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Science Young Leaders Club
Tue 19 Dec 2017Science Young Leaders’ Club
Clatford CE Primary School, Autumn 2017
Twelve children from years 4, 5 and 6 have just been awarded their British Science Association ‘CREST SuperStar’ awards, after giving up part of their Tuesday evenings to attend Science Young Leaders’ After-School Club.
Under the watchful eyes of both Focussed Fiona (aka Focussed Fred) and Dr Spice, the children have had the opportunity to develop skills in working effectively as part of a team, thinking analytically, solving problems and applying the scientific techniques of fair testing and repeatability.
The children have carried out a range of investigations including:
- Learning about fingerprints – which powders give the clearest prints? Are everyone’s fingerprints different?
- Making toothpaste and varying the ingredients to see which recipe gave the best colour, fragrance and stain-cleaning ability.
- Measuring wind speed and direction using bubble mixture.
- Building birds’ nests and testing them against wind and rain.
- Dropping toast – does it really always land buttered side down, and why?
- Designing and building breath-propelled paper rockets, then holding a competition to see whose rocket was most aerodynamic and flew the furthest.
- Designing creatures adapted to different environments.
- Dropping projectiles into sand trays to help interpret craters on Mars.
- Making glue using 3 different recipes, and comparing them for strength and waterproofness.
- Building models of DNA using jelly beans.
And then the final highlight... The children learnt about the physics of wind resistance, terminal velocity and how a wind tunnel works, built and raced their own wind-powered ‘junk model’ vehicles, then experienced the thrill and exhilaration of (indoor) skydiving by flying at the iFly centre in Basingstoke!
Focussed Fiona hopes that the children will continue to enjoy science and the benefits of a ‘scientific way of thinking’, and that some of them might one day become real-life scientists.
