Science Week 2022 | Sustainable Farming
Our Science Week Vision
This year we chose the topic of Sustainable Farming. It was a purposeful choice to encourage our pupils to think about sustainability in new and creative ways. Our main vision for science week was to instil a culture of sustainability across our campus while fostering a positive comminity for the future of sustainable projects. Those three words, Culture, Campus and Community, echoed throughout our science week activities and was the foundation for a successful week of activities and has also grown into our newly formed Eco-committee.
Science Fair
In Senior, we started the week by celebrating the pupil-led science fair. Pupils have been working on their projects for several months, with some pupils focusing on research and others launching into a more investigative approach. The theme for our science fair was “How can we create a more sustainable world?” pupils took this in many directions with projects focusing on sustainable materials and others looking at “alternative” ways (shampoo, glue and conditioner) of storing food.
In Primary, all pupils took part in a ‘STEMterprise’ project focusing on creating sustainable products. Farming STEMterprise projects take pupils through each stage of setting up a farm shop business:
1considering seasonality when deciding which crop to grow
2growing their ingredients
3considering nutrition when designing their recipes
4using market research to test their ideas out with potential consumers
5working within a budget when buying additional ingredients and much more
At the end of the week, pupils presented their ideas at a traditional science fair, celebrating their success and learning curves with their peers and staff from Wellington College International Hangzhou.
Senior Science Week Debate
The next significant activity in Senior involved the most confident pupils in our first ever science debate. With fantastic support from the English department, we all watched three rounds of science debating following a set debating format. The topic of choice was “Is organic farming the future of food?” So many pupils wanted to participate that one lunchtime event stretched across Wednesday, Thursday and Friday lunchtimes commencing with Year 7 vs Year 8.
Home Grown
To round off our science week, we wanted to ensure that the vision and passion pupils had shown throughout the week continued. So it leads us to our final activity, “Home Grown”. On the last day of Science Week, each pupil from Year 1 to Year 10 received a sunflower starter kit to help start their home growing journeys.
We are looking forward to sharing our communities’ pictures and videos of their mini gardens and showing how we have developed our positive community spirit towards sustainable living.
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