OPENING OF NEW SCIENCE LABORATORY, CLERE SCHOOL

I have been invited before to the Clere School for presentation evenings as a number of their students come from Newbury and I was pleased to accept an invitation to attend the school for the opening of a new science laboratory. So I duly arrived at the Reception where one of the students was there to meet me and take me to the new science laboratory. There I met the Headteacher Sarah Rogers and the Deputy Head Rosemary Black. I asked Rosemary how they had managed to get the finance to build the laboratory, whether they managed to get sponsorship or from the Local Education Authority. She told me that it had been funded solely from the school’s budget. The Laboratory itself seemed to be very well equipped with sinks, gas taps, a glove box (I am sure there is a proper name for it) and all contained in a bright and well lit building. I also met up with Dr Peter Waggett, who was to formally open the Laboratory. Peter currently works for the IT company IBM on the Emerging Technologies programme at Hursley. As part of his PhD studies, Peter worked at NASA completing research into the sun. During the 1990s, he worked for the British National Space Centre and European Space Agency developing remote sensing satellites. It was possibly because of the latter work that the Head of Science at the school invited the guests (including myself) to construct a rocket with the science students. To assist us in this short project, she had various materials laid out which included balloons, string, sellotape, the cardboard insert of a toilet roll and some coloured sheets of thin card. From this we needed to build a rocket which would travel along a 30 foot cable and the team with the rocket which would travel the furthest along the cable would win.
I have to admit that not being a design engineer, I was at a loss to know how to build one which would move along on balloon power. However, we did make a nose cone and fixed that onto the front and attached three inflated balloons to the side of the cardboard cylinder and away she went. Unfortunately, it only travelled a few inches but the concept was sound. I had to congratulated the group of students who did the work and it was a useful way of testing our ingenuity.
After this, we all went to the Library for refreshments and then Peter formally opened the Science Laboratory with an encouraging speech on the vital place science takes in our current world. It was a great afternoon and I enjoyed going back to school, even if it was only for a couple of hours.