During our themed learning topic around the Silk Road this term, we have been looking at the travel of gunpowder down the road and learning about the reasons that explosions occur, what people use explosions for, we have touched on some chemistry and created some safe explosions of our own with baking soda, popcorn and diet cola in the Science lab.
As it wouldn’t yet be safe for us to carry out any bigger explosions we asked Mr. Joseph and the Year 12 IB students to come and show us what they could do. Mr. Joseph explained each explosion and the Year 12s carried them out safely. It was a genuinely impressive display and within minutes they had all the Year 5s clapping spontaneously as they created chemical and physical explosions and shot rockets around the room.
What was most exciting for us as teachers was to see the pure joy and engagement on the Year 5s’ faces as they watched the show. Eavesdropping on conversations the children had later, we heard the children confidently using accurate Scientific vocabulary to describe what they had seen, but more than that, several children said they were inspired to continue Chemistry up to IB, as previously they hadn’t realised how fun it could be. Lots of children were very interested in where Mr. Joseph had gone to university too…
- Helen McMullen, Primary Science Coordinator