Mrs Whomsley (Head of Year 5)

As part of the Year 5’s ongoing inquiry into Sharing the Planet, they have been investigating the role and use of renewable energy as part of the commitment to reducing global warming. The students reflected on a previous Unit of Inquiry in Year 4, in which they visited a wind farm, and they were able to use this knowledge and experience in order to create their own anemometers. Following on from this, they then went onto explore hydropower and have plans to look at solar power before designing their own invention to capture energy through a renewable source.

It has been fantastic to watch the students putting their problem-solving skills to the test in their initial designs then having to persevere whilst they reflect and adapt them in order to complete their investigations and then go on to compare their results with each other.

Jasmine, 5B: “It was really fun to build our own anemometers. It is really important to have all the cups facing the right direction!”

Ruby, 5B: “I learnt about wind speed and how we know where to place wind turbines.”

Violet, 5W: “The hydropower investigation was interesting and was a bit ‘trial-and-error’. We had to improve our design to stop the water from seeping into the bottle to get it to work.”

Meira, 5W: “It was interesting to see how much weight our creations could carry – we got quite wet finding out!”

Sasha, 5T: “When we were testing our anemometers we found the wind to be inconsistent showing that using wind as an energy source can be unreliable.”

Saroop, 5T: “It was really fun- we held our anemometers high above our heads to try and catch the wind to measure its speed.”

View photos HERE.