Science Day
Last Thursday, children throughout school became scientists for the day and took part in a variety of investigations linked to the environment. As you may be aware, the theme for British Science Week this year was ‘Connections’, and we decided to link this with children’s interest in climate change and sustainability.
Children came to school with an accessory that best represented a science-linked career. It was great to see children excited about their scientific role and explaining why/how their accessory links with this; we had a plethora of cool accessories to represent a wide range of careers that children were interested in from Palaeontologists to Cryptozoologists! This was a super opportunity for children to share their scientific knowledge. In Year 2 Vajk and Bulscu spoke to their peers about electric circuits; Maggie shared her understanding of the periodic table and Lizzie taught her friends about the safety equipment needed by a chemist.
All children were engaged in a range of science enrichment activities including investigating how cotton changes when buried in different soils; inventing gadgets useful around the home – including designs linked to reducing food waste; and exploring affordable and clean energy with a particular focus on the future of electric power. There was a variety of experiments taking place throughout each classroom and children were keen to share their inventions and discoveries with their peers and other year groups; Year 4 shared their electrical inventions with Year 5, using scientific vocabulary to explain how they worked. Across the school children were working together and talking about science with enthusiasm and pride.
Our day was enhanced by two assemblies; EYFS were fortunate to learn more about the work of a volcanologist and KS2 learnt about different roles of scientists involved in solving a problem from the collation of data to the sharing of information with the general public. Both talks had our children fully engaged and really brought science and technology to life. It can take just one thing to ignite a spark in a pupils, these talks were instrumental in helping us do just that and we appreciate our speakers giving their time so freely. We are grateful to parent Mike Cassidy for talking to our younger children about his role as an volcanologist and also to Kate Bird’s team at Oxford Population Health, part of the University of Oxford, for opening children’s minds to a scientific mindset and the wide ranging relevance of science to the everyday.
Science Day helped to further develop children’s science-related knowledge and understanding and we hope children came home and shared their excitement with you. Here are a few quotes from the day:
‘We loved it’ – Jacob Y2
‘It was outstanding.’ – Seb Y2
‘I learnt that when you work on blood, you can tell if you’re healthy or unwell.’ – Y5
‘We learnt about the different types of scientists. We thought that scientists were always so serious, but now we know they can be really funny!’ – Y5
