A Wellington School pupil has scooped a prestigious science award. Sophie Bennett from Year 10, won the Science and Technology Facilities Council School Science Prize
“Sophie was nominated by the school on the strength of her outstanding effort and results in science, maths, DT and ICT, commented Alasdair Shaw, physics teacher at the school.
She travelled to Oxford last week to join prize winning pupils from fifty schools at the STFC School Science Prize Ceremony at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.
The prizes were presented by Dr Ceri Brenner – an eminent laser-plasma physicist who encouraged them to continue their studies in STEM subjects, in order to become the scientists and engineers of the future.
Before receiving their prizes, students were able to interact with equipment from the “Explore Your Universe” project. Scientists Steve Crothers, Luke Fry, Dr Jon Taylor and James Watson kindly helped to demonstrate key concepts of STFC science using an infra-red camera, a particle accelerator in a salad bowl (powered by a van der Graaff generator), a plasma ball, diffraction gratings, a discharge tube and spectroscopes. The pupils, together with their parents and teachers, were then treated to a fascinating talk by Dr Ceri Brenner of the Central Laser Facility, who asked the question “What would you do with the most powerful laser in the world?” The audience were extremely engaged and interested, with many staying behind at the end to ask further questions.
Ceri said “It was a real honour to be involved in the award presentation and have the chance to meet all of the students who have shown interest and achievement in science; they were a really friendly bunch. It was also very uplifting to see an equal gender split in the group which highlighted that the key challenge for diversity in STEM is retaining interest in science post-GCSE.”