Science lessons at Laleham Gap School are often related to real-life uses, involve hands-on investigation and are good fun. This month saw the hands-on element taken to the next level when the school took 11 of their pupils, from Year 8, 9 and 10, to Discovery Park Sandwich for the ‘Big Bang’ Science event.
During the morning pupils had witnessed big bangs, seen how a super chilled banana (-198 degrees centigrade) reacts, had a chance to see how robots of the future might be powered by our thoughts and even built a da Vinci bridge.
Teacher Paul Ursell, who took the children to the event, said: “The motto of Laleham Gap School is Learn, Grow, Succeed and that is exactly what happened at this event. Science is at its best when the pupils are fully involved and when it is related to real-life uses. That is why our pupils achieved so much from the day.”
Laleham Gap pupils joined hundreds of others from all over Kent in attending the event and participating in the stalls run by enthusiastic STEM ambassadors. Pupils learnt in a very practical way how long different materials take to degrade and found out about anti-bodies through balloon modelling! As well as discovering the different exciting careers learning science can lead to they also learnt first-hand from the Armed Forces how they use science in their work.
Wearing safety equipment, the pupils explored states of matter using liquid nitrogen, having their faces put in a cloud and even smashing super cooled rubber tubing into pieces with a hammer.
Mr Ursell said: “Of course it was great to see my pupils smiling, joining in and just having fun, but just as pleasing was listening to their questions and discussing their thoughts with them as they grappled with various scientific conundrums.”
Laleham Gap science department is now busy preparing for its own science show.
It is just great how Schools make science come alive like this. Well done to all.
I really enjoyed the event. All of the organisations involved were great and the children really loved being given the opportunity to get hands-on with the experiments and equipment. The photographs only capture a small glimpse of what the children got out of the event.
Thank you to everyone who made this possible.
Amazing! Science was never as fun as this when I was at school. What a fantastic learning opportunity.