British Science Week is a ten-day celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths that takes place between 8 and 17 March 2024 – this year with the theme of ‘time’.
At Bedford School, our Science Department hosted a jam-packed programme of events suitable for boys right across the school to get involved with.
A poster competition ran across the week with boys tasked with creating paintings or models depicting what time means to them.
A British Science Week exhibition was the focal point for the week in the Main Foyer. Boys were encouraged to share their perceptions of ‘time’ in science in a display of work.
It also highlighted all the amazing things the boys have been doing in the science department – one of these was a demonstration of a cloud chamber to show how we detect ionising particles.
On Tuesday, an interesting science debate was held in the Great Hall, where boys presented their arguments for each of the sciences; biology, chemistry and physics to answer the question ‘Which science has contributed the most to technological advancement?’
While the collaboration between all three sciences is vital to the advancement of technology and mankind, there really is no overall winner and this was as much an exercise in conducting research, evaluating and public speaking as a ‘winning science’ as such.
However, the teams were meticulous in their research and they each thought about the benefits to modern day society when presenting their arguments to the panel. They were analytical, critical and, most importantly, passionate – all the makings of excellent scientists!
Dr Arjan, Teacher of Biology explained, “It was a very close result, however, the biology teams presented some crucial technological advancements relating to vaccine development, food production and medical breakthroughs, and they were worthy winners! Nevertheless, the chemistry and physics teams really highlighted how life without lithium-ion batteries, alkane cracking, particle physics and GPS navigation would be very challenging.”
Boys were able to sign up for three live talks throughout the week. The first was from Dr Linney a medicinal chemist, next was Prof Sharpe a chemist in the fermentation industry and, on Friday, we welcomed Dr Jayne Ellis an antimicrobial advisor and Managing Partner at JEMMDx. All three lecturers shared their very different career paths with a wealth of experience.
Our British Science Week concluded with a whole school assembly led by Charlie Eggleton and Abdullah Khalid.
