Mrs Smart (Head of Science)

Last week was British Science Week (Friday 11th – Sunday 20th March) and in order to mark the return of this occasion, we ran a series of hands-on activities in the I-Create space during lunchtimes. These included the Van der Graff generator, droplet art, ‘Monkey and Hunter’, Virtualitees and a cutting-edge digital microscope. We also showcased some of the real-life research projects we have going on in school: Ionic Liquids (synthesising a range of exciting new compounds, which have the potential for many green chemistry applications) and Cosmic Mining (analysing spectra from the Spitzer telescope in order to help scientists point the James Webb telescope in the right direction to uncover the secrets of the universe).

On Thursday, we hosted the ever-popular House science quiz, in which over 100 students pitted their scientific  knowledge and skills against the clock and each other. 

Oluwatobiloba Apesin (Lower Sixth) said: “Thursday lunchtimes are usually reserved for a friendly game of DND with the AMCV club (anime, manga, comic book and video games club), however on Thursday 17th March, during British Science Week, I decided to cancel the club for the week and attend the house science quiz. Although not doing as well as I had initially hoped in the quiz, I still had fun with my teammates answering as many questions and puzzles as we could as well as cracking a magnitudes of jokes at many of the questions because apparently the type of resin which was put on antlers to stop them growing was supposedly meant to be  ‘common knowledge’. 

As someone who loves science, British Science Week is usually something I look forward to as there are many events and tutorials being run throughout school and the different science departments. The science quiz was a fun way to end off the week and I hope we have another next year!”