Down at the science labs, teachers and pupils were celebrating British Science Week with a packed schedule of lessons around the theme ‘our diverse planet’.
Our Year 5 and 6 pupils looked at diversity of people: they studied their own body clocks and learnt about the chemical messengers called hormones that tell bodies when to sleep, eat and wake up. They also looked at how diverse they are as a group recording height, forehead temperature, genetic factors such as whether their ear lobes are attached or not, as well as taking fingerprints and looking at individual whorls, valley and ridge patterns.
They went on to dye their tongue blue so they could count the fungiform papillae: these are the big pink bumps on your tongue that contain your taste buds and enable you to taste. With a blind taste test, they tried to detect whether the mystery food and drink was sweet, bitter, salty or sour.
I really enjoyed the blind taste test. You had no idea what you were going to taste and we had to use our taste buds to work it out. I was a supertaster.
Isabelle, Year 5
Finally, they learnt about biodiversity and clever camouflaged creatures, with built-in protection to help them survive. The pupils were fascinated by the animals that camouflage themselves so perfectly and animals that survive better by mimicking either inanimate objects such as a twig or other animals such as the hoverfly which resembles a wasp.
The children created camouflaged creatures out of paper one team hid them in the grounds. The other team hunted for them and whilst many were found, some never were, which suggests the camouflage really does work.
Year 7 girls commented on their activities: "We loved the range of science we have done this week. We’ve learnt about how plastic pollution is reducing the biodiversity on the planet, so it was really interesting to make biodegradable plastic from milk and vinegar just like they did in the olden days. We also learnt about how a bird's beak shape helps them to pick up food available locally and made lava lamps. It’s been really fun."
Mrs Bagshaw, Head of Science added: “This week has focused on sharing the love of learning and science and we’ve seen so much enthusiasm from pupils for the Science Week activities. We’ve also shared our appreciation of the awe-inspiring diversity in animal species including humans and the planet as a whole.”
Year 5 also showcased their Trash to Fash project, which they created and worked on so enthusiastically during this term. It was fantastic to see their creations - fashion, play and creative - all created out of rubbish.
Pupils have also enjoyed lunchtime science sessions such as gardening, making seed bombs, lighting methane bubbles and outdoor experiments like the ones seen below to create a 'soda snake' and screaming jelly babies!
The Nursery and Pre-Prep children also enjoyed a week of science. Read more about the Pre-Prep Science Week and see photos.
