Many people have the misconception that there is no gravity in space and that objects (and astronauts) zoom around the International Space Station due to zero gravity. It would be much more correct to say that the gravitational force experienced on the International Space Station is much lower than that on Earth – what we might call microgravity. Year 5 and 6 took a rather interesting and memorable trip to the International Space Station using a Virtual Reality Google Expedition experience. They were able to look around the I.S.S. and compare and contrast such objects as dining tables and beds with those used on Earth. They are very different! We also found out about the challenges of washing hair and going to the toilet on board. We ended up feeling rather thankful for the amount of gravity there is on Earth! Our trip to the I.S.S coincided with the astronaut Christina Koch breaking a rather impressive record. Our brief “trip” aboard the I.S.S. gave us a great deal of respect for 328 days on board…
Huge congratulations to Christina! Read all about her record here.
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!
In two very different lessons, I saw excellent examples of probing follow-up questioning. Rather than asking lots of students quick fire questions, Holly and Raj frequently pushed the same student to go further in their responses. This allowed them to really explore the extent of a student’s schema and avoids students giving shallow answers. It’s also great differentiation for the more able.
Holly’s Year 13 History class were exploring the decolonisation of Africa. The lesson was in seminar form, so for the majority of the time pupils responded to each other in impressive student-led dialogue. However, Holly carefully intervened at times to ensure rigour of thought. After Aniya made a comment about the internal or external events of decolonisation, Holly asked her two follow up questions: “what do you mean by ‘internal’ and ‘external’? How can we define these terms?” …and then after Aniya’s response she probed further…“Is it as simple as that?”
Raj asked excellent follow up questions in his Year 13 Physics lesson exploring error in measurement. His follow up questions forced students to justify their logic and reasoning, and they often then corrected themselves. For example, when thinking about the confidence in measurement of a kinked wire, he pushed pupil reasoning with two follow up questions; “How can you tell?”, “Ok, you could use a flattening iron to make it easier to measure, but what would that then effect?”
Why are probing follow-up questions effective?
To assess a student’s schema (network of knowledge) in depth, teacher’s will need to ask the student follow up questions.
Asking a variety of different students quick-fire questions can add pace to the lesson, but it can also lead to students giving shallow answers.
Rather than pupil sound bites, we want developed pupil responses giving them a chance to articulate and justify their thinking or to explain their logic.
Probing with follow ups is a way to avoid sound bites. It is also a good way to differentiate and challenge the most able.
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!
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!
Year 5 were lucky enough this week to be visited by Dr Jasmine Sandhu, a space scientist from UCL’s Mullard Space Centre. Jasmine explained to both classes about what her research entails, what she likes about her job and the skills she uses. There were lots of questions about The Sun, solar storms, the Earth’s magnetic field and the magnetic fields surrounding other planets. As well as answering lots of questions, Jasmine also helped us to build a magnetometer, similar to the one that she uses at her space centre. We are going to be taking magnetic field readings and seeing if variations match up with solar storm data. If you would like to find out more the Ogden Trust explain their excellent activity here.
Rosie, Year 11, shares her recent WimTalk with us, discussing issues surrounding the way Britain remembers its past to shape its future.
September 2nd, 1945, Tokyo Bay. On the deck of the American battleship USS Missouri, the Japanese Instrument of Surrender document was signed by representatives from Japan, the United States, China, the United Kingdom, the USSR, Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. World War Two was officially over. This ceremony aboard USS Missouri lasted 23 minutes, and yet the impact of what it represented rings on to today, almost 75 years later.
Now, in 2020, Great Britain has not moved on the Second World War – far from it. Everywhere in Britain, wartime memorials and museums can be found, remembering the half a million soldiers and civilians who lost their lives. Most British people have relative who fought in or experienced the war, and there are few who would not recognise the phrase ‘We shall fight on the beaches’ from Churchill’s most famous speech. And this prominent remembrance is not just confined to the older generations: It is an integral part of every child’s education too. Hundreds of books, TV programmes, podcasts and films have documented the war with great success – even recently. The modern economy, too, remembers the war, with Britain making the final war loan payment to the United States only 14 years ago in 2006. Overall, the memory of the Allied victory in the Second World War – “our Finest Hour” – inspires the national sense of pride in our military history that has become a rather defining British characteristic.
But the question is: why does Great Britain cling on to the Second World War more than any other nation involved? And is this fixation justified, or is it time to move on?
One perspective is that the British viewpoint of the Second World War is bound to be different because of geography. The triumph of physically small island nation prevailing in war is something we can celebrate and take pride in. For other nations involved – larger landlocked countries with shifting borders – this is less easy. For example, Germans today are less inclined to look back, not only because of the radical changes in society since the Third Reich or lack of a victory to celebrate, but also because modern Germany is physically different to the earlier Germany of the Kaisers, Weimar, Hitler and the divided states of the Cold War. Instead, Germany today looks forward, not backwards, which some would argue has allowed it to become the economic giant on the world stage that it now is.
And that’s another thing – how much has Britain changed since the Second World War? Of course, it has modernised along with the rest of the world: politically, economically, and physically, but so many of the same institutions remain as were present in 1939. Our democratic government, our monarchy, our military and traditions have survived the test of worldwide conflict twice in one century, the collapse of the British Empire and the Cold War in a way that those of France, Spain and Italy have not.
Above: Photo from wikimedia commons
The Second World War was a clear clash of good vs bad – peace vs aggression. Britain was not directly attacked by Hitler but stepped up to honour a promise to defend Poland against invasion for the greater good. Remembering the Second World War makes Britain proud of these national values, as had Chamberlain not roused from his policy of appeasement and committed Britain to the sacrifice of money, empire and life, had Churchill not fortified the nation’s most important alliance with Roosevelt, the world would certainly be a very different place today. And so, if a nation’s psyche comes from the values and institutions it possesses that have stood up throughout history, is it really any wonder Brits take pride in looking back?
On the other hand, perhaps after so many years it’s time to recognise that we are not, in fact, the same Britain that we were in 1945. In 1944, British economist John Maynard Keynes spoke at the famous Bretton Woods conference. He said that the Allies had proven they could fight together, and now it was time to show they could also live together. In achieving this, a genuine ‘brotherhood of man’ would be within reach. At this conference, the IMF and World Bank were created, soon followed by the UN, to promote peace and prevent the kind of economic shocks that led to war in the first place. But at the same time, these organisations were a convenient way for the main Allied powers to solidify their power and privileges. Since then, a European has always headed the IMF, and an American the World Bank. The UN Security Council is dominated by the five permanent members, whose privileged position, some say, is nothing but a throwback to the power distribution on the world stage of 1945. By clinging on to the war, are we really clinging on to the idea that Britain is still a leading power, and modern economic giants such as Germany and Japan do not deserve to disrupt the power structure of 1945? We pour so much money into Britain’s defence budget to maintain this powerful status – into remembered threats and sometimes archaic strategies: submarine warfare, aerial dogfighters and manned bombers. The Second World War was certainly a catalyst for change across the globe. Perhaps now, Britain’s inability to let go of these old power ideals and designated roles of nations prevents us from achieving the ‘brotherhood of man’ that, in 1944, Keynes dared to dream of.
We are told that the value of history is to ‘learn a lesson’ to prevent us from repeating the same mistakes again. But there is an argument to say that this concept is a consistent failure. So many conflicts around the world seem to be caused by too much remembering: refreshing tribal feuds, religious division, border conflicts, expulsions and humiliations. Doesn’t remembering cause Sunni to fight Shia or Hindu to fight Muslim? Is it memory that maintains dispute in the Balkans, the Levant, Mesopotamia? Perhaps the emotion sparked by remembering the details of our past is better left in history when it has the capability to spark aggression, conspiracy theories and irrational anger. Today’s politics of identity seem provocative enough without being fuelled by history, so perhaps we should heed Jorge Luis Borges who wrote: ‘The only vengeance and the only forgiveness is in forgetting’. This advice has been proven to work over time – Nelson Mandela’s philosophy in 1990s South Africa was to focus on ‘truth and reconciliation’ and draw a line under his country’s recent history – closure. Can Britain not find closure on the 20th century?
What I can conclude is that there are two perspectives to take on this statement: there are some who hold onto our history as a lesson for the future, as a reminder of the importance of peace and action for the greater good, who will never be able to forget the Second World War because of the core British values that it represents. And then, there are those who think it is time to let go of the past, and adapt our nation’s values to suit our current position in the quickly-changing world that we live in. And so, the only question I have left to ask is: which are you?
Sofia, Year 9, discusses what dreams are and why they happen.
When you think of the word “dream”, many questions may pop into your head such as ‘what do they mean?’ and ‘what are they for?’ and perhaps ‘can they predict my future?’ I guess the best way to describe a dream is a story or sequence of images your mind creates while you are asleep. Except of course there is a lot more to it…
The history of dreams
It is thought that people in the third millennia in Mesopotamia were the first to record their dreams on wax or clay tablets and over 1000 years later Egyptians made themselves dream books, which also listed their potential meanings. Priests would be the ones to interpret these since they were written in hieroglyphics. Interpreters were looked up to, as they were blessed with this divine gift.
Interestingly, in the Greek and Roman era, dreams were interpreted in a religious context, thinking gods or even those from the dead were sending them direct messages. They believed dreams forewarned and they even built special shrines where those who sought a message would go to sleep.
In China, dreaming was also seen as a place where your spirit and soul left your body and went to a different world while asleep. If you were awoken, your soul may fail to return to your body. In the Middle Ages, dreams were considered to be the devil’s dirty work and fill the humans’ minds with malicious thoughts while at their most vulnerable state.
Above: Photo by Andrew Neel, Unsplash
The psychology behind dreams
Dreams can sometimes be exciting, terrifying, boring and just plain random, and although it may not feel like it, we have multiple dreams in one night that actually only last approximately 15 minutes. It’s hypothesized that everyone dreams, even though people who don’t remember their dreams may think they don’t dream[1]. Within 5 minutes of waking up, you usually forget 50% and by 10 minutes almost 90% is gone[2].
Dreams typically involve elements from life such as known people or familiar locations. And yes, it has been proven that your brain is incapable of “creating a new face”. They can also allow people to act out certain scenarios that wouldn’t happen in real life and make you feel incredibly emotional if it is vivid enough. In 1899, Sigmund Freud wrote a study “Interpretation of Dreams” which has been controversial among other experts. He states that we only dream to fulfil wishes, but many have disagreed. The Continual Activation Theory explains that we dream to keep our brains working and to consolidate memories, so that when data is needed from memory storage, we have it, but it’s just expressed in a different way while we dream. It is also suggested that we dream to rehearse and practise. Have you ever had a nightmare of being chased by a bear or even a criminal? These have been proven to be very common and challenge your instincts in case you ever do come across a dangerous situation in your life.
What does science have to say?
The scientific study of dreams is called oneirology (derived from Greek word ‘oneiron’) Dreams mainly occur in the REM (rapid eye movement) stage of sleep when brain activity is high and feels similar to being awake; it occurs within the first 90 minutes of falling asleep. During this stage, the pons in the brain shut off signals to the spinal cord causing you to be immobile while sleeping. When the pons doesn’t shut down the spinal cord’s signals, people will act out their dreams which of course could be dangerous, perhaps if you run into a wall or fall down a staircase.
Above: Brain illustration by pickpik.com
This is known as REM sleep behaviour disorder, which is rarer than sleepwalking. Even though we are immobile, the brain is very active, and you could still move and accidentally hit your sister in the face thinking you’re in a netball match. The blue represents inactive parts in the brain during REM in the image shown. Linking back to a previous point, an additional reason we may dream is to forget. This may sound confusing, but our brain creates thousands of connections by everything we think and do. A neurobiological theory known as Reverse Learning told us that during REM sleep cycles, the neocortex reviews the connections and ignores unnecessary ones, preventing your brain from being overrun with useless connections.
Even if we never know the real reason why dreams happen or whether they have any significance, it is possible that we will eventually one day find out due to developing technology. However, they may always remain somewhat a mystery to us, but hopefully, the next time you go to bed, you’ll maybe consider the complex aspects of science behind them.
John Parsons saw Nicola use this revision activity in a Year 11 Geography lesson last term. She borrowed the idea from Hannah. John said it was an “absolutely brilliant activity to help girls explore and remember links between concepts as they returned to a topic studied a year ago.” I love this activity – it feels like a more purposeful version of the quiz show game ‘Only Connect’ and it can be used across many subjects.
What is it?
There are key terms in each hexagon which are joined using a letter from the alphabet.
Students work by themselves or in pairs to suggest a link between the two key terms based on knowledge acquired previously in the course.
The key differentiator is to push students to really justify the link, perhaps using named examples etc.
The teacher then uses Q&A to further extend their ideas when sharing as a class at the end.
This is effective because…
By connecting ideas, students are building schema in their long term memory. Schema are like networks which organise interrelated concepts in an efficient and powerful way. When we need to use ideas from our long term memory, recalling schema allows us to be more flexible with the limited space in our working memory.
This task encourages pupils to understand a concept in multiple ways. Mentally tying together information/ideas is called ‘elaboration’. This is proven to enhance transfer into long term memory.
It requires pupils to pithily articulate their thoughts and to justify themselves, building confidence in their knowledge and understanding.
Vishaali, Year 10, looks behind the proof of one of the most famous mathematical theorems – that of Pythagoras’ theorem.
What is the difference between a theorem and a theory?
A theorem is a mathematical statement that has been proven on the basis of previously established statements. For example, Pythagoras’ theorem uses previously established statements such as all the sides of a square are equal, or that all angles in a square are 90°. The proof of a theorem is often interpreted as justification of the statement that the theorem makes.
On the other hand, a theory is more of an abstract, generalised way of thinking and is not based on absolute facts. Examples of theories include the theory of relativity, theory of evolution and the quantum theory. Take the theory of evolution; this is about the process by which organisms change over time as a result of heritable behavioural or physical traits. This is based on undeniable true facts, but more from experience and from an abstract way of thinking.
It is also important not to confuse mathematical theorems with scientific laws as they are scientific statements based on repeated experiments or observations.
The proof behind Pythagoras’ theorem
You have probably all heard of Pythagoras’ theorem, one of the simplest theorems there is in mathematics, that is relatively easy to remember. Given that it’s so easy to remember and to learn, wouldn’t it be an added bonus to know exactly how this theorem came to be?
The theorem, a²+b²=c², relates the sides of any right-angled triangle enabling you to find the lengths of any side, given you have the lengths of the other two.
This whole theorem is based on a triangle like this:
These four right-angled triangles are exactly the same just rotated slightly differently to create this shape:
Two shapes have been made by putting these triangles in this order. A big square on the outside, and another slightly smaller square in the middle. As all these triangles are the exact same you can label them A, B and C.
You can tell from the labels the triangles have been given, that the bigger square would have the sides (a+b), and the smaller triangle in the middle will have sides of c. Therefore we know the area of the smaller square is c² :
Using the exact same four triangles, we can rotate and translate them to create a slightly different shape:
Now two more squares have been added to this shape. We can call them a² and b².
Thinking back to the shape we made before, we can also see that the length of this shape is also (a+b). As we know we used the same four right-angled triangles for the shape before and now, we can infer that the two squares a² and b² are exactly the same as the square from the first shape, c². Hence we get Pythagoras’ theorem, a²+b²=c²:
