SVC wins the Swavesey Science Challenge
A team of six pupils left 17 other Cambridgeshire schools in their wake as they romped home to win the Science Challenge held annually at Swavesey Village College. Congratulations to Alison Jackson and Peter Noble in Year 7, Jesse Campion Loth and Emily Davidson in Year 8, Cecilia Buckingham and Williams Ingram in Year 9 and to their Science teachers who prepared them for the event.
Here is a full report written by Emily Davison of Year 8:
Six pupils, a boy and girl from years 7, 8, and 9, were chosen to represent the school in the annual Swavesey Science Challenge. There were 18 schools competing, and the competition was spread across 3 days, with 6 schools competing on each day. We were up against Linton, amongst others, and so obviously there was a lot of rivalry there! (I am pleased to say that they came 16th!) The theme of 2009 was anniversaries of famous scientists and their descoveries.The points were out of 80, 20 each for the 4 challenges: Chemistry, Physics, Biology, and a final quiz. I was doing the chemistry with Jesse, it was remembering the creation of chemical dyes, rather than natural ones; therefore it obviously made sense for us to be making natural dyes? We had 6 substances, including things like red cabbage and rose petals, which we had to crush then add to different things, e.g. acid and alkali. Then after a lot of playing around with mixing and different combinations, we had to dye our ten final pieces of fabric, we did one for every colour of the rainbow, as well as gold and a very special and impressive one with rainbow stripes! We won this section with 19/20.
The physics was remembering the first man on the moon, they were looking at the rocket which took them there, and how the pod landed safely. So, they were firing eggs, yes, eggs out of water rockets, and making parachutes to get them safely to the ground without cracking. Our team were successful with their egg intact, and winning that challenge with 18/20.
The biology was looking at Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection, in particular, the design of bird’s beaks, and how they are adapted to picking up different types of seeds, so the challenge was to design and make different beaks for different seeds, then, using them, pick up as many seeds as they could in 20 seconds!
Finally, the quiz, which if I do say so, was a bit of an epic fail! 50% was very shameful! We ran out of time and the last 6 or 7 questions we had to guess without even reading them! It was embarrassing! However, it didn’t stop us wining. Dr Young was great, and Mrs Maltby made the day all the more enjoyable when she locked someone in the mini-van, and the 20 point turn she had to do to get out of a rather small space! We all had a great time and are very proud that the best school won!
