Scien-triffic!

A man was walking along the beach one day. Ahead he noticed another, older man picking up a starfish that had become stranded on the sand and throwing it back into the sea.

“Why do you bother?” the man asked him. “The beach goes on for miles and countless starfish get stranded every day. You can’t really make a difference.”

The old man looked at the starfish in his hand and then he threw it to safety among the waves. “I can make a difference to this one,” he replied.

Countless children feel stranded at school. For some Calder House can make a real difference.

Scien-triffic!

Wednesday, 06 January 2010 00:00

Why did Mary Ann Evans have to change her name to George Eliot in order to get her writing published?

I recently asked this of my English students, where, in due course, they turned this same spotlight upon women’s place in the History of Science. Yet to watch our students this morning, girls in particular, revealed that Calder House is putting this bang to rights. Our Head Girl, especially, was keen to discuss the role of mitochondria as the ‘power houses’ of cells, whilst others (girls, again) clarified that light travels in straight-lines, and went on to explain why light is the source of all life on Earth. In fairness, Calder House boys were equally impressive. Scientific vocabulary, such as ‘opaque,’ ‘translucent,’ ‘oesophagus,’ and ‘enzyme’ came thick-and-fast.

So . . . what was the occasion?

The Science Explorer Dome had come to Calder House School. Our Headmaster, Mr Day, and I, as Head of Science, had been a little apprehensive as to whether this giant, grey, inflatable ‘thingy’ (apologies, not very scientific) would be coerced into our hall, what with our oak A-frames and all. Well, in the end we placed our faith in Science, and it all turned out just fine. The giant nodding hemisphere, with accompanying tunnel (imitating the oesophagus – the tube leading from mouth to stomach), sat cathedral-like, in the middle of our hall. Did I say, cathedral-like? Perhaps, the Tardis is more appropriate, the interior of which served as a screen for projected images of the human digestive system.

Selecting a theme for this visit had vexed me: Space? Dinosaurs? World of Sound? As Head of Science, this choice brought back childhood memories of standing in front of the Pick ‘n’ Mix – way too many options. We had finally settled on ‘Digestion’ and ‘Light’ as the topics to be covered.

And I'm glad we did.

Watching 34 awe-struck faces as we were taken on an endoscopic journey through the intestine confirmed something magnificent – my faith not just in Science, but in human curiosity – especially at this age. Snot; vomit; the contents of one’s stomach - what’s not to get curious about?! And, yes, it was ‘Hands On,’ – right the way down (literally) to poo!! Not the real thing, of course, but something pretty darn close. Why is poo brown, and snot green? Something to do with the different colours of bacteria mixing, as if on a painter’s palette, to make the colours they do.

And speaking of colour, then came the second session on Light. Its speed, its origins . . . its impact upon life in the Universe. Big questions. Yet, every single member of our young audience did me proud. And it wasn’t just their ‘Scientific Knowledge and Understanding’ – a term every science teacher gets bludgeoned with when consulting curriculum documents. No. What it was, was the imagination they demonstrated when viewing the way in which a prism split white light apart upon the interior canvas, or the magical qualities of a laser beam, like a red dust mote, as it dissected the electric air within the dome, bouncing it’s way from one mirror to the next, until that tiny crimson dot played upon the chest of one of the activity leaders, having us all in hysterics.

But, what did the students learn?

Always a question that one feels has to be answered in order to justify such an event. Well, if I had to sum it up: they learned to be incredulous: to question what they were seeing, and then, based upon reasoning, knowledge, and a sprinkling of imagination, they formed mature, scientific, ideas. Bit-by-bit, I could see those tiny scientific ideas take on shape and substance, like a gas taking on liquid, then solid form, I suppose. To think not so much about what has just happened here, but why and how it has happened. The main lesson of Science, then, is just as for Life: that the most important thing is to first ask the right questions.

It’s simple, really, isn’t it: hardly rocket science?!

Mr Ian Perks, Head of Science