As part of British Science Week, Year 10 participated in a host of educational and fun demonstrations on Thursday 12 March to learn about various scientific elements in a fun experimental format. This included:

• Fruit Keyboard - Pupils listened to the sound of the piano as Bella, completed a circuit, when she played fruit like an instrument.
• Beach Ball - Bernoulli’s Principle was demonstrated where an area of lower pressure kept a beach ball centred within the air stream. The force from the air balanced the weight of the ball.
• Exploding Custard Powder - involved all pupils wearing goggles, as the rapid combustion of the chemical energy stored in the custard powder turned heat and light into energy.
• Elephant’s Toothpaste - showed the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide into oxygen gas and water. Normally this reaction is slow, but with the simple addition of potassium iodide/bromide, it created an explosive reaction.
• Balloon Kebabs -  saw Year 10 find the perfect place to pierce through a balloon end to end.  The polymer chains closed around the skewer, preventing the balloon from popping.
• Screaming Jelly Baby - where the unlucky Jelly Baby was rapidly oxidised by warm potassium chlorate generating an impressive amount of light, heat and smoke.
• Whoosh – Everyone had to stand a distance away.  The demonstration showed how flammable alcohol rolled inside a large bottle vaporises, and when ignited by a match, created a deafening whoooosh­­­ sound to the shock and delight of everyone.

Year 10  pupils were joined part way through the afternoon by Year 7 pupils who were captivated by all the science in action and participated with great enthusiasm in the many science activities to celebrate British Science Week.

Throughout Science Week Year 9 pupils worked together to create a giant periodic table which was assembled on the lawns outside the science block at the end of the week. Images from this event can be viewed on Twitter in this Giant Periodic Table video.

Thanks to the Science Department team for organising such inspiring, educational, fun scientific demonstrations and activities.­