Junior and Senior School students at Burgess Hill School for Girls took part in the national MARSBalloon STEM Project during the autumn term. They designed scientific experiments which had to fit inside a Kinder Egg case and would be exposed to conditions in space similar to those found on the surface of the planet Mars.
Elysium, the second MARSBalloon flight of 2014, was launched at the end of October from a Thales UK site in the Mendip hills with the girls’ experiments on board along with those submitted by 32 other UK schools. A video of the flight that the experiments took can be found on the following link: http://marsballoon.com/elysium-2/
Mr De Britt, teacher of Physics said, “This project has provided a fantastic opportunity for our students to conduct their own space exploration research; they engaged enthusiastically, imaginatively and practically with the whole process. They created innovative scientific experiments which delivered exciting data for analysis.”
‘How does a zero air pressure, extreme cold, radiation-saturated environment affect energy storage and single cell organisms’, were important scientific questions taken on by our inquisitive students.
Megan Vandersluis, Year 6 said “I enjoyed learning about how you can test a battery using specialist scientific equipment.”
Isabelle Rowson, Year 6 commented: “It was so much fun working in the Senior School labs and I was so excited that my application was chosen. It was amazing to send our egg up with the balloon.”
Miranda Hart, Year 6 added “I learnt that just above our atmosphere there are the same conditions as Mars!”
Verity Clarke, Year 6 said, “I found it interesting testing our battery and liked working with Senior School girls.”
Mr De Britt added, “This project demonstrated that given the right opportunities, girls have valuable contributions to make to scientific domains stereotypically associated with male students. Our girls are definitely space scientists in the making!”