In Science, Year 7 have been investigating a number of different things, including whether the surface area of the wings of a paper helicopter affects the speed at which it falls. They made their helicopters from templates given to them and headed to the sports hall where each group dropped the helicopter from the balcony and timed how long it took to drop. There were important discussions about the difference between reliability, accuracy and fair test.
Following their work on forces, Year 7 then headed outside to try to calculate the speed of sound experimentally. They measured a distance of 200m from the sports hall wall, which took them up to the furthest limits of the Wykey pitches. They then produced a sound by knocking two bits of wood together. All children timed how long it took for them to hear the echo return from the sports hall. From this they were able to calculate the speed of sound in air. The results were very close to the actual value, with only the reaction times seemingly leading to an inaccurate result.
