This week saw the first session of our much awaited STEM Club. This term we are running it for our year 5/6 pupils although this will rotate through the school year groups over the course of the year.
Our first enquiry was from the IndusTRY AT HOME resources from CIEC (centre for industry education collaboration). It posed the question ’what is the best method for making foam’ set against a scenario of a bubble bath manufacturer wanting to produce the most foam for the least amount of money.
The pupils happily got into whisking, blowing, stirring and shaking the bubble bath and water mixture. At the same time they applied their maths skills to measure the amount of bubble bath and water needed in the correct ratio. They also had to make it a fair test and decide how they would measure the amount of foam produced. There was lots of scientific reasoning and vocabulary used amongst excited chatter at the same time. The pupils also compare the type of foam produced by the different methods used and were surprised that some methods produced quite a dense foam whilst others produced quite a light, airy foam with lots of bubbles.
The pupils also enjoyed popping back the next morning to see what had happened to the foam overnight. Everyone worked really collaboratively and there was lots of valuable discussion. Let’s hope they all find next week’s session just as engaging.
