on the digital screens and cosmic ray vapour tracks in
the cloud chamber, which is near the entrance, in the
shadow of the Boeing fan blades.
It is testament to its clever acoustics and lighting
that the atrium space has featured musical events,
Green Week, the Christmas fair, the Technology SSC
show and more. Having Technology at the sunken
heart of the building has allowed a replica Herschel
7ft telescope to be built for the upcoming play about
Caroline Herschel’s achievements; students to build
safes which could be cracked using physics puzzles
for the Weizmann Physics Tournament; and finishing
touches to be put to the Technology kit car.
Outside the curriculum, the STC is helping our pupils
to perform authentic research. In the summer of
2018, Sevenoaks joined the Institute for Research in
Schools (IRIS), and this year, Sennockians from Year
8 upwards have embarked upon projects across the
sciences. In the Genome Decoders project, pupils
are annotating the whole genome of the human
whipworm. The MELT project entails monitoring
changes on satellite images of features in the polar
icecaps and CERN@school involves measuring
radiation levels using a silicon pixel detector. With
Queen Mary University of London, pupils have
written Python programmes to analyse data from
the Kepler mission and we are exploring possibilities
of collaboration with UCL on Open Source Drug
Discovery too, using our Chemistry Advanced
Project Laboratory.
IRIS was founded so that students could experience
the ‘excitement and challenge of science’. Research
has many requirements, in addition to the depth of
knowledge normally acquired by higher education.
As school students are naturally creative, determined,
and collaborative, they can bring fresh perspectives
to research. Some of these projects might even lead
to our students’ names being credited on published
papers. It is still early days, but we are working with
the school’s Institute for Teaching and Learning to
take this approach beyond Science and Technology
and to form a hub for other schools in this regard.
Ali Galloni
“CERN@school was a unique opportunity to
devise an experiment with a radiation detector
sitting right in front of me, not to mention
analysing data from it.”
Ishaan Vohra, Year 8
“The Genome Decoders project involves using a
computer program to put fragments of DNA back
together. The most interesting aspect is analysing
the data and seeing how it matches up, or, in
some cases, doesn’t. At first it was really difficult,
but with practice it has become much easier to
work with the software.”
Payton Hawkins, Year 9
“From presenting at the Tonbridge Science
Conference to competing in the UK Space Design
Competition, I’ve been able to take my learning
outside the classroom and work alongside other
like-minded people.”
Natasha Diederen, Lower Sixth
SEVENOAKS SCHOOL 2018-2019
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