DSTC Teachers in Euro Space Centre Belgium

 

This weekend Miss Brand and I (Miss Staples) went on a very special space mission...

We arrived in Dover ready to board a coach with 50 other Science teachers from around the UK on Friday afternoon. A pleasant ferry journey and a short trip on a coach once we got into Calais saw us heading to Belgium towards the Euro Space Centre!

Why did we go?!

Well you see, it is our aim to one day take students like yourselves to join us on our next trip to Euro Space. Exciting? Yes it really is!!!

We had such an awesome time, we took a tour of Euro Space which showed us all of the amazing artifacts and replicas that enable space exploration and travel, those space suits look heavy!

We had the chance to join mission control as we took a simulated rocket launch. Let me tell you, being Commander of the space shuttle is an adrenaline fuelled rush! Have you ever been in charge of hundreds of buttons, with other lives in your hands whilst you are trying to follow instructions from mission control, battle against computers and fuel cells not operating properly and trying your hardest to locate the right button in time before it all goes wrong? I've never had so much fun whilst learning about Space travel before!

We also built rockets, sampled the anti-gravity wall, the moon walk simulator (are you good at bunny hopping?), the multi-axis chair and the spinning chair. Little tip, do these before lunch...

 

Now you all know that I am a Biology teacher, and that I believe Biology is by far the best Science... However, this weekend, I am proud to say that I LOVE Physics (maybe not as much as Miss Brand does though). The weekend at Euro Space has given me a whole new respect for physicists, how they work with biologists, chemists, engineers, and many other science related professions to enable us to journey into space.

Next time, will you be joining us?

 

The alien is...

Right up until the last pieces of evidence were collated the ladies of DSTC still pinpointed 3 main suspects...

1. Miss Quan
2. Miss Pitts
3. Miss Staples

Who was the red (or pink!) herring?!

Who has been taught by an alien for a whole week?

Which of you got the answer right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

MISS PITTS you are host to the alien, please return our teacher back to us and leave for your home planet!!!

Alien Evidence

How much evidence have you collected so far?

 

Have you calculated snot viscosity?

Have you looked at the alien blood chromatography?

Have you discovered who's diet is closest to the alien sample?

 

I asked 5 students who they thought was the Alien Teacher and came up with some interesting results...

 

Mclaren, Year 8

"I think it's Miss Quan, because everything is always Miss Quan"

 

Hannah, Year 8

"I think it's Miss Pitts because her focal length is 5cm the same as the aliens"

 

Cameron, Year 7

"I think it's Miss Rowe because she doesn't seem very suspicious, it might be a trick"

 

Amrit, Year 7

"I think it's Miss Quan because the flame test colour was unusual compared to the others"

 

Britney, Year 8

"I think it's a choice between three at the moment, Miss Pitts, Mrs Essex or you Miss Staples, as you've all got traces of the alien blood"

 

Some very interesting ideas from our DSTC investigators today, some with much more scientific evidence than others, but are any of these thoughts reliable, have we gained enough evidence yet?

 

What do you think, could it be me like Britney's evidence might suggest?

The aliens have landed...

Who is the Alien Science Teacher at DSTC?!?

 

Something strange has happend over the weekend at DSTC...

 

If you venture into the hall you will find a most unusual sight...

 

An alien craft crash landed, looking like a murder scene with the entrails of an alien splayed everywhere, slime, blood, even poo!!!

 

Someone doesn't want to be found, but who is it?

 

We have 6 suspects, who looks most like an alien, who is acting strange, who does the evidence point to?

 

It is down to you DSTC Science Agents to find out and save us all!

J for G Day!

Success!

We raised £682 for Jeans for Genes day, well done everyone who brought in their £1 for non uniform, and to the staff who bought Mrs Essex's genetic mutation cakes. All the money raised will go so far in helping children with specific genetic disorders, and even help to provide support for their families in difficult times.

The Science department had such fun on Friday 20th September with loads of different activites based around genes. One of my year 9 classes began the day by decoding dragon DNA and producing a whole class full of baby dragons! Mr Essex's year 9s created faces using different genetic code, because there is so much code to choose from everyone's face was different... Much like how genetics works in real life :)

Year 7 & 8 spent their science lessons decoding messages in DNA then created their own individual DNA name bracelets. This was very fiddly, especially if you had a long name as every 1 of our letters worked out to be 3 DNA code letters! Mr Essex decided his name was too long for the DNA code to spell out in bracelets, so made one saying MR E instead. (A very good idea!)

My second year 9 class rounded the day off by creating models of the DNA helix with jelly babies and strawberry cables... Yum... Each jelly baby had to lose their head (eeek-glad I'm not a jelly baby!), and each head was paired to a new body, depending on the DNA code, you see out of the 4 bases (ATCG) A can only pair with T, and C can only pair with G... Once we had that sorted I asked my ladies to pose with their models as we discussed the benefits of using models to help our learning. Needless to say though, it wasn't long before all the sweets had been dismantled and eaten!

I didn't see my year 11s on Friday, but other teachers made DNA necklaces with theirs, not out of beads, but out of the students own DNA-how cool is that! They had to follow the scientific method very carefully in order to extract their own DNA structure and put it in a necklace vile for all to see. Just don't loose it, or we might find you have a clone out there one day...

I don't know about the rest of you, but I really enjoyed myself during this Jeans for Genes day, and I know my classes learnt a lot about different genetic diseases, how they come about and why it's important to keep raising money for this charity. Again, well done everyone!

 Me (Miss Staples) with my DNA helix

Jeans for Genes Day.

This week in Science we will be celebrating Jeans for Genes day at DSTC.

The official celebration of this day will happen on Friday 20th September, and as a school we have decided to have a charity collection with a donation of £1 in exchange for the students and staff to come into school wearing their jeans. We hope to help the Jeans for Gens day charity beat their pervious record of raising £2.5million last year - so guys, DIG DEEP!!!

Science lessons will take a genetic turn on Friday as we focus the students on the importance of Jeans for Genes and discuss why the money is needed, and how your donations help. We will be completing different activities with different years with various links to genes and DNA. During tutor time you may also notice that we start to talk about the SMSC issues surrounding Jeans for Genes.

Lots to cover this week it seems! :)

Lots of exciting things happening in science week. We are learning about the dust storms on Mars and how storms can generate static electricity. Lots of groups have built their mini straw rockets and the greatest distance travelled so far is 4 metres. The hoover craft has been a popular attraction and manu pupils have been for a spin.

Stemnet Club all the parts are here.

To all stemclub look at what arrived yesterday evening.


 

Lone student waiting for the next rocket experiment.

Lone student watching Super Ted clip on year 5 science lesson about rockets.

Mr C and the stomp rockets.

Mr C instructs students on how to operate the stomp rockets.