On Monday 17 May, our Year 10 Science Outreach team had the privilege of presenting a live workshop for Year 5 at Henleaze Junior School.
The team were led by Hermione and Mimi who have worked on several events this year, including the Northern Ireland Science Festival in February and who are now moving up into a role training other girls who are preparing for their first events.
They started by showing how to make red cabbage indicator, using a wonderful instruction video created by Sally, Jasmine and Tammy during the Spring Term lockdown. After the video had finished, Mimi and Elina then led a Q&A session so the children would be able to have a go themselves later. They then continued to explore the topic of neutralisation with vinegar and baking soda, meaning the experiment was done with chemical that can all be found in the kitchen! Elina and Mimi showed how the indicator changed colour in acids and alkalis before exploring the range of colours obtained during neutralisation in a bit more detail.
Next, we moved on to looking at chromatography with Hermione and Chantal. They demonstrated how you can use a felt-tipped pen and some filter paper to make beautiful patterns that also tell you something about the nature of the ink or other chemical you are studying.
To round off our event Hannah and Charlotte presented a slime workshop for the first time, with Hannah putting previous experience of working with slime to good use and demonstrating total mastery of the subject. Hermione was on-hand for this segment as Hannah and Charlotte were presenting for the first time, but they did such a great job she was able to watch and make her own pot of sticky fun! Slime is a big favourite for children in our workshops, as it is something that they can get their hands on play around with to make really colourful shapes, while learning about a little bit of chemistry that is relevant to their everyday lives - polymers. Similar concepts are used to make car tyres!
Throughout the session the children the children were really engaged listening to our amazing presenters and watching them demonstrate – keen to try themselves. Because of COVID-19 protocols at Henleaze Junior School, the children were not able to follow along with us, but we made sure they had worksheets to take away and a straw poll indicated almost all the children were enthused to have a go themselves later!
Thanks to the team’s outstanding work – including Sally on broadcasting duty – our presenting team delivered an engaging, fun session that has inspired the children to roll up their sleeves and have a go at some science at home!
Stay tuned for more adventures…
