Scientists visit Irchester Primary with playground experiments

As the first event of the new Nene Valley Partnership between Irchester Primary, Bozeat Primary and Wollaston Secondary School, Irchester hosted the CHaOS Roadshow.

The school is the only in the county to have its own resident scientist and lab.

The students arrived with a van full of hands-on experiments and took over the hall and part of the playground, with a whole range of science activities for the year five, six and seven pupils from all three schools to investigate.

Resident scientist Alice Draper said: “All the pupils involved really enjoyed it, with all the teachers impressed by the engagement seen from everyone. Being able to work together between the schools means we can take advantage of more enrichment and extra curricular activities like this.”

Two year five pupils wrote their own report of the day. Ben and Dulcie said: “On Wednesday year five and six went to see a group called CHaOS (Cambridge Hands On Science). They had lots of fun science experiments set up in the hall with university students to explain them. There were also pupils from Bozeat Primary and Wollaston Secondary schools who arrived in mini-buses.

“Ben’s favourite experiment was the skulls because he likes animals and correctly guessed what some of the skulls were.

“There was the skull of a cat, a dog, a shark and a fish skull. For another experiment, we held a bicycle wheel on a handle. We span the wheel and if you moved around with it, it felt out of control! If you held the wheel and then turned it right whilst sitting on the spinny chair, you would start to spin right without touching anything else!

“Another experiment, is when you put some special glasses on called prism glasses. If you tried to high five someone, you would completely miss their hand because the glasses moved everything you could see to the side!

“After the hands on activities, we in the committee showed the university students some of our own experiments. We did marshmallow hands: which is when you rub your hands together on a piece of wire, and it tricks your nerves to make your hands soft and marshmallow like. Dulcie thought the CHaOS group would know how everything worked already, but they were amazed by our experiments and want to borrow our ideas!