Science Week in Prep School
From Monday to Friday Prep School has been holding their Science Week. A week dedicated to talks, special science sessions, cross-curricular links with scientific subjects, experiments, and the special visit of Lucie Riu, an astrophysicist from the European Space Agency.
Year 5 experiments 
Reception in Year 5 
Infants students experiments Lucie Riu, astrophysicist talks with Juniors students
Experiments inside each classroom
Concepts like density, electromagnetic fields, surface tension, magnets, chemical reactions, and much more, overflew the Juniors and Infants buildings. Last Monday students from Year 4 to Year 6 came in dressed as scientists to start off the week fully immersing in what Science Week means: engaging with science, and scientists of all kinds.
Meanwhile, Reception students got the chance to have their science lessons in the Juniors’ building, visiting the classrooms of the Year 5 and Year 6 students. Reception students helped them perform the experiments older students had studied and prepared.
It was a truly enriching experience for older and younger students alike, making science come alive.
Reception visit to Y6 Year 5 herbs experiment Reception visit to Y5 Year 5 students performing different experiments
An astrophysicist visit to Alegra
On Wednesday the students from Year 3 to Year 6 had the opportunity to welcome Lucie Riu, an astrophysicist from the European Space Agency. She came in to explain her research work and how the life of a world-class scientist is, launching robots into space, exploring and analyzing planets and asteroids.
“What do you like about your job?”, “How are planets formed?”, “why is our planet the only one with water?”… All of these were questions asked during the session. Students learned that her work involves receiving data from outer space to study Mars’ rocks and understand the formation of the planet. They were especially intrigued about the realization that Mars used to have water like planet Earth but now it doesn’t – one of the many mysteries that scientists like Lucie Riu are trying to understand.
But scientists not only work with computers, math, or chemistry alone in a laboratory. Lucie also explained how teamwork in the lab is fundamental to finding useful information about the planets. Public speaking to share knowledge and always thinking creatively is also an essential part of being a scientist, Lucie told the students.
