Year 7, 8 and 9 Science, Maths and Technology enthusiasts in St. Julie’s have been busy experimenting, fundraising and engineering in their spare time. The dedicated pupils have spent the last two terms planning and carrying out investigations, designing various fashion accessories and have even managed to develop their entrepreneurial skills along the way. STEM club, currently run by Mr Andrews and Mr Boyle, has 5 groups of students all carrying out very different projects.
Our Year 9 group are investigating certain aspects of forensic science. The girls had a particular interest in this field after watching various television programmes and have been investigating blood splatting and fingerprinting. With a lot of fake blood, sweets and smiles the girls have produced what can only be described as a book of results full of mathematical calculations. For their finger printing they discovered that they may have a future forensic scientist amongst them, an expert in the technique, who lifted some fantastic fingerprints but made an awful mess of the floor in S11.
There are two groups in Year 8. One group of engineers/designers and potential business women, the other group, cosmetic chemists. While our designers have been making and selling badges, key rings and other accessories, our chemists have worked long and hard to make the perfect bath bomb. It’s taken several attempts, a lot of corn flour and food dye but eventually the girls were able to nail the technique and make enough bath bombs to test which one fizzed for the longest period of time. They are currently writing up their investigation and will soon be ready to present their findings.
In Year 7 we have 2 groups of students, both of whom joined STEM club a little later so are still in the early stages of their investigations. Possibly the most hazardous of all the investigations currently being carried out is ‘How to make the best film canister rocket’. With a few Alka-Seltzer tablets and a little bit of water our Year 7 pupils have introduced some chaos into STEM club and hit the roof with their rockets. The second Year 7 group are making soaps and investigating how effective they are. As with all scientific investigations there was a bit of trial and error involved in making the soap. Currently the girls are on their third batch of soap, and this time it’s actually set. It may not look the prettiest but they feel confident that they’ve figured out how to adjust their methods so that their next batch will be perfect.
Once the investigating is done and all the write ups completed the girls will be off to present their projects to a panel of judges at The BIG BANG Science Fair, So here’s hoping that the judges enjoy examining their projects as much as they have enjoyed carrying them out.