22 March 2022
Mr Paul Rickard, Head of Science
It has been a busy and fulfilling time for the Science Department as Woldingham celebrated British Science Week 2022 (11-20 March) with a host of activities designed to engage and enthuse our students on this year’s theme of ‘growth’.
For biology, students took swab samples from various locations around the school and examined the resulting microbes, grown in petri dishes, to see which areas were the ‘dirtiest’. It was reassuring to know that Woldingham’s toilets were very clean. The soles of the students’ shoes less so!
Growing crystals was the order of the day in chemistry. Students in Years 7 to 9 conducted a range of reactions, which resulted in shiny silver crystals through to stunning blue copper sulfate ones.
In the name of physics, Year 7 students competed to see who could build the largest tower from spaghetti and marshmallows. Year 8 enjoyed a talk from the Croydon Astronomical Society to celebrate Mars Day and, continuing with the space theme, Anastasia, Lower Sixth, gave a wonderfully informative presentation to her peers on the subject of gravitational waves. British Science Week concluded with an excellent particle physics masterclass for Lower Sixth physicists by the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.
