21 March 2025
Woldingham’s student and staff scientists packed even more than usual into their busy schedules as they celebrated British Science Week 2025 in March with a wide range of activities on the theme of ‘Change and Adapt’.
Our biologists became detectives as they built and set mammal footprint traps to discover which animals are adapted to live around our school. It was lovely to learn that hedgehogs share our space, though perhaps less of a surprise that fox footprints were also found, given the number of rabbits we see around the grounds.
Our chemists used microscopes to view the real time crystallisation of a substance called salol, while Lower sixth physicists Annabelle and Tiffany looked at a much longer period of change with their fascinating talk about the evolution of the universe from its very beginning.
As usual, our House STEM Competition was held in British Science Week and Lower Sixth question setters did not make it easy for our four teams of students from Year 7 to 9. The competition concluded with a construction challenge where each team had to create a device that could float on water and hold a mass using only straws, paper, tape, a pencil and scissors. Some excellent engineering saw Stuart (pictured) win both the challenge and this year’s competition.
A group of students in Years 10, 11 and Lower Sixth spent the Friday of British Science Week at the Tonbridge Science Conference, where they enjoyed a series of fascinating talks, by both experts in the field and fellow students, as well as sharing research posters some of them had made.
Annabelle, Lower Sixth
Our day of scientific discovery began with a talk by Dr Craig Sawyer – Probing the Higgs: Upgrading the ATLAS detector at CERN – which went into depth about the formation of the Higgs boson particle and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, giving us a new perspective on particle physics.
Another guest speaker was Mr Samuel Adegbola, who talked about recent innovations in robotic surgery and how these will affect the future of surgery. The presentation, which included videos of robotic surgery procedures, was captivating, and certainly fuelled the ambitions of future doctors and surgeons.
A highlight of the day was looking at research posters (see photos below) produced by many of my talented fellow students on a variety of topics, including Quantum breakthroughs in medicine and neuroscience; The science behind the placebo effect; and Nanotechnology – the hidden potential in the small world. Most of them also gave talks, which delved deeper into their chosen topic. I found Sally’s talk, ‘Pharmacy in the garden’ very interesting as it focused on the botanical origin of many modern-day drugs and the chemistry behind them.
The full list of topics covered by Woldingham students at the conference:
Liv, Lower Sixth - Are carcinogens addictive?
Laura, Year 11 - Self and non-self: the inner immune checkpoint
Roseanne, Lower Sixth - Quantum breakthroughs in medicine and neuroscience
Jovie, Lower Sixth - The 'bare bones' of forensic science: how forensic anthropologists and odontologists solve crimes
Vaishvi, Year 11 - The science behind the placebo effect
Amelia, Year 11 - Botulinum toxin
Vaish, Year 10 - Microbial imbalances: the link to obesity and diabetes
Tiffany, Year 11 - Anatomy of a spacecraft
Sally, Lower Sixth - Pharmacy in the garden
Loreen, Lower Sixth - The effect of early childhood bilingualism on cognitive and academic performance
Theodora, Year 10 - Candy crush vs. cocaine: the nature of addiction
Lilico, Lower Sixth - Nanotechnology - the hidden potential in the small world
