Mr Mitchell and the science department were thrilled to host the annual JTMAT Forensic Science Days which saw young scientists from primary and secondary schools within the JTMAT take part. There were four sessions over the 3 days, which included workshops for: Year 5, Year 12, Year 7 & 8 and Year 2.
Mrs Clarke, who has previously worked as a forensic scientist, led the competition and said ‘the purpose of the challenge was to encourage pupils to use scientific methods and equipment to solve a number of tasks. This experiential learning experience helped create impact and was a great educational opportunity for all primary school and secondary school pupils. Each pupil showed integrity, perseverance and were a real credit to their retrospective schools. Well done to everyone.’
Year 5 workshop – Monday 6th July – The Mosley Academy | All Saints Rangemore | Needwood Primary School
The Year 5 primary pupils stepped into the world of Disney as they investigated numerous scenarios. These included Snow White’s contaminated apples, a break in at Cinderella’s slipper company, and reports that someone is selling fake pens using Rapunzel’s name. The pupils were extremely excited to begin the investigations. They tested the evidence through several scientific experiments such as chromatography and footwear mark comparison. Mrs Clarke was incredibly impressed with their rationales and conclusions.
Year 12 workshop – Tuesday 7th July – John Taylor High School | John Taylor Free School | Blythe Bridge High School | Chase Terrace Academy
Year 12 pupils were tasked with investigating the reaction in how ethanoic acid and propan-1-ol would form a pleasant-smelling liquid ester. The students had to consider that this experiment was a slow process therefore ensuring they had sufficient time for this mixture to establish an equilibrium. The group then tasked with carrying out an experiment to determine the equilibrium constant, Kc, for the reaction. All the pupils showed hard-work, determination and fantastic scientific skills as they followed the detailed method and recorded their results.
Year 7 & 8 workshop – Tuesday 7th July – John Taylor High School | John Taylor Free School | Blythe Bridge High School | Chase Terrace Academy | John Taylor Rugeley School | Paulet High School
Year 7 & 8 pupils were tasked with a practical session in which they had to lower the freezing point of water. The scenario was that grit spread on roads mixes with any moisture and creates a saline solution. Because saline solutions freeze at a lower temperature than water, frost and ice does not form when areas have been gritted, unless the temperature plummets to below -20oC (depending on salt concentration). The group followed a strict method for the experiment before they presented their findings.
The pupils did a fantastic job at writing a hypothesis, identified the variables, completing the risk assessment, drawing a results table & graph and writing a conclusion. Everyone had a fantastic time and it was great to see so much enthusiasm within each team.
Year 2 workshop – Thursday 9th July – The Mosley Academy | All Saints Rangemore | Needwood Primary School
In spirit of the World Cup, our Year 2 pupils were tasked with carrying out scientific experiments to find out which football player had stolen the world cup trophy.
The group were very excited to solve the mystery and began by matching footprints to the suspects. They then matched fibres to the suspects clothes and finished by matching ink to the suspect’s pen. The teams gave some brilliant answers and rationales to their investigations and made conclusions about who stole the world cup.
Mr Mitchell would like to thank everyone who was involved in the day and give a special thank you to the fantastic JTHS science student leaders in the sixth form, that have helped out over the days. It was wonderful to see them sharing their science knowledge and interacting with the younger students!
