View from the Kleinleher Family Science Building

Science Week

Take toilet roll cores (lots). Calcium carbide. Two large watermelons (scooped out). Assorted items of glassware. A wire waste paper basket and a lazy Susan. A large dewar of liquid nitrogen. Two bunches of cheap roses. A large quantity of cream and sugar. Several packets of tissue paper, some spaghetti, a roll of washi tape and some cotton. Some old hanging files. 12 boxes that once held photocopy paper, Twelve marbles and about 150 paper cups. Copious amounts of masking tape. Way too many lollies and chocolates. Quite a number of prizes. Heaps of ingenuity, time and patience. A terrific kahoot for the trivia quiz.  Add to the mix seven excited members of the Science Department and a hundred or so enthusiastic and creative students. Stir well and enjoy every lunchtime for a week. An excellent recipe for a good time with Science!

As has been the case for a number of years, I was blown away by the students’ participation in this week-long event. While making bath bombs or kites, designing wacky and intricate machines out of paper cups and toilet tubes, racing around collecting samples of C12H22O11, cheering on the Science staff as they blew things up and huddling heads down around their device at the trivia quiz, there was a buzz in the air and a real sense that at Emanuel, Science is seen as something you go out of your way to do, even in your lunchtime.

I overheard one student say to another, as they wandered off down the stairs after a successful attempt at creating a marble run “I wish we could have Science Week more often!”

I’m not sure the Science Department would survive! Many thanks go to Sarah Jenkins and Miranda McMahon for their vision and organisation, to Rochelle Hunter for all the hard work she put in getting the equipment and chemicals ready for us (and there were many more than in my opening paragraph!) and to Tina Greenhill, Natalie Lijovic and Joseph Peacock for their wonderful showmanship and participation over the week. We had a wonderful time and we think the students did too!