March 2016

Editor's Note

It has been a very busy science week this year. Year 7

spent half a term choosing and perfecting their chosen

practicals in order to teach Year 5 last Friday.

Year 8 had the most wonderful clear night for observing

both the moon and Jupiter at the start of the week.

Both Adam Hart's lecture "Saying it with smells" and the

Ash and Dudley Shallcross' lecture "A Pollutant's tale" was

very entertaining to a large public audience as well as

primary and secondary pupils.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03l7q8x (1.12)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03kjlsw (1.45)

We had a full house on Thursday with Year 10 pupils from

all across the island investigating environmental

pollutants

Dr. Karen Marshall (Head of Science, Ladies' College)

kmarshall@ladiescollege.ac.gg

Volume 6

lorem ipsum dolor issue, date

2

Year 7 Science Club spent five weeks perfecting their chosen experiments to teach to Year 5.

I was impressed with their resilience and scientific discipline. They even did a trial run at lunchtime

and evaluated the success of that. Based on that, most of them then tweaked their experiments to work

with the mass market. Lots of explosions, sticky oobleck, hot and cold water, secret writing and balloon

races entertained all.

They all looked up the science behind their experiments in order to teach the Year 5 girls, and the Year

5 class thought it was the "best ever" science lesson. I would like to thank Miss Pretorius, and our sixth

form ambassadors Olivia and Simone for all their help.

Year 8 were very lucky to have a clear night when they visited the Guernsey Observatory near to La

Hougette. The visit included a session with the 16" telescope and a chance to observe Jupiter and its

four moons, as well as our own moon. They were also given a guide to the night sky, and shown the

main constellations, including Gemini and Orion. The société kindly gave the girls a very interesting

and illustrated talk about the night sky and space. I would like to say a big thank you to the

Observatory section of the société for opening up for us.

March 2016 Volume 6

lorem ipsum dolor issue, date

3

https://twitter.com/AdamHartScience/status/710171774676279297

At St James, a big audience attended the excellent lecture given by Professor Adam Hart, with his interesting

tales of ants and bees. The lecture was based upon the chemicals that these creatures use to communicate,

called pheromones. We learnt about how bees waft smell from their back end with their wings in order to point

the way to the hive entrance. It was most amusing when he sprayed us all with a human pheromone meant to

provide instant attraction between the sexes. It actually came from a can of boar mate, a cheaper version of this

human chemical, and one also used to test the readiness of sows to mate! Everyone got to smell small tubes of

pheromones, most of which came from the backsides of various insects. It was a very informative and

interesting evening at St James.

Unfortunately Tim Harrison was unable to come due to illness but he sent over his postgraduate student Ash

Griffith to give the lecture "A pollutant's tale" with Professor Dudley Shallcross. They made a terrific team. The

Year 10 and sixth form students had an interactive lecture, containing some higher level chemistry, with an

optimistic end talking about what we can do right now to stop the amount of CO2 increasing. The public lecture

was similarly interactive with young volunteers smashing bananas and a very appreciative and knowledgeable

public audience. This also included smelling VOC's from whale vomit and a cat's anal gland (aka Chanel No.5)!

Finally, just before flying home at lunchtime, the team fitted in two more exciting primary versions of the lecture

for Beechwood and Vauvert, with lots of whizzes, whooshes, "oohs and arrs," fun was had by all.

Volume 6March 2016

Both lectureswere kindlysponsored byPwC Guernsey.

lorem ipsum dolor issue, date

4

https://twitter.com/AdamHartScience/status/710491103712120833

http://guernseypress.com/news/2016/03/18/science-day-aims-to-get-year-10s-to-take-subject-at-a-level/

Sixty Year 10 pupils arrived at Ladies' College on Thursday to gain a taster of A level science. Their first task

was to identify the pollutant that had seeped into the local river due to a lorry fire on the M6. After finding out

that the pollutant was Fe2+ they then performed a titration to work out whether it was at a toxic concentration

according to the WHO. (It was!)

They then counted the heart beat of Daphnia (aka water fleas) when immersed in caffeine to look at the effect

that caffeinated seas in the US were having on the local sea life. As part of this exercise pupils learnt about

standard deviation and standard error as applied to biological results.

A rather fun chemical clock competition was organised after lunch and the winners all "clocked" a time of 1.00

minute and were only different by milliseconds.

After the practical events Sixth Form students joined the Year 10 in the hall to hear about the gases in the

atmosphere and global warming in the interactive lecture, "A Pollutant's Tale" given by members of

BristolChem labs.

Feedback gave an equal billing for the practicals and averaged at 4 out of 5. Pupils found the practicals

interesting and felt they learnt something and that the level of challenge was just right. At the start of the day

73% of pupils said that they were interested in doing science at A level, 10% didn't want to and 17% thought

that they may. Very pleasingly, at the end of the day, 75% of pupils had decided to take science at A level, 3%

still didn't want to and 22% thought they may do so.

I would like to take this public opportunity to say thank you to the teachers who ran the labs, Ingrid Ellen, Tim

Adkins, Gill Dallin, James Midgley and Howard Barnes. Also I would like to thank the other teachers who were

available to help out, Faye Barclay, Dan Burgess and Joanna Roberts, our sixth form ambassadors and my lab

technicians Sharon Horsley and Rose Wolfe.

Volume 6March 2016

lorem ipsum dolor issue, date

5

Have you entered your pupils yet for the

Dorothy Martin Award?

This year's theme is ENERGY.

Are there better ways we could generate, collect, or

store energy, in any form, for the island? Are there

better ways to use this energy that could make life

here better somehow?

Describe your idea, and show us how it would work

using words and pictures on an A3 piece of paper.

For more information email: GsyChairman@cigpe.gg

Deadline for entries is 1 April 2016. The entries will be judged and awinner will be announced at the

Guernsey Careers Fair on the 5th April.

How is everyone getting on with CREST awards this year? I have heard that the

Grammar worked on Bronze awards with their Year 9 earlier this term.

Ladies' College will be giving all of year 7 the opportunity to complete these awards

in lessons this term and we also have three groups of Silver CREST. They are looking at: the amount of

CaCO3 in seashells, the permeability of egg membrane and growing crystals. These silver groups will

need to be assessed by Skype by an assessor from the BA.

Volume 6March 2016

I would love to know how many schools are running CREST awards. If enoughschools are then Sarnia Scholars is happy to sponsor an all-Island CREST fair witha cup that can be awarded and some cash prizes. I already have a potentialsponsor.

If you are reading this as a primary school teacher, did you know that there is aprimary school version of CREST AWARDS called CREST STAR? If you areinterested in running a club and would like the help of any Sixth Formambassadors then please let me know. You can find out more details on the BACREST STAR website:http://www.britishscienceassociation.org/crest-star

We will be trialing a young engineers STEM activity in the summer term for Year 9.If anyone else is interested in doing this for their school then please contact:lil.grafton@youngeng.org.uk