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The Biology Department organised the trip to allow all our Year 10 students to listen to eminent speakers about Evolution, Genetics, as well as Chemistry and Physics.
The first speaker was Dr Andrea Sella, who started the lecture asking us how a zebra got its stripes, and proceeded to describe several biochemical and chemical processes, using the analogy of predator prey interactions between rabbits and foxed. He also took us on a virtual ski tour, and captured the audience attention through a series of colourful chemical experiments. He never managed to answer the initial question, but was incredibly entertaining.
Professor Steve Jones encouraged all students to stick their tongue out at their teacher (Jacob Stokes particularly enjoyed this task) and provided us with very convincing evidence about our evolution as humans. When he left the theatre we were all extremely sure of our African origins.
Professor Jim Al-Khalili was truly enchanting and managed to grab everyone’s attention on one of the most conceptually difficult topics that Physics has to offer: black holes, relativity and the complex paradoxes thrown up by the idea of time travel. He used incredibly entertaining visual material including The Terminator Hollywood movie…and we simply got hooked!! We just did not want him to leave the stage…he was amazing!!
Professor Richard Dawkins did not appreciate the audience reaction to his Homo erectus slide (evidently he is not used to dealing with adolescents), but silenced us all when he showed us our 420 million years great grand dad: a fish!! Rory Turnbull asked him to sign his book and he was very pleased to see such enthusiasm about evolution and Darwinism in a young student. I did explain that we are very fond of Darwin here at Hereford Cathedral School, and his left eyebrow moved when I said Cathedral!
Finally, the real cherry on the cake was offered by Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Anglo-Nigerian astrophysicist, who gave her lecture holding her 9 months old baby in a very pink sling and feeding her bottled milk whilst talking about her passion for telescopes and how to design a toilet for astronauts.
What more do you need from a day out?????
A truly enjoyable day, and another opportunity to feel extremely proud of our students who looked extremely smart and behaved impeccably (….if only WH Smith queues for sweets had been shorter!!!).
Elena Segalini-Bower
Head of Biology
HCS
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