British Science Week 2023

The British Science Association’s annual celebration of all things STEM kicked off at Leighton Park on Monday 13^th March with two digital presentations from The Medical Mavericks Academy. Sixth Formers were keen to catch the ‘Medical Engineering’ show during period 1 and students from the senior school shared their lunch in the Library whilst enjoying ‘The Human Guinea Pig Show’. Over the course of the week more Medical Mavericks film were shared with the community including ‘Have You Got a Pulse?’, ‘Ultrasound Scans’, ‘Blood Vessel Bonanza’ to name just a few.

The Year 7s spent time with History teacher, Sally Saunders, developing posters to celebrate famous women in science and raising awareness of scientific figures from around the world who have previously been marginalised. Their creativity included digital artwork and physical pictures and they greatly enjoyed discovering more about the scientific characters they had chosen.

On Wednesday the Year 9s explored the reflexes of the human body trying out the reflexes of their achilles heels and their knees with a rubberised hammers and testing their pupil dilations with a torch. They also got to listen to their heartbeats with a set of stethoscopes as they followed their interactive lesson with The Medical Mavericks Academy video on ‘The Senses’.

The Chemistry Department joined in with their Medical Molecules session with pupils rolling pom poms down the stairs in advance of their Medical Physics sessions taking place next week.

Thursday saw the Lower Sixth tackling heart dissection in their Biology class with Head of Science, David Hammond. The same day students from Year 11 and above undertook the Maths Kangaroo run by UK Maths Trust.

On Friday members of the Nature, Environment, Wildlife Taskforce (NEWTs) from Year 7 attended a Climate Summit Conference in Green Park, to presenting two of the school’s recent sustainability initiatives. The competition, organised by St Edward’s School, encouraged local prep and primary schools to share thoughts on how to make a difference. The winning team’s initiative will be adopted by all of the attending schools. Our two teams promoted a flexitarian diet and the implementation of bokashi bins for food recycling, and were delighted to win the competition with their flexitarianism.

Friday concluded the 2023 Science Week with a wrap up Collect in Main Hall for all students delivered by STEAM Co-Ordinator Mark Budge, who shared insights into the data behind significant socio-scientific issues such as climate change and aging populations.

With such a range of activities for our students, British Science Week was another STEM success and we look forward to our next big annual science event, STEAMFest, taking place in May.