Science Week

Science Week

Once again science week came and went, this time I think a few more than usual sat up and noticed.  At least in our little corner of D15.

Once again the main stay of the week in Hartstown Community School was the 1st year Science quiz.  By my estimation it was the 8th running of the quiz, although how memorable it is up for debate as on asking some 6th years did they remember it, they could not recall its existance.  

The questions have not moved on too much since the early days, and I suppose this is because the energy and desire to reset all the questions is none too great when there is so many other things to be done.  Most of the rounds are multiple choice questions, some rounds on course, some off course and some out there.

Last year we changed the format of question 1 and question 3, question 1 last year was based on N.A.S.A. trying to get students to name an asteroid, this year we changed it to a very basic question on what is animal / plant / living, the question I adapted from my hDip science module that wanted to see what the student believed before we taught them anything. 

Question 3 is a periodic table question.  Based on a child friendly periodic table from http://elements.wlonk.com/index.htm we ask them some questions that they can infer the answers from this periodic table.  This gives the student a very simple and successful 1st introduction to the periodic table.

Every year we mix up the tables so students from different classes get to meet and mix, and debate the great science questions of their day. Prizes for the day are provided in the main from science week, but we add a gift voucher for the winners in the winning teams. 

This year to attempt to get more students voluntarily get involved, we decided to have a paper airplane competition.  There were a few reservations that the Planes could be used in class, only one of the other teachers thought this might be a problem too.  The rest, the more experienced teachers all said plough on.

We organised some of the tuesday lunch time science 'geeks' to help make measurement, got a few from Transition year to register planes & 'pilots'.  In order to register a pilot had to measure the dimensions of their plane, and record them on the registration sheet. They then had a choice of 3 launchers, 1 made by Mr Barry, a technology teacher, 1 built by one of the strongest engineering candidates in TY, and a sling shot one, built by another student in TY.

A 2nd year boy called Chuka one, as his plane had a flight time of 4.3 seconds after it was launched from the balcony in the sports hall.  One other plane got stuck in the light fittings, and claims of infinite flight have been dismissed.  In total we had 33 entries into the Paper airplane competition, so in comparison to the poster competitions, story competitions, which we ran but received no attention unless it was done in class time, Hartstowns Science Week was a huge success.  Wonder if we will do it again next year, the paper airplane competition.