At Durston House Junior School, the boys cover various topics in their curriculum. The Year 4 Autumn 1 term sees the boys learning about ‘Sound’ and the Year 3 Autumn 1 term covers ‘Health Eating’.
Over the Autumn term, many experiments took place which allowed boys to use their investigative skills and reason with Scientific facts. This required boys to generate their own hypotheses of the potential outcome of their experiment. Furthermore, the investigation skills that will be learnt in Year 3 and Year 4 help build a strong foundation for their next upcoming years where they dive deeper into Science in Middle and Upper School.
Experiments, this past term, which were investigated in Year 3 were which foods contained starch or fat and for the boys to plate together a healthy meal showing the nutritious value of each component. Furthermore, the Year 4’s experiments were on how sound can travel through a string telephone, measuring decibels in sound with a decibel meter and how does a vibrating tuning fork splash the water causing the particles to move rapidly. An example of the string telephone experiment required the boys to create both tension and slack on the string to test if, when they speak into the cup, the sound can travel through the string to make clear pronunciation of words.
Excitingly, this term the Year 3 boys will continue the topic on healthy eating and dive deeper into learning about teeth. Some experiments include dying the boys’ teeth with plaque disclosing tablets to see how much plaque is in the mouth. The Year 4 boys will move on to electricity and they can look forward to making their own electrical circuit to power a lightbulb and buzzer.
Overall, Science is a fun and interesting topic, and it challenges boys’ thinking to a large extent. It is important for boys to learn about our daily world and how they can contribute to it to make it a better and sustainable place to live. At Durston, we take one day at a time and use every opportunity to learn.
Discover our full Junior School Curriculum here.
Mr Coetzer; Junior School – Science Coordinator
