Mrs Schofield (Head of Year 4)
On Thursday 14th March, our intrepid Year 4 explorers boarded the bus to Cambridge, excited about the prospect of finding out more about Antarctica and the brave people who have struggled to survive its harsh conditions.
The girls were split into two groups, with one group heading to the Scott Polar Research Institute, and the other to the beautiful Cambridge Botanical Gardens. The gardens provide an opportunity for the girls to link learning from the previous term to our current focus, finding out about plants and how they are adapted to their specific environments. With four different biomes to explore, mountainous, tropical, desert and wetlands the girls felt how different the conditions can be and discovered what variations in leaves result from these differing environments.
In contrast, the Scott Polar Institute was entirely focused on extreme cold! The girls were fascinated by the stories told about the famous explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his team, and how ‘Cherry’, ‘Birdie’ and ‘Uncle Bill’ battled against the elements to find and bring home three penguin eggs for research purposes.
The girls used questions to discover details about the equipment needed on such an expedition, and read some of the original diary entries and inventories for Scott’s most notable journey. After a quick detour to the museum shop, it was time to return after a thoroughly exciting day.
