Volume 26 Issue 15 26 May 2017 1 Sivan 5777

From the Head of Science

View from the Kleinlehrer Family Science Building

Dear Year 8

I have to say that I really don’t appreciate you leaving me behind the other day. In fact, I feel excluded and if yellow blow-up balls had a union I would be complaining to it, but as we don’t, I am settling for writing an opinion piece in your weekly newsletter instead.

Here I am, a perfectly crafted yellow blow-up ball, exactly the right size and shape to represent the sun in your scale model. I always behave myself and stay blown up long enough to participate in your task, and what is my reward? You leave me at the gate! Every time! I sit here and watch you pace up the street, carefully counting your way up towards Randwick Junction using that scale you worked out before you left. At appropriate moments I see you stop and ingest the planet that pertains to that section of the model, considering the size range from a ‘hundred and thousand’ for Mercury to a chupa chup for Jupiter. You are chattering and laughing and discussing the model and the Solar System with delight – and you have left the central character behind! I don’t think this is acceptable.

To make matters worse, from my position at the gate I can also see Year 7 students roaming the playground with paper and pencil, clearly engrossed in some other interesting Science activity. When they approach, I can hear them animatedly discussing the physical characteristics of the nearby plants – apparently they are developing a key for these plants that will be used by another class later on – they seem quite excited about it all, but do they take any notice of me languishing at their feet? They do not!

Just to add insult to injury, when I am finally retrieved by the Year 8 class and returned to the lab, I have to sit on the front desk, slowly deflating, watching the Year 9 group currently occupying the room making models of atoms from M&Ms and having a marvellous time whilst discussing the benefits and limitations of models in Science and the difference between a physical model (like they are making) and a theoretical model (like the one they are basing their physical model on). I’m sure they could take some time out to notice my predicament, but they do not see the problem and head out when the bell rings, munching on chocolate and ignoring me completely.

I am just glad that Ms Hunter rescues me eventually, just in time for me to avoid the lesson that I can hear beginning in the classroom. I don’t think that I could bear to sit through another Year 10 reproduction and genetics lesson – yellow becomes me much more than red cheeks, and while I agree that it is important that young people get correct scientific information about these things, I am glad that it is not my job to provide it! I will sit back in my dark cupboard for another year, flat as a pancake, waiting for my chance to shine once more.