We have been busy celebrating all things science throughout the Junior and Senior Schools to mark British Science Week. This year the theme was ‘Curiosity: what’s your question?’, and in the launch assembly on Monday morning we were introduced to questions that teachers had when they were younger, such as why the sky is blue and if a car would continue to accelerate down a hill without using the accelerator pedal, and the importance of asking why things happen and discovering the answer.
On Wednesday, school governor Esther Bell, Professor of Bioscience Education at King’s College London, delivered a university-style taster lecture on ‘Essentials of Developmental Biology: a Frog’s-Eye View of Development’ to chemists and biologists in Years 11-13.
The lecture introduced how cells divide, specialise and assemble the tissues and organs of the body. Using familiar examples – from frogs to humans – Professor Bell examined how genes orchestrate these processes, focusing on the key developmental gene Pax6, which is essential for eye formation.
Year 12 Scholars Leena and Martha led a seminar for Lower School Academic Scholars where they made DNA sequences using sweets – playful scholarship in action! The strands were made from strawberry laces, with different coloured skittles making up the G, C, A and T bases.
Five Year 5 pupils embarked on a visit to the Royal Institute of Science in Mayfair for this year’s GDST Science Day, taking part in workshops including extracting their own DNA; designing a crash ‘forces’ car; witnessing what happens to various objects when submerged in liquid nitrogen; and taking part in a science history treasure hunt.
The week also saw clubs such as Med Soc, Greenpower Car Build, Science Discovery Club, First Lego Leagure and Astronomy Club opened up to all who were interested across the Seniors; Biology TED talk on ‘Does science ruin the magic of life?’; and a Biology Photo Competition, focusing on photos of unusual or surprising things in nature that we may walk past without noticing. And both the Junior and Senior Schools entered the Science Week Poster Competition, with girls tasked with creating a poster thinking about what makes a positive childhood and this would look like for children in the future.
