At Surbiton High School we celebrated British Science Week with a variety of activities.
Rising to the challenge of running events virtually, staff gave live demonstrations of experiments that could be reproduced at home in the kitchen, including making a fizzy drinks can pirouette and dissecting a flower.
Two teams from the sixth form battled it out in our afterschool debate to answer the question ‘Arts of Sciences – which has the biggest influence in modern society?’. Hope, Jade and Izzy gave a passionate argument for the Arts, focusing on the impact of media, creativity and communication. In response, Sophie, Aimee and Daeun focused on the impact of scientific progress on our health, the pandemic and communication technology. The debate was masterfully managed by our Chair, Isobel. In the final vote, the Sciences just came out on top, but the event brought out many points for further discussion. We left the debate wondering whether really the most impact is made when the Arts and Sciences work together. Many thanks to Mr Sanders and Debating Society for supporting the students in preparing and delivering the debate.
We welcomed three speakers to our Teams Talks. Miss Salam started the week off with a fascinating discussion of ‘The Social Life of a Chimpanzee’, taking us through the world of animal behaviour and how similar Chimpanzee behaviour can be to our own. We also met with Dr Madeleine Ansell and Ms Michèle Redmond as they told us about their respective experiences of life as a Junior Doctor and as an undergraduate physicist. They gave us a real insight into the world of medicine and university and offered great advice for following their paths.
Science Week gave us an opportunity to focus on the role of women in STEM, so our poster competition this year was focused on celebrating an inspiring STEM role model. Many congratulations to Sophia in Year 9 who won with her poster on Helen Sharman, and well done to all of those who took part.
– Ann Pudney, Deputy Head of Physics
Categories: Senior School