Two Campuses, One Giant Fruity Battery!

Whilst most of the Secondary School were on their Residential Week, the Science Faculty from T77 was also engaged in some cross-school work with Year 5 and Year 6 at the Primary Campus. Khun Time, Senior Science Technician, had performed a wonderful job in safely sourcing equipment for the students to utilise in practical investigations. Meanwhile Mr. Duffin, Year 6 Leader and Science Coordinator, had already introduced Primary students to an amazing concept of team investigation planning using the Scientific Method. Firstly, students were familiarised with the parts and functions of an electrical cell before constructing their own device using different metals and pieces of fruit. Next the teams had to identify the variables that could be changed, along with those they could measure and of course control, to ensure a fair test.

After predictions and a hypothesis had been agreed upon, the groups of young scientists embarked on their data collection followed by careful analysis. The most exciting part of the experiment came when each group attempted to light an LED with their fruity battery. 5EM proved to be the champions at this with the fastest rate of illumination out of all Years 5 and 6. It was like turning on the Christmas lights early! The culmination for each class was to join all their electrochemical cells made of fruit together in series and collectively raise the luminosity using a massive 9 volts, accompanied by lots of cheers! 

The benefits of the collaborative work between Primary and Secondary will result in further embedding of scientific skills in Key Stage 2, as well as smooth and effective transition to Key Stage 3 in Secondary. Finally, it must be concluded that the welcome given by Primary students and teachers was extraordinarily, but not surprisingly warm. The young learners were so engaging, curious and impressed with their scientific skills. They were a joy to teach, during a splendid week for Science.