{"id":13829,"date":"2017-03-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-17T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.www.sydenhamhighschool.gdst.net\/general\/change-science-week-sydenham-high\/"},"modified":"2017-03-17T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-03-17T00:00:00","slug":"change-science-week-sydenham-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sydenhamhighschool.gdst.net\/2017\/03\/change-science-week-sydenham-high\/","title":{"rendered":"Change and challenge for Science Week!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a case of \u2018all change\u2019 for Science Week (13-17 March) at Sydenham High Senior School.<\/p>\n

Students got involved in a wide range of STEM activities built around the theme of change and using inquiry-led learning embedded into curriculum lessons.<\/p>\n

The week started with an Assembly from new Head of Chemistry Miss Lucy Webber, who illustrated how science is constantly in a state of change.<\/p>\n

Year 7 spent the week learning to be forensic scientists, while Year 8 planned, conducted and wrote poster presentations on experiments with spaghetti.\u00a0 Year 9 practised collaborative working to design the best coffee cup and Year 10 used logical thinking skills to solve visual scientific puzzles about plants and animal behaviour. This represents 20 per cent of their IGCSE assessment.<\/p>\n

There were also a series of lunchtime workshops \u2013 from dissection to chemical code-breaking.<\/p>\n

However, the hit of the week was a \u2018meet and greet\u2019 on National Demo Day (Thursday 16 March) with some of nature\u2019s top change experts – two beautiful chameleons, on loan from Dulwich College. This attracted the kind of queue outside the Biology lab that would normally be reserved for human celebrities!<\/p>\n

Students had to opportunity to hold the chameleons, who seemed very keen to climb up their arms – and even onto their heads in some cases – and watch them gradually change colour to adapt to their surroundings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were so cute and pretty amazing,\u201d said 13-year old Year 9 classmates Alisa Gini and Nina Mattinson. \u00a0\u201cWe could see them shedding their skins too.\u201d<\/p>\n

The final activity of the school\u2019s Science Week was an engineering and physics challenge for Year 10.\u00a0 Teams competed to build the tallest self-supporting tower possible, using a set number of pieces of spaghetti and some marshmallows.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe principle behind this year\u2019s Science Week has been to build inquiry-led activities into each year group\u2019s science lessons which stretched and challenged their skills at each particular stage of their STEM learning,\u201d said Head of Science Janie Tilley. \u201cThe challenges not only involved practical techniques but also collaborative working, planning, communication skills and critical thinking.\u00a0 In many cases students needed to realise that sometimes what you see initially is not the full story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n