Year 6

For British Science Week 2021, we decided to learn about two special inventors who linked to our history topic of WWII.

Up first, we looked at Wernher von Braun. Wernher von Braun was a German engineer who played a prominent role in all aspects of rocketry and space exploration, first in Germany and after World War II in the United States. We looked in detail at his role in the invention of the V-2. He was well-known as the leader of the American rocket team, which sought the launch of astronauts into space. We learnt all about his life and his achievements - even the controversy. We then produced poster pages/fact files on his life. We then moved onto exploring rockets, looking at how they are made, what their purposes are and what forces are involved before, during and after a rocket is launched. Up next, it was time to work in groups of three to design and make our very own rocket! Each team uniquely designed a rocket, giving it a special name. We used all of our knowledge on forces to decide how much fuel (water) our rockets would need to launch into the sky. We spent lots of time on our school playground launching our rockets using a bicycle pump and some plastic fins.

Our second focus inventor was Alan Turing. Alan Turing was an English mathematician and pioneer of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. During WW2, he was instrumental in breaking the German Enigma code, leading to Allied victory over Nazi Germany. We watched a video all about his life and achievements and the work he did for his country in a very challenging time. We were so fascinated by what he did that we decided to make our very own cypher wheels! We learnt all about the different key codes used and we used this knowledge to crack some codes ourselves. We used patience and perseverance to both encrypt and decrypt messages before finally coding our own messages to a friend!

Take a look at some of the snapshots of our amazing week in Y6 for British Science Week 2021!