British Science Week 2022 at Hebden Royd

Growth was the theme of this year’s Science Week - the organisers saw this as a fitting theme for what has been a turbulent time for all of us, ‘Growth’ links with multiple areas across science, technology, engineering and maths.

EYFS

We have planted tomato seeds, sunflower seeds, wildflower bombs and broad beans. We talked about what plants need to grow and have experimented with cress seeds to see if we are right.

We think plants need, something to grow in, water, light and warmth. We have put our cress plants in different places such as the fridge, cupboard, and windowsill. We are checking every day to see which one grows the best. So far, the windowsill cress is growing the best, proving we were right!

Year 1/2

We looked at how it is important to keep healthy, so we grow up happy and strong. We investigated hygiene and why we need to wash our hands we made predictions about the best way to clean our hands and then tested our hypotheses. We used glitter for the germs so we could see them and then experimented using different methods to clean our hands, water, paper towel, soap and water.  We concluded that soap and water was the best way to wash away the germs! 

Year 3/4

We thought about what plants need to grow and using a question wheel came up with lots of questions. We then chose the ones which would be good for testing. In groups we predicted what would happen in relation to our question and devised our method of testing. We carried out any procedures with our plants and measured the plants. We are watering all plants with the same amounts and then observing and measuring at intervals throughout the week.

We have placed flowers in food colouring in different temperatures to see how quickly they take up the water. So far, we have found out the flowers in warmer temperatures have taken up the water more quickly.

Year 5/6

This week, we have studied the growth of space technology throughout the decades. We started by plotting the work of Wernher Von Braun during WW2 and studied how his inventions went from destructive weapons to spectacular spacecrafts. Later, we learnt how animals were used to test the effects of space on living creature. The journey of Albert II (space travelling monkey) was something we particularly enjoyed. We then learnt about the space race between the Soviet Union and the USA. We looked at famous figures such as: Yuri Gagarin, Valentina Tereshkova, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Finally, we looked at Britain’s contribution to space exploration by looking at Tim Peak’s and Helen Sharmen’s missions to space.

After our journey along the timeline of space exploration, we created our very own rockets to test, which was so much fun. However, we had limited success, but we did manage to launch one rocket a massive 5 meters into the air!