The first years have been studying physical and chemical changes. Today we did an experiment to show a useful chemical change and we made a nail turn pink by coating it in copper. We did this by firstly putting three spatula measures of powdered rock (copper carbonate) in the test tube, then carefully used a pipette to add acid a few drops at a time until the tube is half full. Next we dropped an iron nail into the solution and left it for about five minutes. Following that we very carefully poured the solution away and used tweezers to put the (hopefully pink) nail onto a paper towel. Mrs Duffy made a competition to see whose nail was the most pink. Fortunately my team won! Over all I have learned a lot about physical and chemical changes.

As part of the school’s celebration of science week a team of six girls from year 10 attended the annual IBM Blue Fusion science challenge. The team of, Alicia, Kimberley, Alicia, Charlotte and Rosemary completed a series of eight tasks. These included computer simulations of greenhouse gas emissions, message passing using semaphore, Morse code and braille, model control with Lego robots and training a virtual athlete. The team all performed well and greatly enjoyed the day.

This year, for the first time, science staff organised a successful (and educational!) visit to Coors brewery in Alton. We were all impressed by the scale of operations although many of the girls were less impressed by the smells and lack of opportunities to sample the products!
It was a successful trip that we will hope to repeat in future years.

All 55 girls in year 7 spent an action packed day at the Science Museum in London just before half term. After going to the IMAX cinema to watch “Magnificent Desolation: A history of men on the moon and space travel” they saw an excellent presentation on “Energy, Fuelling the Future”, followed by a research session in the Energy exhibition where there is a wide range of interactive computer screens and displays.

On Wednesday 6th of March a team of six Fourth year girls went to Hursley to compete in IBM's Blue Fusion event for National Science Week. The day was designed to be a challenging and fun insight into the applications of new science and technology developments. As well as timed events including turbulence testing and simulating a Mars landing there were two guest speakers, Simon Singh on code-breaking and Professor Kevin Warwick on the potential of a neurosurgical link between the human nervous system and a computer. Overall the girls finished second in their group and fifth from sixty-four Ha