The Science Department: Home

Merry Christmas
As the last school day of 2024 arrives, we just want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas. Enjoy the holiday, stay safe and we'll see you in January 2025.

Year 9 Science:
Today you need to research the atmospheres on other planets and moons. Before starting, ensure that you can recall the 4 main gases in our own atmosphere and their abundance.
Start by looking for similarities and differences in the atmospheres, can they be grouped together? What are the reasons for these variations? Why is Earth such an anomaly?
Suggested sources:
Bob the Alien's information table.
Bob's type of planet.
Compound chem's data table.
NASA's data table.
Nasa's summary.
When you have all of this information, make your own basic summary in a Word document. List common trends and anomalies. You should also explain why Earth is an anomaly. Enjoy.

When you have finished that, look into the realities of "Manned missions to Mars". Some groups expect humans to visit Mars within 30 years, what are the logistics, barriers and solutions to getting people there...and back?

Britain's dirtiest energy source
With Britain's last remaining coal fired power station finally closed, of the remaining energy resources, which is the most negative for our environment? This story is very relevant to the Physics topic Energy.
Read more on the BBC news website.

Land-Based in the news
Local changes to "use of land" stir up local people. Is it fair that local people can have so much say into how a farmer can use their land? Read more on the Sentinel website.

Finally - a glimpse of the Northern Lights from Stoke-on-Trent. Every time it happens, I miss it. Not the perfect picture but you can see the green on the right that fades to purple in the middle. The green caused by interactions of oxygen with electrons and the purple caused by the interactions of nitrogen with electrons.

Great news to students who struggle to learn formulae. The UK government has extended the Covid support for 3 more years by giving the enhanced formula sheet of GCSE physics. Read the full story here. Does learning the formulae make you a better scientist or just better at learning formulae?

The "Curriculum Health Check" section has gone live on all GCSE science pages now. Please be aware that this is the first time that I have seen them in HTML and am now going through the job of editing them when I find formatting errors. Enjoy, hope to be ready by September.

One of my A-level chemists has recently been accepted into the prestigious school of veterinary science at the university of Liverpool. Congratulations and thanks for the squishy cow, I shall always treasure it!