May 2014 – Evaluation

Now our project is finished the time has come to evaluate it.  We know that we (and the pupils) have really enjoyed it as we have gone along, but we felt that at the end it would be worthwhile doing a more formal evaluation. This has involved focus groups of teachers and pupils from across the school and formal questionnaires to all involved, as well as looking at prelim grades and subject uptake.

All these methods have shown the project to be hugely successful and I think some key points that bring out just how much so are given below:

• 130% increase in pupils studying Advanced Higher Chemistry.
• 80% increase in pupils gaining an A grade in their Higher Prelim.
• 5 out of 6 pupils in the Advanced Higher Chemistry class going on to study degrees requiring chemistry.
• 100% of senior pupils wanted the Rolls-Royce Science prize project to continue.
• All S4, S5 and S6 pupils felt that the project had a positive impact on whether they would study chemistry at higher levels.
• Comments from pupils such as “fun way to get people interested in chemistry,” really diversified what we do,” and “enjoyable and educational.”
• All teachers felt it had been positive for pupils and the school.
• Teachers involved had enjoyed learning along with the pupils.
• Teacher commented on how pupils’ transferable skills had developed.
• 5 other departments running projects based on this teaching philosophy by the end of the year.

I think from these snippets shown above, it is possible to see how successful the project has been – we intend to keep running it in the longer term and should we be successful in the final, then this would open up even more doors for us to work with further partners and expand the project even more!

IR

Pupil distilling aftershave and then using the IR machine that we borrowed from the RSC.

April 2014 – Summary

Now our classes have all changed due to the new timetable, we finished our project at the start of the Easter holidays.  This is due to the difference in the school terms between England and Scotland.  However we thought that April would be a good month to sum up all that we have done before we formally evaluate the project in May.

The aim of the project was to visit or work with scientific industries before taking the knowledge that we had learnt and complete simple ‘test-plant’ projects in the school laboratories.  During our project we have:

• Visited the local gold mine and then our pupils made simple gold-plated objects from metal ores.
• Visited the local distillery before our pupils built stills from scrap material.
• Worked with a local chocolatier to allow our pupils to make their own chocolate.
• Visited a pharmaceutical company to look at how to diagnose illnesses and then have our pupils make simple test strips.
• Visit the local observatory and have our pupils build their own telescope.
• Work with the local rally club to understand and replicate the workings of a simple internal combustion engine.
• Visit the botanic gardens to allow our pupils to come up with ideas of making things from plant products
• Work with Napier University Materials department to look at working with plastic
• Work with a local farmer to allow our pupils to do simple soil testing.
• Worked with the Scottish fire brigade to allow our pupils to build and test their own fire extinguishers.
• Worked with a local fireworks pyro-technician to allow our pupils to gain knowledge to design and build their own firework.
• Worked with Abertay forensics department to allow pupils to contribute to a conference on biochemistry and to allow our younger pupils to do simple forensic techniques.
• Worked with Glasgow science centre to allow our pupils to extract DNA.
• Worked with UHI aeronautical engineering department to allow our pupils to build simple model aeroplanes

 

All lots of fun and given great learning opportunities for our pupils.  We will find out next month what exactly our pupils thought of it – but our first impressions are good.

March 2014 – Fire Extinguishers and Pollution

 

March brings the ends to our activities for the Rolls-Royce Science prize due to the Easter holidays  at the end of the month and the exam season immediately after up here in Scotland. Over the last year we have worked with a huge number of different partners in an attempt to enliven and bring the science taught in the class room to life. This has ranged from the gold mine to the distillery to an observatory to a fireworks company (and many others).  The project has spread much beyond its initial plan to encompass chemistry at lower years and projects in other subjects too.  It has had a huge impact school wide. We will still post one final diary entry in April where we will statistically evaluate how successful the project has been and try to quantify all the benefits this project has brought with it. However, we ourselves know that our pupils have gained a huge amount from it and intend to keep up this manner of teaching. 

We have however, had two final projects that have been spawned by the prize.  The first is work with our S3 pupils.  We wished to enliven the topic of rates of reaction, so in keeping with our modus operandi for this project, we brought in partners – in this case the Scottish Fire service who worked with the pupils.  With very limited help and just their knowledge of chemical reactions and rate of reactions, pupils had to build their own fire extinguisher and then try it out on a small ‘fire’.  This proved to be a great way to reinforce learning as well as inspiring and enthusing the students.  The design, teamwork and engineering skills that they used were also impressive.

We also wanted to tie all the aspects of the project together and to finish off we ran a joint project with the biology department where our most senior pupils used the biology and the chemistry that they had learnt to evaluate the environmental impact of each of the chemical industries that the school had been involved with throughout the year. Great learning and great practise of the skills that they will need for later life.

Another very enjoyable and successful month here at Breadalbane Academy. We are only sad that the formal project is coming to an end.  We have learnt so much from it and certainly intend keeping on with the ethos of the project in the long term.

Pupils working with chocolate

Pupils visiting Axis Shield

February 2014 – Gold and Diabetes

 

February is always a busy month here in Breadalbane and for the Rolls-Royce Science prize team it is no exception.  We have been busy forging new links with industrial partners, trying to inspire our pupils with this new manner of teaching and encouraging other departments to also teach in this partnership manner.

 

We have had two chemistry events this month.  The first involved a local chocolatier coming into school to talk about her craft.  She is famous for her unusual flavours in chocolate (e.g. Scot’s Pine) and she came and spoke about this and how chocolate is produced and some of the pitfalls that can come about – for instance forming in the wrong crystalline state.  Pupils were then given the chance to try and produce their own chocolate based up on what she had said. This tied in directly with the higher course by looking at aspects such as why things dissolve and fats. A great learning experience and a great motivation for the pupils. Other subject have also joined in with this part of the project, with Home Economics looking at chocolate as a fair trade product and Technical trying to produce moulds for chocolates. Maybe some students will now look at food science as a career?

 

We also visited a pharmaceutical company in Dundee (Axis Shield) who gave pupils a tour, told them about some of the products that they produce and gave pupils a workshop. They are well known for diabetes and rheumatism products.  Pupils were hugely inspired by the visit and have also enjoyed the chance to try and produce simple test strips back in school.

 

We have also continued looking at the science from the gold mine visit and this month were learning about oxidation and reduction and seeing how these could be used in gold plating.  Students then gold plated the items they had produced in January from the ore.

We have also had some initial feedback on our project in terms of the prelims results – really high grades for the pupils that we have spent time teaching in this manner (and much higher than previous years).  Also we have a number of pupils interested in careers that we have highlighted during the project. For example we have 3 students interested in studying geology/geochemistry at university (highlighted in our work with the gold mine) – the first time that I can remember any students being interested in this.

In summary, another exciting month for us here and very encouraging feedback in the form of prelim results and pupil enthusiasm.

November 2013 – Forensics

November 2013 – Forensics

 

November is another busy month for us here at Breadalbane.  We are really getting into the swing of our project for the Rolls-Royce Science prize. We have been continuing to apply knowledge from our visits in the classroom and we have now started to expand the project beyond our original brief to include further scientific industries – this month we are looking at the forensic and analytical industries. In addition to this, what has been really encouraging has been the fact that other subjects have also seen the merit in teaching by this type of method and are beginning to join into the project.

 

This month we have had a talk by experts from the forensic laboratory in Aberdeen and a visit to the analytical labs in Napier University to see how materials are tested.  Students here were looking at different types of materials and how to examine their properties. The visit included looking at NMR, electron microscopy and mechanical testing. These visits and talks are hugely interesting and show how widely used analytical chemistry is. Staff members also found them useful and intend to bring back ideas from these visits into everyday lessons. We have been lucky enough to borrow an infra-red and ultra-violet spectrometer from the Royal Society of chemistry this month and the follow up in the classroom is using these machines to forensically investigate the contents of common products.  These have included looking at aftershave, aspirin and paracetamol. This has proved a really useful exercise and really has expanded our students’ ideas of what chemistry is used for and hopefully will give them a greater range of options for their future careers. We will continue with a range of forensic and analytical activities in the next few months.

 

We have also continued expanding upon our visit to the distillery and are now coming to the end of the range of activities.  In previous months, we have produced fermenters and stills, made alcohol and investigated enzymes.  We have also previously compared fermentation with hydration as a method of production and completed both in the classroom.  The last section that we have looked at linked to this topic has been some of the reactions of alcohols.  My first look over what the pupils have learnt has been very encouraging – we evaluated their responses to what they had learnt and they were great – the understanding shown was high and, I believe, much beyond what I normally would expect.

 

We have also continued to build on our visit to the gold mine by looking at how gold and other metals are produced from their ores using reduction and oxidation.  Our building of test plants on this topic will begin next month.

 

As mentioned earlier, other subjects are now starting to come on board with this manner of application-led teaching. Biology had a visit to a local university to learn about amplifying DNA and then came back to school and used electrophoresis and other techniques to visualise the DNA that they had amplified.  Physics had a talk from a lecturer in aeronautical engineering and then completed a project on building gliders.

 

In conclusion, our initial evaluations of the project have been very encouraging and we are now spreading our wings to further industries and getting other subjects to join in the project. 

Pupils extracting metal from ore.

January 2014 – Fireworks and Space

January 2014 – Fireworks and Space

 

January at Breadalbane means one thing – prelim exams!  Therefore most of our senior pupils are busy revising and then sitting these important assessments.  Despite this, it has still been an exciting and busy month for our Rolls-Royce Science Prize project.

 

We were lucky enough to be able to arrange a visit into school by a local independent pyro-technician.  He travels all over the world setting up firework displays and is best known for the carpet effect down Edinburgh Castle rock during the Hogmanay fireworks.  Sadly though, most of our male students were not impressed at his upcoming tour with a well-known boy band. He explained the history of fireworks and talked about the manufacturing method before going on to explain how they are best used. He then helped the pupils create their own simple fireworks (from bat poo!) with colour and sparkle. This was done with our S3 pupils and was a great way of helping them build on the knowledge of chemical techniques and their understanding of ions and combustion. Needless to say pupils really enjoyed this and I am sure it will stick in their memory.

 

Our visit to the gold mine may have been two months ago, but we have also continued to look at the science related to this industry.  This month pupils were given some metal ore (malachite – sadly even the prize money would not allow us to stretch to gold) and were then tasked with extracting the metal and then casting it into a useful object. This task, was completed with differing degrees of success, but universally enjoyed.  It also ties in extremely well with the chemical industry section of Higher Chemistry, where students need to look at feedstock and raw materials, batch and continuous processes and other factors that affect the chemical industry.  The fact that students needed to set up their own ‘mini-industry’ to make this object has definitely reinforced the concepts that we need students to know as part of their course. We will look at gold-plating next month as we continue our investigation into the science behind the gold mine.

 

Other subjects have also bought into the project in a big way this month.  The physics department organised a visit to the observatory in Dundee and are bringing back the knowledge that they gained there to allow pupils to make their own telescopes.  Junior science classes had a visit from the Forensics department at Abertay University and then had the chance to test out a variety of forensic techniques and see how they fit into the science they were learning.  Biology organised a visit to Dundee Biochemistry department to allow pupils to gain an insight into some Biochemical issues – this knowledge will be used to inspire discussion work in class. We also had a visit from our Rolls-Royce mentor who gave a careers talk to S3s about engineering.

All in all, this has been a really exciting month for the Rolls-Royce Science Prize team here at Breadalbane – lots of exciting stuff going on.  We are convinced that teaching in this manner is not only opening our students’ horizons (they are getting contact with such a wide range of scientific industries), it is also raising enthusiasm and, we are sure, in the longer term, will result in greater attainment and uptake at higher levels