Hanborough Manor C of E School wins Oxfordshire Big Science Event 2018
Friday 13th July 2018
Five ingenious primary school pupils from Year 4 at Hanborough Manor C of E School have been crowned winners of the Oxfordshire Big Science Event 2018.
The Big Science Event is a competition for primary school pupils that challenges them to create their own science experiment or investigation, and present their findings to a panel of judges. The experiment can be on any topic and previous entries have included ‘What makes snails move?’ and ‘How much air does it take to pop a banana?’
The main aim of the competition is for the children to have fun with science while learning about the experimental process at the same time.
Science Oxford set up the Big Science Event, which runs in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, back in 2010. Originally reaching out to just 17 schools, it has now grown to involve over 100 schools and a massive 13,000 pupils across the two counties. The competition is supported by Abbott Diabetes Care, who also hosted the final at their Witney campus.
The judges were Andy Payne and Shaun Smith from Abbott Diabetes Care, and Steve Burgess and John Boyle from The Oxford Trust.
The young scientists from Hanborough set themselves the following question to answer: Which salt dissolves an ice cube the quickest?
Andy Kensley, Head of Education Outreach at Science Oxford, says, “We were so impressed by the high quality of all of the investigations that we saw and by the enthusiasm and scientific understanding shown by every team that took part. The judges had a very tough decision to make to choose just one winner, but Hanborough had everything we were looking for – a wonderful idea, great methodology and a lovely talk about what they had discovered. Well done to everyone involved.”
Judge Steve Burgess said: “The standard of entries for this exciting competition get better and better each year. The pupils taking part are a credit to themselves, their teachers and parents – thinking, and talking about science through actually doing hands on experiments in the early years of education helps create a bedrock of curiosity that we hope lasts a lifetime. This is essential in today’s world where smart thinking and innovation are key to success. Congratulations to all teams – we will see you next year!”
Two schools were highly commended for their scientific endeavours:
• Year 1 and 2 at Radley C of E Primary School
• Year 6 at Wolvercote Primary School – last year’s winners
