Last week saw the Junior School celebrate British Science Week! There were a wide variety of activities for the students to get involved in including competitions and quizzes.
We started off the week with a wonderful assembly from our four Lower III Science Captains (Lucia, Sree, Amber and Aashvi). They discussed a variety of scientific discoveries and the important qualities needed to be a great scientist. Some of these qualities included: Being open minded, optimism, patience, learning from your mistakes, determination and most importantly…curiosity and imagination!
The Captains also promised the junior students that they were all about to witness a never before seen event…a student was asked to walk on eggs. Yes, that’s right! A simple egg could actually hold the weight of a human being.
A brave student in Lower I volunteered and was able to walk across the boxes of eggs without them cracking. Everyone was amazed! The egg’s shape is very strong, they are like an arch. They are strongest at the top and the bottom, so if you apply pressure evenly to both ends they won’t break. The curved shape of the shell spreads out the weight evenly.This is why chickens can sit on eggs and not break them.
Two science competitions were also announced during this assembly. The first ever Abbey Science Joke Competition and the ever popular Design a Lab Coat Competition.
The Lab Coat competition does not close until Monday 27th March, so there is still time to enter. We had lots of hilarious entries for the joke competition and the winners will be announced after the Easter break.
One tradition that the students always look forward to is the annual Inter-House Science Quiz. All students from Lower Prep to Lower III took part this year. The quizzes tested their knowledge of all aspects of science including rocks, space and parts of the skeleton.
The winning house for Lower Prep was…Carrington!
The winning house for Upper Prep was…Ducat!
All the scores for Lower I- Lower III were totted up and the final scores were…
1st – Paget 3227 points
2nd – Ducat 3200 points
3rd – Kensington 2920 points
4th – Carrington 2655 points
Well done to all who participated!
In Little Knellies, the Nursery and Reception students enjoyed a special assembly with Mrs Jones where they learnt all about the wide variety of jobs that involve science. Including Botanists, Palaeontologist, Astronomers, Zoologists and Engineers. They were able to continue their learning throughout the week and really enjoyed investigating the interactive T-Shirts that allowed them to look inside the human body using the iPads.
In addition to all these wonderful activities, every morning an inspirational story of an individual smashing stereotypes and highlighting the importance of inclusion and diversity in STEM was shared with the students.
Mrs Jones
Head of Junior Science