British Science Week 2022
Date: 18th Mar 2022 @ 10:27am
Hello everyone,
Firstly, I would like to thank all the parents who gave up their time this week to come and talk to the children about their STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths) careers. I have been fortunate to had the time to 'drop in' briefly on some of the sessions, and the feedback from staff and pupils alike has been so positive. I hope that those of you who did come in to school found the experience to be equally as positive, if only for a little peak into the world of classroom teaching!There is a lot I would love to share with you about the science learning at Brereton this week: I will be as succinct as I can - but there is so much to say!
The focus for Science Week this year was 'Growth' and the teachers selected a wide variety of investigations and learning linked to this.
Year 6 explored different types of worms and where to find them, together with an investigation into the kind of soil we have and therefore what type of geology we are sat on top of. They were lucky enough to be visited by Mr McDonald, aka Fin's dad, who works as a Director of Customer Success for Adaptiva. As someone who works in technology, he represents the 'T' in STEM and spoke of coding, software engineering, the Cloud, bandwidth, battleships (real ones!), game design, app design, military projects and even spies! When asked about career paths, his advice was 'Do something you enjoy...it's all about taking opportunities'. On Tuesday, they welcomed Mrs Winward who put the A in STEAM for us - a Science world with an Artisitic view on things. She spoke of how she chose a broad range of subjects she enjoyed through school, not knowing where they would lead and now works for Jacobs, a global company with a great breadth of projects from electric cars to designing Tim Peake's spacesuit!
Year 5 chose to look at how living things would survive on Mars. They researched what the surface of Mars was like, and what specific adaptations animals would need to live on the planet. They then used this information to design their own unique creatures, before actually making them out of play-doh! They welcomed Harley's parents for a fascinating and interactive exploration of medicinal drug development, which was definitely a highlight for me as someone who previously worked in healthcare professions.
Year 4 also went on a worm hunt, looking at how worms repsond to the environment around them and how important they are to our eco-system. They looked for them in different habitats, making note of how many they found in particular places, and what that tells us about how they adapt. The class was visited by Sofia's father, an engineer with a definite flair for practical experiments! They also had a fascinating talk with Mr. Brown, Kaleb's father, who told the class all about his careers as firstly an engineer, and now as a pilot. I think that Mr. Lindblad is certain of some future careers in STEAM industries amongst his pupils!
Year 3 looked at how the brain interprets and translates what we see into something we understand. As an investigation, the class explored optical illusions and had a go at some in pairs, which caused some considerable discussion and debate! They were visited on Monday by Mrs. Bishop, Alasdair's mother, who works in the telecommunications industry and talked to the class about all the ways that our world depends on the power to communicate, from entertainment to saving lives.
Year 2 went down the slime route for their investigation - a great Friday afternoon activity, I'm sure you'll agree - and having made their own slime, looked at the best ways to make it stretch as far as they could - learning about which ingredients would make the slime stretch the furthest. Having washed and 'de-slimed' they ended their week with a great presentation from Tristan's father, Mr. Canning, on the inside of a passenger aeroplane cockpit and were taken on a flight, landing in the mountains at Innsbrook, Austria.
Year 1 did their investigation on how our bodies grow as they get older, and by comparing hand sizes from children across the school, investigated if everybody grew at the same rate. They were lucky enough to be visited by Mrs Williams, the mother of Dougie, who as a vet and farm owner, was perfectly qualified to talk to the children about caring for farm animals, particularly cows. As I'm sure you can expect, there were some great questions from the class. That said, if your child wants to know how a cow can give birth on a farm with no bulls, well...we might explain in Year 5!
I know that Mrs Foulkes in Reception has also been making use of our outdoor environment for their science learning this week, as well as learning the names for animal young - for example, did you know that a baby rabbit is called a 'kit'. You did? Well, that's one up on me then!
Here are a selection of photos; there are so many others so I will try and add to these next week, but I'm sure that if you take a look on the class blogs you may see more examples of the learning this week. Once again, thank you to parents and teaching staff for throwing themselves into making this a really good week. I'm already planning British Science Week 2023, so get your lesson plans ready!
Have a great weekend!
Mr. Cotton
