Young Scientists Programme

As members of the Senior School Science Committee, we are lucky to be constantly entertained by the experiments and investigations brought to us every fortnight by Mrs Amores and Ms Hyman. This week was our chance to spread that same enthusiasm to our Junior School friends when 3G came to visit us for this year’s first Young Scientists lunchtime session.

A programme first organised by the Committeein 2018, Young Scientists is a great opportunity for students from Year 7 to 12 to volunteer their time to get to know the budding geniuses in the Junior School, help to generate an interest in the sciences, while having some fun ourselves.

On Wednesday lunchtime, we began this year with an investigation into Chemical Reactions. Committee captains Chad Brodbeck and Luisa Ardill-Walker led the group with a demonstration of the much-beloved ‘Elephant Toothpaste’ experiment. Ensuring that our Year 3 friends were fully kitted in their safety gear, we made the poor choice of starting a battle between Starkey and Veivers with the all-important decision as to what food colouring should be added to the foamy bubbles. As per the current trend, Starkey came out on top (to Chad’s disappointment) and we enjoyed an eruption of pink foam that flowed, to the delight of the students, voluminously over the desk.

This was followed by an attempt by Year 10 Science Ambassadors Leigh Amores and Maito Yamaguchi at the Hydrogen Rocket. Though it took a couple of shots at the usually crowd-pleasing experiment, eventually they were able to blow the kids away with an awe-inducing launch of our “rocket” using simply some hydrogen gas and a match.

Following the demonstrations, the Year 3s – with the aid of our committee volunteers – got to have a go at making their own Elephant’s Toothpaste. All around Smith 2.1 we observed tiny rainbow volcanoes erupting atop the benches and the delighted squeals of both junior schoolers and their overjoyed mentors. It truly reminded us of the wonder and magic that is science.

Young Scientists is a great opportunity for both the Senior and Junior students to perform some colourful experiments and learn (or revise) some scientific concepts. We’re excited to kick the next session off in Week 10 and continue throughout the year.