Ezine Spring Term 2011-12.pdf - The Belvedere Academy

Miss Palin launched National Science andEngineering Week with an inspiring assemblythat explored the link between ‘Our Worldin Motion’ and the Olympics. The assemblyrecognised the achievements of the inspirational athlete Oscar Pistoruis - thefirst athlete to run in both the Paralympics and the able-bodied events.Monday – Brave participators were challenged to build the most effective Water Wheel from aselection of materials. After twenty minutes each team was given 1 litre of water and asked to seehow many revolutions their Water Wheel could do. Some of the designs were highly successful,some not quite as much, but we all had a lot of fun!Wednesday – This involved designing a Hovercraft using a CD, a bottle top and a balloon. Thecompetitive streaks of girls were very obvious from their cheers as their design glided down a plankof wood to the finish line.Friday - The task was to design and build a bridge tocover a gap of 20cm, which would hold the heaviestload. Some very interesting feats of engineeringwere uncovered during this session!Leading up to NSEW a group of girls from Year 9 and 10worked very hard on a project of their choice designedaround the theme for NSEW ‘Our World in Motion’. Oncompletion they were presented with a Bronze awardfrom the National Science Association. Congratulations toEleri Gaffey-Cosslett, Sara Milani, Josephine Zuzan, DanaHo, Dominique Harper, Leah Young, Monica Dearden,Bupe Chanda, Bethan Muirhead, Rachael Noon and OliviaCraven.Alongside interesting assemblies, including someincorporating cheer leading with molecule structures;forms were busy completing quizzes and activities aimed at‘Our World in Motion’. When not taking part in the activitiesgirls were able to watch informative DVDs exploring thefamous Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and highestenergyparticle accelerator.Overall, National Science and Engineering Week was afantastic success and would not have been possible withoutthe hard-work from our Science technicians Joan, Lauraand James, who spent many hours developing resourcesfor the activities. The Science Department would like tothank all the girls and staff that got involved in NSEW.First of allwe went on the bus to the ferrywhich was very bumpy (fortunately no-one wassick) when we got to spaceport we did a range ofactivities that were all excellent.Everyoneliked the exhibitions but the best oneby far was the Wallace and Gromit exhibition. Therewas lots of interesting activities to do like play games, talkto Wallace in outer space and design rockets.On the15th of March due Year 7 went ona fantastic trip to spaceport. Spaceport is an excitingplace, we got to learn about space and astronauts, also wegot to take part in lots of fun activities like making rockets, goingon the simulator and seeing exhibitions. Altogether it was a veryfun enjoyable trip that everyone liked. Nicole in year 7said that it was the best trip she’d been onwith school.