Staff at Carr Hill High School marked British Science Week with a series of activities aimed at promoting the importance of science.
Year 8 students started the week with the Faraday Challenge based on an “emergency communications” situation. The scenario involved two towns in a mountainous region of Europe. One town had lost all power due to extreme weather (town beta) and the other had power (town alpha).
Students worked in teams and were challenged to build a device and a code that would send a message from alpha to beta. Pupils had to send it five metres but in real life the distance was 5,000km and over a mountain. The Year 8’s created different devices using lights, sounds and a code so that the other town could decipher the message. Pupils were marked on creativity, team work, a short presentation to a panel of judges, their prototype and finally the success of a secret message code to the other town.
Year 8 Matthias said: “I enjoyed building the project and correcting any issues and mistakes which came up."
Year 7 also got involved and took part in a ‘Speed Dating’ careers event. Staff from the Science faculty organised five visitors who all had various STEM jobs including;
Rally car driver and student engineer
Website engineer on BBC sports live services
Aircraft fitter at BAE
Electrical apprentice at BAE (working with nuclear fuels).
Students were shown job descriptions and asked to come up with a range of questions prior to meeting the visitors in order to match the correct person to the correct job. The activity was designed to raise awareness of the importance of STEM subjects and demonstrate that anyone, male or female, can have a career in one of the STEM industries.
Year 7 Charlotte said: “The part I enjoyed most about the speed dating was listening to the visitors talk about what they do in their job and what they enjoy the most.”
Photo Credit: Year 13, Emily
Science Week 2017
.jpg)
