependant difference through brain organoids will help us gain more knowledge about the mechanisms that make humans unique, and may aid the translation of findings made in animal models into therapeutic strategies answering the question what makes humans human.

Organoids are the future of biomedical research providing the potential to study human development and model disease processes with the same scrutiny and depth of analysis customary for research with non-human model organisms. Resembling the complexity of the actual tissue or organ, patient derived human organoid studies will accelerate medical research and generate knowledge about human development which is going to dramatically change the way we are going to study biology in the future.

Steam+ in MFL

Claire Baty, Head of French and Mandarin, considers how Modern Foreign Languages connect with other subjects.

“No subject can exist in isolation: discourse and community are central to the progression of knowledge and understanding”[1]. This is the absolute backbone for the study of Modern Foreign Languages. It makes no sense to learn a language in isolation because a fundamental purpose of learning a language is to communicate; to facilitate discourse between different communities, countries and nationalities in order to further our understanding of each other and what connects us.

It is easy to make superficial links between subjects; learning numbers in Year 7 by doing basic maths or practicing the imperative by giving instructions for a PE warm up in a foreign language. These lessons all provide valuable opportunities to reinforce vocabulary, but they feel like an add on, a tick box exercise. The key to true interdisciplinary learning is to stop seeing our own subjects in isolation and start seeing the themes, the skills, the whole world problems and solutions that we examine with our students.

Above: Business vector created by freepik

Take for example students learning Mandarin Chinese. Being able to recognise and write in character is linked to a deeper insight into the culture and civilisation of countries where Chinese is spoken, which in turns requires an understanding of the history of that country. This inevitably leads to an appreciation of the current economic and political climate in that country. Three key areas of study for Mandarin Pre-U overlap significantly with History, Geography and Economics. This is what is so wonderful about Steam+ as an approach to curriculum building: expertise across the school can be used to fuel a student’s curiosity and develop a passion for a subject that is not limited to one perspective.

At A Level the interdisciplinary links between MFL and other subjects are more obvious; Y13 French students study the occupation of France and German students the reunification of Germany. However, Steam+ is about creating opportunities within the curriculum for all year groups.

Consider for example our Year 10 German students who were able to explore 100 years of the Bauhaus movement by attending exhibitions and screenings in German. The language they had been learning in class to discuss their fictional interior designs gained more significance when they saw it in a real-life context.

Students in Year 7 French consider the idea of secularism and religious freedom and how fundamental that is to the French constitution and everyday life in France when they look at what it is like to be a pupil at school in France. Delving deeper into this value system, alongside others, is an opportunity to encourage tolerance and understanding and to allow students to make connections where perhaps they had not expected them.

The connections between learning a foreign language and travel are clear, so our Year 9 scheme of work is structured around a project where students discover the varied and exciting world that is la Francophonie. Using the vocabulary learnt in class to examining the geography, culture, traditional dress, culinary delights and song of different French speaking countries they are able to broaden their understanding of what it means to be French yet also begin to consider the implications of France’s colonial history.

Languages vector
Above: people vector created by freepik

Reforms to the GCSE since 2016 have meant that the study of literary texts has become an essential part of any MFL scheme of work. This presents so many opportunities for the transfer of skills between MFL and English. The sense of pride and achievement that students in Year 9 experience from being able to decode the future tense from an authentic French poem (Demain dès l’aube, Victor Hugo) is far greater than that any grammar exercise would give them. Year 11 close analysis of Maupassant’s la parure in their French lessons gave students a deeper understanding of French society in the 19th Century, themes occurring in other French works and the literary movements of the time, all of which enhanced their ability to study the same work for GCSE English. The key here is for the departments to work together on devising a programme of study that meets all their requirements rather than teaching the same topic twice in isolation.

Steam+ creates the space for interdisciplinary thought. It is an exciting opportunity for us and our students to collaborate more intensively to explore ideas that do not fit neatly into a lesson plan.  But it is also an opportunity to examine the skills that are required and developed by one subject that can support a student’s understanding, expression and ultimately progression in another. Attention to detail required for effective translation that is also needed when examining data in Science and Maths; performance techniques in Music and oral proficiency in MFL. Yes, at times we are confined by exam specifications, but by encouraging our students to make connections between subjects, they can take their learning beyond the syllabi and into the real world because that is the fun in learning and ultimately the point.

[1] Steam+ manifesto

Recursive Creative Improvisation: STEAM+ in action

Rebecca Owens (Head of Art), Lucinda Gilchrist (Head of English) and Richard Bristow (Director of Music & SMT Secondee) reflect on recent work completed by WHS pupils combining three art forms; writing poetry, painting and performing music. This event formed part of the recent STEAM Tower opening.

Rebecca Owens – the view from the artist

The Golden Ratio (picture – Wikipedia)
Above: The Golden Ratio (picture – Wikipedia)

The links between art, poetry and music are many and varied, exemplified in the shared language around the disciplines such as composition, rhythm, tone, accent, vibrancy, dynamism. In an effort to create an emotional response in their audiences, visual artists, architects, composers and authors often use underlying mathematical concepts such as the Golden Section in their works. For example, Mozart made use of the Golden Section proportions in many of his piano sonatas. As we are all familiar with seeing the Golden Section sequence in nature, the use of these proportions and divisions in Art and Music is something the artist or composer hopes will help induce a natural affinity towards the composition, enhancing the sense of harmony in the piece of Music or Art.

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was a music lover and first realised the emotional power of music when listening to Wagner’s opera ‘Lohengrin’ in 1880. He then became friends with Schönberg, whose 12-tone method of composition was a turning point in 20th century music. As Kandinsky’s work developed, he came to believe that painting, as with music, should inspire emotions without having to necessarily be a visual representation of a particular thing, place or person. Arguably the first abstract artist, he transformed the course of Art using his synaesthesia to inspire his painting. Colours in his mind were linked to sound, shapes and emotions. Kandinsky said ‘The sound of colours is so definite that it would be hard to find anyone who would express bright yellow with bass notes or dark lake with treble’.

Kandinsky ‘Color Study. Squares with Concentric Circles’
Above: Kandinsky ‘Color Study. Squares with Concentric Circles’
Schonberg’s ‘5 Klavierstücke, Op. 23 No. 5’ bars 1-4 where all twelve tones of the chromatic scale are used with equality, creating atonality which breaks free from tonal hierarchies established in previously tonal music.
Schonberg’s ‘5 Klavierstücke, Op. 23 No. 5’ bars 1-4 where all twelve tones of the chromatic scale are used with equality, creating atonality which breaks free from tonal hierarchies established in previously tonal music.

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) who created rhythmical paintings, in which he almost danced over the large-scale canvas which he laid out on the floor. He was obsessed with Jazz music listening to Jazz records for days on end and the controlled elegant movements with which he poured, dripped and threw the paint onto the canvasses, conveyed the dynamism and freedom of Jazz music.

Pollock ‘Convergence’
Pollock ‘Convergence’

Agnes Martin (1912-2004) often discussed the interest in the emotions that music created in her work, and for her there was a powerful link between music and her form of minimalist abstract art. She said ‘Our response to line and tone and colour is the same as our response to sounds. And like music, abstract art is thematic. It holds meaning beyond the power of words’.

Martin ‘Summer’
Martin ‘Summer’

These were some of the starting points for the art scholars, when exploring the connections between music and art, which was initially planned for our Cadogan Hall concert in March 2020. Sadly, owing to the pandemic, this event was cancelled, but the work and ideas were instead put towards the opening of our STEAM Tower in November 2020, with the addition of poets composing alongside the artists and musicians.

The artists responded to the rhythms, the tones and the emotions the music inspires as we work. As with all Art, there will be no correct answer, and in this experiment the process of creating the work will be as important as the outcomes. The speed with which one works undoubtedly affects the marks one makes. With timed drawings, which is something we often use in Life drawing classes, the fluidity and spontaneity of the marks created often more that makes up for the less accurate proportions. With less than 10 minutes to work on these pieces it will be interesting to see how each person responds differently to the music and how the canvasses develop during the time.

Kandinsky ‘Composition, VII’
Kandinsky ‘Composition, VII’

Alex in Year 13 reflects on the creation of her artwork: “Exploring links between different forms of creativity was fascinating. In this process I was able to respond to the music I heard and the poetry I read with a variety of colours, mark-making, and compositions. I was most influenced by replicating bow movements with brush strokes, which gave energy and flow to my artwork. This activity developed my skills as an artist as I was more aware of each creative decision I made.”

View some of the art created during the STEAM opening below.

STEAM Art
STEAM Art

Lucinda Gilchrist – the view from the poet

 We know proverbially that ‘two heads are better than one’, but collaboration is more than just combined brain power. Educational theory highlights that words and language solidify and consolidate thought, meaning that sharing and communicating with others is essential for learning. In collaborating across subject disciplines, we can make the most of others’ expertise in a way which serves to enhance and enrich our understanding in countless ways.

From the perspective of English, in looking at a poem, for instance, we can benefit from a wider contextual understanding that History can bring us, the deeper understanding of rhythm and tone from Music, attention to detail and imagery from Art, global artistic movements from History of Art, forensic attention to detail from Science, and grammatical understanding from Languages. But it is not just about what individual subjects can gain from using different disciplinary perspectives, but how the meeting of different disciplines then serves to open up horizons which would have been unthinkable without the combination of perspectives.

Jess in Year 13 writes: “Usually I would start writing about a preconceived subject matter, whereas responding in real time to music and visual art meant it took longer to establish a topic or a narrative. Therefore I think the influence over the structure of the poems is most pronounced- there’s the dislocation of short or non-sequiturial lines that correspond to staccato parts of the music; but on the other hand, there’s a lot of enjambement, since I think the timbre of the strings might have evoked a watery quality for the writers and painters.”

If lightning could be gradual
If it could be a majorette ribbon
If it could be a suturing needle
If it could be a hairline fracture
If it could be the persistent tautness of a diaphragm
If it could be the searing blaring flaring scarlet that stays in the back of your eyes
If it could cut
If it could be a vaulted ceiling
If it could be sweet, and if it could ache
If it could be the ridge of a mountain
Protruding through snow
Snow packed on scars
When figure skaters turn
And the air takes their necks
In its hands
Suddenly, very afraid of heights
Is lightning catching?
Can it reverberate down vertebrae?
Electrify the nervous system?
Pluck out spinal chords?
The spine a rose between
the lightning’s jagged teeth

Lauren in Year 13 writes: “I found writing to music and live art extremely helpful as each piece created a different atmosphere and led to me writing a range of poetry. I think I may even use music when writing poetry again in the future.”

Sky city suspended between storm clouds
Golden rain and bare feet
Feathers outlined in molten metal
Twisting as they fall
Like sycamore leaves
Laughter thrown at the sun
With the wild abandon of Icarus
In his final moments
Before reality came up to meet him.
Cradled by Zephyr as they spiral down
Either ignorant of the danger
Or too immersed in music to care.
The ground is far too restrictive for dancing
When falling allows them to fly.

Richard Bristow – the view from the musician

I still vividly remember the first time I experienced the music combined with art and spoken word. It was 1990, I was 5 years old, and Disney’s Fantasia had just been released on VHS. The whole school watched it in one afternoon and it introduced me to music that I had never heard before in such a powerful way that the memory still lives on, some thirty years later.

The film Fantasia was made in 1940, featuring Leopold Stokowski conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra with animations by Disney. I still recall seeing Mickey Mouse battling against brooms in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Dukas, the strange abstract shapes to Bach’s iconic Toccata and Fugue and of course the petrifying mountain demon pictured to Mussorgsky’s Night on a Bare Mountain. If you haven’t seen it, please add it to your Christmas list. It is simply brilliant viewing.

Fast forward to more recent times; it’s now the summer of 2019 and I’m busy planning the WHS Symphony Orchestra repertoire for the next Cadogan Hall concert, scheduled for March 2020. We have a large brass section this year and also a harp – a first for our orchestra – and as such Mussorgsky’s epic Symphonic Poem is something that provides challenge but is also accessible to all our players – from our new Year 7s right up to our Year 13s who will shortly be heading to University. The pupils take to it well, so much so that the simplifications I’d anticipated needing were quickly discarded in favour of the real authentic score.

Rehearsing the piece brought back memories of watching Fantasia for the first time and it is from here that we started to explore the idea of live painting to live music, essentially recreating Fantasia in Cadogan Hall in 2020. Combining these art forms, utilising some nifty camera technology, would allow us to see links between the disciplines in real time. Exciting stuff.

Sadly, the pandemic meant the concert couldn’t happen in March 2020, and obviously this was a huge disappointment to us given we had been working towards this for 7 months. However, with the opening of the new STEAM Tower, we had another opportunity to explore the combination of different art forms, showing inter-disciplinary learning in an improvisatory way and putting our previous learning to work. Current coronavirus restrictions meant the Symphony Orchestra was replaced by our wonderful socially-distanced String Quartet A and we expanded our thinking to include two Sixth Form poets to add another dimension to our exploration. Combining these art forms together facilitates wider conversations about art and creativity, and enables pupils to make connections and to think about things in more advanced ways.

Sophie in Year 11 writes: “It was really interesting to see how the poets, musicians and artists responded to each other, as all of us are artists. I loved how it allowed us to really explore our creativity and it has helped us to think of the pieces we are playing as an ensemble in new ways.”

It was fascinating to see the pupils work out how the inner bars of music evoked a sense of water with this being picked up in both the poetry and the art in various different ways. This prompted conversations about whether this was intentional by the composer or if it was more subtle in nature, perhaps influenced by our previous learning. Exploring the arts through different artistic lenses allows us to explore art in a larger, freer way, inter-connecting our learning and enhancing our understanding.

Final thoughts

Making connections between subjects, filling in the gaps and tinkering with new ideas are central to our educational provision at WHS. We relish the chance to investigate things we are expert in through lenses in which we are less accomplished, feeding into the kaleidoscope that is limitless learning in the modern day. This is STEAM+ in action.

We are all lucky to work and learn in a school where collaboration, exploration and adventure are inherent qualities that are highly valued.

Who knows what we’ll discover next…

Is authentic research, where young scientists have complete free rein, really possible at school?

Dr Clare Roper, Director of Science, Technology and Engineering at WHS, looks at how advances in information technology have removed the barriers that often limit the scope for school students to embark on their own innovative authentic scientific research.

I was sitting in a lecture at Oxford University about 18 months ago when it suddenly became clear to me that the factor most often restricting school students from undertaking their own authentic research had evaporated and was no longer an issue.

Classroom science experiments commonly involve replicating known scientific phenomena to backup discoveries that are well documented in the scientific literature. Unfortunately, quite often we cannot even so much as replicate the data from a science textbook in a school laboratory because the data collection is too complex. Instead, we might explore the scientific process taken by a research group as we unpack a beautiful classic experiment and marvel at their discovery and how it has shaped our understanding of scientific concepts . A personal favourite is the magically simple experiment of Meselson and Stahl which elucidated how exact copies of DNA are created each time a new cell is formed [1]. At the end of a lesson exploring their experiment, it is customary to have a look at photographs of the scientists and perhaps consider how they may have come up with their experimental design.

Meselson in lab
Above: Meselson in his lab, 1958

I often ponder whilst looking at a black and white photograph of a scientist with his unrecognisable equipment, how this person might be perceived by the students sitting in front of me in our shiny new STEAM tower. Is this what being a scientist entails? Even after removing the stereotype of the person themselves, there is the barrier of the often sophisticated machinery and the hours of patient work required to collect sufficient data to make meaningful conclusions. I have no doubt that although we can enjoy the simplicity of their experiments in class, it surely reinforces the notion that novel scientific research is something inaccessible and unattractive to many school students.

In sport, there are countless role models of young athletes competing on the world stage, with celebrated successes at their local schools. The same can be said of talented young actors, artists, musicians and even activists and politicians. But try to think of a brilliant young scientist who has gone on to become a world leader having had the opportunity to hone their skills and find their path whilst at school. The fantastic news that two leading female scientists, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, have just been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on genome editing [2] will certainly go a long way to inspiring more female scientists to dream big. However, like most leading scientists, their first taste of authentic research came after entering university and most are often only recognised much later in life.

The good news is that a growing number of passionate science teachers have teamed up with academics and a variety of institutions to provide opportunities for young scientists. Most research projects require access to expensive machinery or software that is beyond the reach of a school science department budget, and even those projects that are possible often tend to focus more on one or two aspects of the scientific process and cannot give the students carte blanche to explore their own curiosities because of time or cost constraints. Nevertheless at WHS we jumped on board and our students have benefitted hugely from projects including ORBYTS, and IRIS.

While I was in that lecture at Oxford that I suddenly realised that the missing ingredient that has recently evaporated was the need for the sophisticated machinery, and along with it, the prohibitive costs, and lengthy time required to collect data. The lecture was given by Prof Stephen Roberts, who specialises in machine learning and data analysis. Talking to him after his presentation about how ‘big data’ has shifted the emphasis in many university research labs from classic experimental design and data collection, towards a notion of data mining confirmed for me that the vast array of publicly available big datasets means that this modern approach to the scientific method makes novel research a feasible venture for all school students.

Scientific research using a data mining approach is exciting in that the data already exists, replacing the need for laborious experimental testing. The phenomenal progress in the field of artificial intelligence has meant that individual lab-bench experimental datasets are being replaced with enormous datasets which bring with them greater authenticity to the results, and also the ability to explore an expansive array of research questions that were never possible before. Data is amassing quicker than tertiary-level scientists can analyse it, and so the potential for school students to pose innovative research questions of these big datasets is not only boundless, but also a welcome and untapped asset in the quest to answer the world’s most pressing scientific questions.

Scientific method graph
Above: The Scientific Method

Novel research already on the go at WHS

We have already embarked on this exciting journey. Our first venture has been a collaboration with AELTC and IBM, who have kindly provided us with access to a huge dataset from the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. Like all great research groups, and in true STEAM+ style, we bring together different skills. The creative powers of the unclouded vision of the young scientists, supported by our Director of Sport Ms Coutts-Wood’s expertise in sport science and my experience of data analysis, has meant than we are in the final stages of publishing our first scientific paper on the impact of serve speed on winning the point. How apt!

Two more groups started during lockdown. One group under the supervision of Ms McGovern (Head of Chemistry) in collaboration with the University of Bristol, has recently received a special award for their research on Air Pollution. The other group are drawing on the expertise at the European Bioinformatics Institute in Heidelberg, Germany and the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus outside Cambridge. Their research questions range from discovering the differences in proteins associated with immune function in red and grey squirrels, to determining which mammalian species do not have attachment sites for the coronavirus (SARS CoV-2) spike protein. These bioinformatics projects will be launched on the EBI website soon to allow other schools to join in as well. Watch this space!

Just as the new STEAM tower is about to open, so too are new exciting possibilities for our young imaginative scientists at WHS.

Racket Research Club
Above: Discussing exciting new findings in the STEAM tower

 


References

[1] https://magazine.caltech.edu/post/the-most-beautiful-experiment

[2] https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2020/press-release/

STEAM+

Suzy Pett, Director of Studies, and Richard Bristow, SMT Secondee, discuss Wimbledon High’s unique STEAM+ strategy.

 

We’ve had a whole two weeks of inhabiting the new STEAM Tower. It’s beautiful, airy and light. However, it represents so much more than simply a new, physical space. I’m reminded of the poet Emily Dickinson who writes about a “certain slant of light” where “internal differences are”. And that’s the point. The tower is physically very different, but it represents the deeper, inner differences to the way we think about learning here at WHS.

First, we had STEM, that initiated the idea of interdisciplinary learning.

Then, we the realised that with the creativity of Arts, the problem-solving potential to real world problems was magnified. So, we developed STEAM. We need the imaginative, ethical, social and historical capabilities of the Arts to allow us to rigorously contemplate the complex issues of the 21st century. And my goodness have we shown our STEAM real-world problem-solving capabilities. Just last week we heard that our students were winners of the air pollution study by Bristol ChemLabS. Some of our students have worked with UCL’s Mullard’s Space centre to analyse data about the erosion of the Earth’s plasmapause, while others are almost ready to publish Sport Science research on the Wimbledon Championships in partnership with the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club. Recently, our Year 11-13s have been working with the Wellcome Sanger Institute (near Cambridge) as well as ELLS lab in Heidelberg Germany on bioinformatics projects. Not many school students ever have the opportunity to participate in ‘real’ research that could be published in scientific journals, but we do.

Now we are in the next phase of our evolution. That is STEAM+. Whilst maintaining the integrity of STEAM and its problem-solving potential, we are capitalising on the myriad of different connections between all subjects with STEAM+.

Why this is ethos is vital, is best explained by our Year 13 STEAM+ subject leaders.

Above: WHS Chemistry class, by Zest photos

Maddy:

“The principles of STEAM+ have been useful in allowing me to combine my interest in both the humanities and sciences. I found it very difficult to decide between the two when choosing my GCSEs and A levels. However, I have discovered opportunities in North America that allow me to continue to pursue interdisciplinary study at university level. Their system of combined majors and minors enables students to explore various subjects and the connections between them, thus specialising their course to their interests, lending itself perfectly to the idea of STEAM+.”

Karimah:

“My interest in STEAM probably stemmed from a visit to the Science Museum about 7 years ago – that, and my mega fascination with Doctor Who. The million-dollar “Bionic Man” had just been unveiled, complete with its own set of artificial organs, synthetic blood and robot limbs, all of which could potentially be fitted into a human body. Although I didn’t understand anything at all about how it worked (bearing in mind I was about 9 at the time), I was intrigued by the notion that science, technology, engineering, art and maths combined had accomplished something so remarkable and could benefit so many people.”

 

Above: WHS Biology, by Zest Photos

Sophie:

“I am studying Chemistry, double Maths, and English, aiming to study Green Chemistry at university. With regards to being a STEAM+ subject leader, the links between humanities and science is what first got me interested in pursuing a science degree, having for example read a book called Napoleon’s Buttons which talks about the significance of specific chemical molecules in historical events. This showed me how important interdisciplinary learning is, and has encouraged me now to find ways to combine different subjects, leading to my interest in the green aspects of chemistry which not only has a scientific backbone but also requires thought about social and political matters.”

Lena:

Above: VR Headsets in class, 2019

“I became a Steam + leader due to my appreciation in combining both my creative and scientific demand. My infatuation in applying both design and technology was prompted further by a trip I took to the German Cinematic Museum in Berlin. There I was presented a variety of virtual headsets – when worn, these headsets borne different combinations of the virtual and real world. Here I was introduced to the future of VR, AR and MR. These devices could either create completely virtual and explorable environments, or act as extensions of real-world structures. From then on, I have strived to explore ways in which I could utilise this technology.”

Fedra:

Entrepreneur and computer programmer Aaron Swartz says, ‘Be curious, Read widely, Try new things. What people call intelligence just boils down to curiosity”. Climate change is not solely a scientific issue but also a social issue. This is why I decided to become a STEAM+ leader, as the interrelation of my A Level subjects -Geography, Biology and Economics – has enabled me to look through a different lens and a different perspective of climate change, before going off to university to study Environmental Studies

Our five STEAM+ subject leaders have recorded a WimChat podcast, so look out for this on Twitter and our website to hear more about their views on STEAM+ and how it is opening doors for them.

Last week we heard that Martine in Year 11 and Phoebe in Year 10 were both awarded prizes for their writing submitted for the Charles Causley Trust poetry competition.  Reading Martine’s poem, we were struck by how it encapsulates the connections that can be made when subject disciplines dissolve and we can connect our thinking in different ways.

台灣 (Taiwan)

There’s a sense of magic in a place I can only half remember.
Where the faces and names are delicate leaves of my youth, falling in late September
And the neon signs with the squiggly lines glow dimly somewhere in my memory
But the falling leaves are hard to see and evade my grasp in an act of treachery.

The magic of the minute yet colossal differences, the bathrooms, the ads, and the subway.
My young eyes like a camera, spinning and capturing the scene of my beloved Taipei.
From my grandmother and my family came the knowledge of a culture I had amassed
When I could enchant in a language that rolled off my tongue like a spell I cast.

The brutal heat of London these days tugs at a memory in the back of my mind,
Of waiting by the food stall for seconds stretched to hours, pleasant and unkind.
I dream of a return where every piece falls into place
When I’ll feel the heat and humidity wrap me in a soft embrace.

There’s a tugging, restless longing in my heart
For a place I now understand as much as abstract art,
But I know its smells like the lines of my hand
And the sounds of the motorcycles revving were my favorite band.

There’s a chasm in my core when I return to the place I only half remember
Because the night markets are weary and bored and feel like a misnomer.
The dumplings taste all the same and the plane ride was too expensive,
And the disillusioned neon signs reveal the grime that feels incomprehensive.

There’s a suppressed sense that I wish I had never returned,
So it would remain the same golden red forever,
Only half remembered.

Martine’s poem ‘Taiwan’ might not initially appear to be particularly STEAM focused, picturing, through a foggy memory, the images, smells, sounds and beating heart of a city far away. At its core is a nostalgia for a memory – a memory which has greater beauty than the reality later experienced by the author. So what has this got to do with STEAM+?

Well – knowing that STEAM+ allows us to make connections between subject disciplines and to explore the ‘gaps’ between them, we can see many links: between the sprawling city and the people who live there; the sounds of language and the noise pollution of traffic; the role of memory and how we often experience emotions from the past more strongly than emotions from the present.

Above: STEAM Tower

We have a beautiful new STEAM Tower, but STEAM+ is not a place, or a room, but rather a mindset. It is a way of thinking that allows us to not be limited by the subjects we study, but rather encourages us to see links between subjects to look at making connections, exploring new avenues, and solving real-world problems. STEAM+ is for all subjects, and for all students and staff at WHS.

Whether you believe the myth that ‘85% of jobs in 2030 have not been created yet’ or see this as being deeply problematic (it’s only 10 years away..), what we do know is that resilience, creativity, adaptability and critical thinking are going to be highly valued skills for the workforce of the future. Engaging with STEAM+ – our inter-disciplinary exploration programme – will help you to develop these in-demand global skills.

As a school, we want WHS pupils to step out to shape the society in which they live and work. What connection will you find that helps you to do this?

 

Does Drama have a place in the A in Steam?

Emily, Year 10, asks if enough emphasis is placed on drama as part of the A (Arts) within STEAM.

What is STEM/STEAM?

STEM was originally a government initiative to “help empower future generations through science, technology, engineering and maths to grow a dynamic, innovative economy”. Recently the A was added to STEM to include the arts, but how much emphasis, if any, is put on drama as part of this addition? Traditionally within education drama has been seen as a soft option. It was often viewed as a GCSE choice for students who are less academically capable, and few links are made between the benefits of drama and other areas of the STEM curriculum.

Why do people consider Drama as a lesser part of the A in STEAM?

When considering the A in STEAM, many people think of subjects such as art, design or and/or the humanities, with the performing arts (which includes drama) very much a secondary consideration.

Commonly drama is mistaken for a break from academia. Drama, music and dance are often under threat amongst underfunded schools subject to ever-increasing budgetary constraints. Even important figures within the performing arts world cannot be relied upon to promote drama within education. The head of the National Youth Theatre said in 2014 that “drama classes should be taken off the GCSE curriculum because they are irrelevant, and the subject is seen as soft and easy”.

Jungle Book
Above: Jungle Book by Year 8 earlier this year

How does drama help with STEAM learning in schools and in STEAM careers?

Learning drama at school, or participating in the performing arts, is beneficial and important in many different areas. The skills you develop through drama can help in all areas of your subjects including the traditional STEM subjects. Positive outcomes include:

Problem-solving – drama improves problem-solving and decision making, for example improvisation can help with quick thinking solutions. Developing problem-solving skills is a key reason why the STEM initiative started in the first place – to solve many of the world’s problems.

Imagination – In drama you need imagination; you have to make creative choices and think of new ideas. Imagination increases creativity and innovation; this is essential in, for example, engineering to design new products and processes to drive efficiency. Einstein himself said that “imagination is more important than knowledge.”

Team working skills – this is an essential skill in life which crosses all disciplines at school and in life. The ability to work well in a team, to be able to listen and incorporate other people’s ideas is as important in STEM careers as it is in any other. In drama lessons, or when putting on a school production, working well as a team is essential to the success of the project, whether you are front of stage or backstage, no project or performance succeeds unless every part of the team pulls together.

Empathy – drama teaches you the skill of empathy and develops your emotional intelligence. You have to understand a character’s motivation and actions by putting yourself in their shoes. EQ is becoming an increasingly important skill in the workplace.

Confidence in speaking – drama lessons often translate into better communication skills and self-confidence. Drama students are encouraged to ask questions and explain their thoughts, and of course to perform in front of a live audience. The ability to be able to speak effectively in public and present your ideas confidently is a key leadership skill that will help with an individual’s career progression.

WHS Play
Above: ‘Education, Education, Education’ – the WHS Senior Play this term

How else can drama help?

In 2012 the National Endowment for the Arts released a report showing that low-income student’s who had access to the arts tended to have better academic results, when music, dance and drama are part of people’s life they generally then go on to have better work opportunities. You also cannot underestimate the importance of a balanced education, and drama can act as an important emotional release from the demands of academia and the pressures of modern life.

Conclusion

Overall, I believe that drama does deserve a place in the A in STEAM. Many skills that drama help you develop are vital to those needed for success in STEAM careers and in everyday life.


References

https://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2014/11/18/ctq-jolly-stem-vs-steam.html

http://www.childdrama.com/why.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/take-drama-off-gcse-curriculum-insists-national-youth-theatre-boss-9831791.html

https://leftbraincraftbrain.com/what-is-steam-and-why-is-steam-important

https://www.shoutoutuk.org/

https://www.teachercast.net/

How is climate change impacting the planet?

Abhini, Year 10, looks at some of the issues surrounding climate change, and the potential impacts this will have on our lives.

During the Easter holidays, London and other parts of the UK witnessed a significant protest against the government with over 1,000 people being arrested for blocking streets. The wave of protest began with Swedish born 16-year-old Greta Thunberg who, every Friday, would sit outside government buildings in September, accusing her country of not following the Paris Climate Agreement.

What are the concerns?

So what is it that everyone is worried about in terms of climate change? The world is seeing more extreme temperatures being recorded increasingly across the globe. The 21st century has seen records broken with increased temperatures all through the season and the rise in temperatures also has an impact on the Arctic and melting ice caps. 2016 was the hottest year on record since 1880, with average temperatures measuring 0.99 degrees Celsius warmer than the mid-20th century mean. Since the 1950s, every continent has warmed substantially.

New Scientist graph on global temperature change


An additional impact that climate change is having on the earth is on sea levels, as they are rising at their fastest rate in 2000 years and currently changing at a rate of 3.4 mm per year, causing major impacts such as increased flooding. If sea levels continue to rise, countries like Bangladesh will cease to exist, leading to a refugee crisis, as an average of 21.5 million people have already been forcibly displaced since 2008 due to climate change-related weather hazards. Not only are our water levels increasing, but the ocean is now 26% more acidic than before the Industrial Revolution. This also means that the waters are now more acidic than at any other point in the last 300,000 years.

NASA data on sea rise change from 1880-present

Another shocking fact that is due to climate change, is the damage of two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef. In April 2017, it was revealed that two-thirds of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has been severely damaged by coral bleaching, usually a result of water temperatures being too high. However, there are many more important and recent events due to climate change such as last week’s cyclone attack in Mozambique and the wildfires that took place in California late last year. The pictures below show these significant, global events.

Is climate change real?

What about the people who deny climate change? A large proportion of the public in Western democracies deny the existence of climate change[1]. Some climate change denial groups say that because CO2 is only a trace gas in the atmosphere, it can only have a minor effect on the climate. Climate denial groups also argue that global warming stopped recently, or that global temperatures are actually decreasing. However, these arguments have been made clear to be false and are only based on short term alternates. Climate change deniers are often those who are economically making a financial interest in it and, in some cases, their generation is not necessarily going to be impacted by it.

We all know about ‘being green’ by walking to school or unplugging electronics when we are not using them. However, it is not enough anymore to just switch our light off as times now call for drastic change. The energy sources in our home need to be renewable, gas must go, and people should start investing in an electric or hybrid vehicle rather than using petrol or diesel.

climate change

We cannot sit and wait on the government to change. Change is in the hands of the people. We need to force the government’s hand and can only do so if we unite to try and save a world which we are currently destroying. Change occurs when we take action.


References: 

[1] See https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/14/germanys-afd-attacks-greta-thunberg-as-it-embraces-climate-denial