This week a Y7 science class has been helping staff from the University of Birmingham develop new resources for their Discover Materials in the Midlands Project. The Discover Materials team visited us and talked to us about why materials science is important, materials science, we have learned, is the science of the “stuff” everything is made of, from sports equipment to buildings and our mobile phones. We learned about how some of the raw materials for our phones are mined and some of these resources are quickly depleting.
Our students also shared their ideas on what their favourite materials are and what industries we have in the Midlands that we would like to celebrate. Suggestions included Network Rail, Cadburys, Aston Martin and the jewellery industry as well as traditional and non traditional materials such as wood and amethyst gold .
Our visitors very kindly stayed to science club after school and showed us some “clip on” microscopes that we used with school ipads to capture these images. Can you tell which is a school tie, a sugar cube or a piece of paper?
Our students really impressed our visitors with their enthusiasm and detailed questions. Many thanks to Dr Chris Hamlett, Clarissa Stickland and Kate Stokes for sharing their expertise and enthusiasm for Materials Science. We look forward to their return visit where we will test out the activities they are going to develop based on our ideas and questions!
