Secondary Science Club

Science Club is going to (through?) the roof…

The Charles, Svente and Isaac Science Club of the AICS is slowly moving away from the every day science experiments and we are expanding our activities to include more substantial, long term experiments. This doesn’t mean that we don’t do the Science experiments anymore (students are still welcome to drop in with ideas and we will still try to accommodate them), but we are growing. And it all started with a simple idea.

Last Open Day, we demonstrated the effect of the Greenhouse Gases by heating two balloons: one with exhaled air (containing about 4% carbon dioxide) and one with exhaled air that was filtered through limewater (that took the carbon dioxide out). With a thermometer we checked the temperature in both balloons and demonstrated that the one that contained the most carbon dioxide did indeed warm up faster than the one that contained less carbon dioxide.

What does this have to do with the CSI-club going to the roof? Recent investigations have shown a worrying trend in the clockwork of nature. The breeding season of a well-known little bird with the quaint name “Great Tit” (Parus major in Latin) is a bit off. Due to global warming, the caterpillars that the young birds need to grow up manifest themselves two weeks earlier. The breeding season of our pretty little bird has only shifted a couple of days, due to the fact that their breeding season in more related to day length (and not so much depend on temperature). Our aim is to help the ongoing research by monitoring the Great Tits by starting a little garden on the roof and installing a webcam to keep a close eye on the creatures. We have also installed a weather station, so we are simultaneously keeping an eye the local weather conditions. Work in progress! So far, we have set up a command centre in the roof building (with access to the actual roof), we are trying the weather station and we began to install the wireless connection from the webcam and weather station to the school network. Maybe, everybody can look at our exploits on line!

Written by Mr Fred Poeser, Science Club Leader