To coincide with British Science Week last week, Marlborough House School took teaching Science to a world beyond Bunsen burners in a five-day learning programme designed to show pupils why science is for life and not just the classroom.
Visiting lecturer and Professor of Neurology at the University of Sussex, Nigel Leigh, talked to the children about the power of the mind whilst later in the week, Dr Caroline Shenton-Taylor, a lecturer in Nuclear Physics at the University of Surrey introduced the children to the wonders of scientific space balloons. A live debate around the motion ‘A moratorium on new science until 2050’ was tackled by remote sensing archaeologist, Dr Gary McKay and former industrial scientist and Head of Science at Marlborough House School, Mr Payne Cook as a warm up for a whole afternoon of debates that saw Year 8 pupils present arguments for and against sugar taxation, genetic modification and even the renewal of Trident.
In a magical lab session, Mr Payne-Cook’s alter-ego, Professor Erasmus Thinkington-Wotsit introduced younger children to the forces of energy and the fizz, pops and rainbow colours of chemical reactions, whilst classes up and down the school got to work on a collaborative collage entitled ‘A Brief History of Science and Culture from 1970 to present day’. This packed, interactive programme of learning, was designed to encourage children to wonder and think more deeply about the world around them, and in a week where we lost one of our greatest scientists and thinkers, Professor Stephen Hawking, it seemed all the more timely.
Toby Payne-Cook, Head of Science at Marlborough House School says:
‘Science at school is frequently taught as a huge, and daunting body of other peoples knowledge. The purpose of the Science Festival was to broaden horizons, raise awareness and deepen insight. Science should be about the joy of finding out; rather than the process of simply remembering.”
