British Science week 2022 at The Rowans started with pupils listening to a talk by Zoolab and getting the chance to handle some extraordinary animals such as a giant snail, corn snake and getting up close to a tarantula! Pupils really enjoyed the interactive experience.

Following the British Science week 2022 theme of grow, pupils were set two challenges to grow and develop their STEM (Science, Technology, engineering and maths) skills. The first challenge was to build a bridge over a set distance, using just 6 pieces paper and sellotape. The wining bridge would be the one that held the most weight. Pupils listened to a talk by The Rochester Bridge Trust on the different types of engineers and the great work they do to keep the 108-year-old Rochester bridge in tip top condition and then begun making their own designs. The winning teams bridge held a whopping 1.5 Kg. Our core values of resilience and commitment were shown in abundance with pupils testing their bridges and remodelling many times until they were happy with their final design. Testing was nerve racking, putting on one weight at a time and some bridges failed but fun was had by all who took part.

To finish our week and grow into innovative engineer’s pupils were set a really tough challenge to use K’Nex modelling kits to design and build cable cars. Pupils were given the scenario of transporting supplies over a river after a natural disaster and a long cable was erected that went the whole span of the school hall. Yet again pupils showed our values of commitment and resilience in bucket loads. Designing, building prototypes, remodelling and testing, time and time again, to see the maximum capacity of metal cans their cable car could carry. Pupils created very impressive designs and built cable cars that carried over 42 metal cans! To add to the challenge pupils were then asked to fit motors onto their cable cars, so the supplies could be carried back over the river. Pupils continued to show outstanding resilience and commitment fitting the motors and sending their cable cars back up the cable all the way across the hall. This was a great engineering achievement using the motor to go against gravity.

What a great way to end our fun packed science week. We are very much looking forward to next year.

Pupils excelling in the giant tetrahedral challenge. It filled our school hall!