Great works on IB Group 4 Project 2018!

Great works on IB Group 4 Project 2018! On 6th and 7th  September,  Year 12 and 13 Students were actively working on their Group 4 project.  Please see a report below and photos of them in action!  

On 6^th and 7^th  September,  Year 12 and 13 Students were actively working on their Group 4 project.  Please see a report below and photos of them in action!  

The IB Programme is all about experiential learning. The Group 4 Project is one of the opportunities in the curriculum that encourages:

• Practice-based learning
• Inter-disciplinary collaboration across different scientific disciplines.
• Appreciation of the implications of science and the limitations of scientific study
• Development of teamwork 
• Development of planning skills 
• Exchange or sharing of both data collected and issues raised.

The project is designed to give the students a chance to explore any idea related to science that they are curious about. While the ideas are always different, they are united under a general theme which this year was Sustainability and Climate Change.

In the planning phase of the project, students gathered in small groups, containing members representing different scientific disciplines and offering different expertise. The groups were selected with the aim of getting students working with new people outside of their normal interactions. Placing students into specific groups to complete work encourages them to develop their interpersonal skills and can lead to a deeper grasp of subject specific language; being able to explain yourself to others, so they can understand, is an excellent way of reinforcing knowledge. If you can teach it, you must have learned it!

This year, the topics of investigation have been wide-ranging, we had:

• Filtration of insoluble particles in tap water
• Absorption of water by bread based utensils
• Reduction of plastic usage by producing edible and biodegradable cutlery
• Energy generation through wind and water powered turbines
• Filtration of micro beads in fluids
• Sustainable housing (wind, solar, composting)
• Effectiveness of biofuels
• Producing bio plastics from potatoes, banana, and mango peel
• Efficiency of hydrocarbon based fuels
• Using bikes and dynamos to charge batteries to power light bulbs in economically developing countries
• The impact of pollution on the efficiency of solar panels.

As you can see the projects are very different, but the universal part of it was that all students were applying the scientific method to obtain information. This means that they had to do proper planning, ask research questions, collect data, analyse and present the outcomes.

The work done by the students over the two days culminated in the symposium, where students demonstrated their projects, shared findings and answered questions about their projects to the rest of the BSB family.

Fantastic work, Year 12 and 13. Well Done!

Update from: Mr. David Wheeler, Head of Science

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