Our Sylva Scholar Kirsty Monk, who is running a science project with a primary school in Oxford funded by a Royal Society grant (read more), reports on recent progress.
This week has been one of transition for the Royal Society project, seeing the culmination of the pilot class’ investigations and the start of the project proper.
Class A dramatically improved in terms of scientific thinking and writing, as shown in their posters (to be exhibited in a show at the end of the academic year), tackling questions such as:
- What species live in a stream with high currents; how does this compare to the species living in low currents?
- What causes currents?
- How many species are there in the stream at Hogacre?

Children from St Ebbe's primary school working in the Royal Society project with Sylva Scholar Kirsty Monk
The results were surprising to the students and often hypotheses were disproved, teaching students that they don’t have to know the answer before beginning an experiment. I look forward to showing off their wares in June/July.
We also started off Class B, with getting to know both the area and the project. Luckily we had fantastic weather for this and it seems as though this class is set to be as enthusiastic as the last.
Kirsty Monk