The BCS Science Fair 2024

Our 2024 Science Fair was launched to parents and children at the end of the Michaelmas term. In some ways, the most challenging part of the entire process was to determine the topic, and specifically, the key scientific question, that each pupil was going to investigate. This year’s projects have surpassed all expectations and addressed a variety of fascinating questions, spanning many diverse fields of science.

There has been a definite increase in technology-focused projects:

How accurate are smartwatches?

Do megapixels matter?

Can humans identify AI generated text?

Do smart phones and notifications make people lose concentration?

Does tech rot your brain?

A number of children clearly selected an area of interest to them.

What genre of music improves skill in video games?

Which pitch surface creates the most friction?

Does shoe type impact kicking accuracy?

Does the price of a Rubik’s cube affect the quality?

There were some unique project ideas:

Does our taste threshold change with age?

Does a change in voltage affect the colour change produced when anodising metals?

Why do some mirrors produce distorted images?

Which type of wax burns for the longest?

Does ASMR affect test performance?

Can bullying kill a plant?

And the current topic of discussion in Staff Room:

Which biscuit survives the longest in a hot drink?

Pupils were guided through the stages of the scientific method: question, research, hypothesis, method (including the ‘fair test’ principle), results, analysis and conclusion. The final step was to produce their presentation boards and then we were ready to hold our science fair!

On Tuesday, we welcomed our 7 judges, Mr Davies, Dr Pickering, Mr Thomas, Dr Appleyard, Mr Hopkinson, Miss Davies, and Miss James, to evaluate each project following a set criteria. Each pupil had 10 minutes to tell the judges the reasons behind choosing their project, what research they did, any experiments they tried and finally their result. The judges were looking for projects that showed creativity, scientific thought, thoroughness, skill and clarity. 

At the end of the day, our esteemed judges deliberated together and made their decision. They were overwhelmingly complimentary regarding the high standard of our pupils’ projects and the effective communication of scientific learning and understanding demonstrated by the entirety of Year 6.

In the evening, parents had the opportunity to peruse and celebrate the completed projects. The projects display all the elements we were seeking: endeavour, perseverance, creativity, problem solving and scientific thoroughness. The Year 6s have demonstrated their Blue Coat Values and cheerfully tried hard. Without doubt they have built upon their understanding of science and the investigative process; they have experienced the scientific method first hand and dealt with any difficulties that arose. 

Mrs Simmons is incredibly proud of each and every Year 6 pupil as they have showed real commitment to science by creating such fabulous projects. If the Science Department had judged the Science Fair, all of Year 6 would have been awarded the title of winner. But our judges had decided to crown Oliver for his amazing project on the impact of reducing the sugar amounts in baked goods. Oli’s project was informative and cleverly executed with a visually stimulating display; his addition of cake samples was a crowd pleaser. Well done Oli!

Hot on Oli’s tail were our 4 runners up: Myle, Joobin, Alayna and Jayden whose projects all mixed creativity and in depth research to create incredible scientific discoveries. Well done to our runners up! 

Our judges awarded ‘Highly Commended’ to Umar, Susie, Finn, Rayan, Idris, Cathy, Noah, Jerry, Dhruv, Ihra, Katherine, Charissa, Destinee, Annabel, Maliha, Jasper, Siyona and Elissa. Well done to all! 

It is safe to say that the BCS Science Fair 2024 has been an overwhelmingly successful event and we cannot wait to see what next year’s Science Fair will discover!