National Science Week
Sophie Poisel | Innovation Leader K – 6
Primary students celebrated National Science Week last week. The theme for 2019 was Destination Moon: More Missions, More Science, which connected to the recent 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon. I was impressed to see a number of Emanuel School students at Science Week events across Sydney. A special thank you needs to be said to the parents who enabled their children to attend – our students are very lucky to have such engaged parents.
As mentioned last week, Monday involved experiments on how craters are made on the Moon’s surface and on Tuesday we were lucky to welcome Artist and Engineer Nathan Guerry to talk about his work and how it intersects Engineering, Science, Maths and Art. Lily and Elise interviewed Nathan for our expert speakers film and you can watch a preview here: https://tinyurl.com/NathGuerryInt
Some of the students reflected on this session:
“Oh my gosh – that is so cool” – Mirabella, Year 3
“Code is just 01010101 in the magic school bus – they get stuck in the internet” I liked that we learnt how to make a triangular based pyramid. I thought it was cool that he made a box that had lots of cables inside it and made the lights change to all the colours of the rainbow and go faster and slower. Iliana, Year 1
We used pipe cleaners to make a 3D shape. I love how he made and coded the thing that made the light change colour. I have coded robots to do things before too. Stella, Year 1
It was cool how he coded a pattern. It was squares and a spiral and when you zoomed in it turned into an illusion. Noah, Year 4
On Wednesday to Friday, students designed and built rovers, rockets and lunar habitats inspired by the gallery of student work, books and clips they watched each morning. See the students’ creations here: https://tinyurl.com/ScienceWeekGallery
Our Year 6 Innovation Leaders, Jonah Ernster, Liam Winter, Kaila Nabarro and Toby Seeman played an instrumental role in helping the younger students throughout the week and ran a successful Celebration of Learning on Friday afternoon for all students in Years 3-6. Other speakers at this celebration included: Ashley Cohn, Elisa Davis, Daliah Smagarinski, Lia McLellan, Suzanna Garbuz, Elise Goldberg, Lily Foltyn and Jasper Shraibman. See the slides to gain an understanding of the celebration: https://tinyurl.com/ScienceWeekCoL
On Friday afternoon, students engaged in a range of science-related activities with their classroom teachers. They took home a set of Jasper magazines (organised by Leigh Goldberg) that focus on the range of professions that use STEM skills and what a day in the life of one of these professionals is like, painting a very different picture to the ‘person in the white lab coat’ stereotype. I hope these provided some great reading and hands-on fun over the weekend and weekends to come.
We are excited to announce that Simon Rippingale, the artist, animator and director of Jasper ,will be coming to speak to Emanuel School students at lunchtime on Monday 2 September 2019. All students interested in drawing, animation, directing and film making are encouraged to attend.
