STEAM week: 'Change and Adapt'

Change and adaptation continually occurs all around us and examples can be found in every area of STEAM. Plants and animals change and adapt to their surroundings in order to survive; areas where people live change and adapt as the world’s population grows; technology has changed exponentially and been adapted to support our ever-busier lives - or perhaps we have changed as technology has developed?

Our behaviours change too – we need to change how we consume the world’s resources to offset the worst effects of the climate crisis and adapt our lifestyles to reduce our impact through recycling or reducing waste.

Change and adaptation doesn’t just happen here on Earth, even the stars and other celestial bodies change as they gain and lose mass. Perhaps there is life on other planets that adapts as their environment changes!

We arranged a full programme of activities for the children at Rupert House during the week of 10-14^th March on the theme of ‘Change and Adapt’. Here are some examples of what we’ve been up to.

 

Pre-Prep

Pre-Prep loved watching our baby ducklings hatch, grow, and become more confident each day. The children made daily observations, delighting in their playful behavior— where one duckling goes, the others eagerly follow! If one swims, they all swim. If one scurries off, the rest quickly scurry after!

Reception have been exploring life cycles, with a special focus on the life cycle of our ducklings. On Monday, the children gave the ducklings a bath and observed how they had changed since hatching out of their eggs. During Outdoor Learning, they looked at pictures of the duck eggs, their hatching process, how they appear now, and an image of an adult duck. Working in pairs, the children ordered these images to sequence the life cycle of a duck.

Year 1 enjoyed learning about capillary action in the Science Lab with Year 6. They made expanding tissue caterpillars and paper flowers with petals that uncurled themselves to find out how plants absorb water, and they tried some chromatography, using capillary action to see all the different colours that make up black ink.

As part of an ongoing project, Year 2 have been monitoring cress growth in different environments and testing how various factors affect their development. Some of the results completely surprised us! The Cress left in the cupboard was the tallest, whilst the cress left outside didn’t grow at all! It was fun to look back at our predictions and find out what ones came true.  

They also enjoyed a calm, artistic afternoon sketching the ducklings and a fully grown Aylesbury duck. This led to some brilliant discussions about how ducklings change as they grow. The children were especially fascinated to learn that ducks’ feet don’t feel the cold, even in freezing water, because they have no veins or blood circulation in their webbed feet!

Year 2 had a special visit from Arlen in Year 4, who taught them all about Bluetooth and how it works. He then wowed them by demonstrating his self-taught programming system, which uses a Bluetooth connection to link his LEGO construction to his computer. His project helped decide which school house you would belong to. Inspired by his Scout leaders, this project even helped him earn his Coding Badge!

One of the highlights of the week was Year 2’s exciting visit to Sea Life Brighton, where the children took part in a workshop about various sea habitats and the creatures that live in them. They learned about the different ‘super powers’ some sea animals have and how their unique abilities help them adapt and survive in their environments.

 

Prep

All pupils in Years 3, 4 and 6 spent time looking into environmental architecture on Thursday. Thank you to Mrs Maloney, an architect and mother of Zara and Arlen, who came into school to talk to the children about planning and designing houses for the future and they talked about how environmentally friendly Rupert House is in terms of design, and how it could be changed for the better.

Year 4 spent some time outside, measuring perimeter of objects at the outdoor classroom in Maths lessons. They also enjoyed bug hunting in Science and learned about the Polish-French physicist and chemist, Marie Curie, who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. 

Year 5 went to the Oratory School for a lecture about the science of smells. It was fascinating to learn about how smells make our earliest memories and the children enjoyed trying to guess the ingredients of lots of different scent samples including lavender, frankincense and vanilla as well as some slightly more disgusting ones such as ambergris (which comes from whale vomit!). They also made a flip book in Art on the theme of ‘changing faces’.

They also experienced a whole day sculpting workshop at the school playing fields. They used scrap materials to create smaller sculptures in the morning before creating much larger scale pieces in the afternoon. When unveiling the final projects, we had a variety of end results, such as a beauty salon, an aeroplane, a robot and a horse training arena! The children had a fantastic day and really enjoyed using their imaginations to decide what various objects could become.

Year 6 spent some time in the Art room. Mrs Candy gave a super clay workshop where the children created some artistic bowls. They also looked at how cities will evolve and adapt in the future due to things like deforestation and renewable energy.

The Prep Children also held a Science Fair on Thursday lunchtime where they showcased a wide range of thoughtful and well-researched science experiments that they had created at home. There were many fabulous ideas including exploding chemical reactions, volcanic eruptions, hover craft creation and balloon inflation using waste gases!  

STEAM week gave us all the opportunity to think about the wider world outside of the classroom and consider things that we might not previously have been aware of. We are all constantly changing and adapting, and so is the world around us.