Last week we celebrated science and STEM throughout the school. Fyling Hall may be a small independent and boarding school in Yorkshire but that certainly does not stop us thinking big, looking outward and exploring connections in the wider world. A lot happened during British Science Week at school – within the science classes, on field trips and also in the other lessons as we focused on cross-curricular connections.
British Science Week is “a ten day celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths”. This year organisers felt “Connections” was the right theme after the period of isolation endured during lockdown. They also commented “Nearly all innovations in science, technology, engineering and maths are built on connections between people.” and of course at Fyling Hall School connections are very important – connections in STEM, connections throughout the curriculum and connections within our community. here are some of highlights from our lessons. We started with STEM connections and we expanded into the broader theme of connections. Read more here about how Connections inspired a week of learning.
Maths Connections
Students worked on data collection in Whitby. They recorded and investigated vehicle carbon dioxide output. This linked to the effects on endangered eco-systems which they considered on their science field trip to the Danby Centre.
Year 9 also created a human orrery in their maths lessons – looking at connections within the solar system.
History and STEM
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, as year 9 pupils have discovered, was not only a prolific engineer, but at the cutting edge of technology and often way ahead of his time in the breadth of his vision. As part of Science week, year 9 History students are writing their obituaries of Brunel have examined the magnificent achievements and legacy of undoubtedly one of the world’s greatest engineers.
Brunel’s memorable Great Western Railway and Maidenhead bridge are beautifully and magnificently commemorated in Turner’s painting “Rain Steam and Speed” one of his later works exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1844, in itself a revolutionary painting in terms of its technique and subject matter!
Charlie II and the growth of science
The reign of Charles II was a “Golden Age” in many respects! As part of Science Week, Year 8 learnt about how the “Merry monarch” encouraged the growth of science, through the foundation of such institutions as The Royal Society and the Royal Observatory Greenwich.
Computer Science and British Science Week
Year 8 wrote code to test out the colour and luminosity sensor on the international space station. The theme was flora and fauna. The students created an image on a paper grid 8×8. We then converted the colours we used to the RGB values and this enabled us to convert it to code. Our backgrounds used the sensor data, so it would change depending on what the sensor is facing. This is run on a small raspberry pi computer called the astro pi. The code will be uploaded and ran during April and May.
ESL and British Science Week
In our daily ESL / EAL lessons students investigated scientists from their own countries and gave presentations about them. This broadened their knowledge and developed English language skills at the same time.
Connections in Drama
In drama lessons students worked with scripts and prepared performances around connections. They looked at relationships, how people interact with each other and how interactions affect others. Performances also studied lack of connection and what this looks and feels like.
PE, sports and connections within the human body
Everything is interlinked in the human body and the British Science Week theme gave students an opportunity to delve into this. They looked at how a warm up us connected to pulse rate, how muscles will work (after a warm-up) and how the joints function to connect us all together.
German
In German, we took Science Week from the linguistic angle and investigated the connections between the English and the German language, on a historic level. We discovered so much it will follow in a later article!
If you’d like to learn more about STEM at Fyling Hall or our curriculum please get in touch!