The wonderful world of science has been put under the microscope by children at St Gregory’s catholic Primary in Margate.
The school marked British Science Week with an exciting focus day that saw all year groups tackling a range of fun and engaging experiments – the theme this year was “curiosity: what’s your question?”.
The day was designed to spark curiosity and encourage children to explore scientific ideas through practical activities – pupils shared ideas and the experiment results with other schools in the Kent Catholic Schools Partnership.
Early Years pupils explored chromatography inspired by the story The Rainbow Fish, Marcus Pfister’s award-winning book about the beautiful creature with a multi-coloured body and shimmering silver scales.
Children used colourful pens and water to separate colours on paper, discovering how different pigments travel at different speeds.
In Key Stage 1, a challenge was set to help a carrot float. Using a variety of materials and their own creative thinking, the children experimented with ways to make the vegetable stay on the surface of the water. The task encouraged problem-solving with pupils working in small groups and introduced the concept of buoyancy.
Engineering skills were under the spotlight in Lower Key Stage 2 as the group worked to design and build the strongest “backbone” structure they could. Using a selection of classroom materials, teams tested different shapes and designs to see which would support the most weight.
Investigating air resistance saw Upper Key Stage 2 children use practical experiments to explore how high they could make an object move through the air and how air resistance affects falling objects.
St Gregory’s Science Lead is teacher Charlotte McDaid. She explained: “This was a fantastic opportunity for our pupils to experience science in a hands-on and exciting way.
“The children showed great curiosity and teamwork throughout the day, and it was wonderful to see them asking questions and testing their ideas. Events like this help inspire a love of science and show pupils that science is all around them.”
Head Teacher Dave Walker added: “This was a brilliant day consolidating and clarifying learning for our children who thoroughly enjoyed the event and took so much away from the opportunities offered to them. “
