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Year 3 Science Week 2010

At the end of Michaelmas half term a class of excited Year 3 pupils from Butcombe spent the afternoon in the physics department of Upper School as part of their science week.

In Dr French's classroom they tried to describe the hottest and coldest things they knew before being introduced to liquid nitrogen, a very cold form of the nitrogen gas which is -196 degrees Celsius. To their delight and amazement Dr French made a balloon model dog, after which they explored the effect of placing it into liquid nitrogen – where it shrank!

Just when they thought science couldn’t be more fun, Dr French made the pupils some delicious liquid nitrogen ice cream. Cream, sugar and cocoa powder were mixed in a bowl before liquid nitrogen was added to freeze the mixture instantly into ice cream. As the nitrogen cooled the mixture so rapidly, the ice cream was very smooth as large ice crystals did not have time to form.

The pupils went back to Butcome having experienced the fun of studying science in the Upper School, of seeing the fantastic facilities there and, of course, with great memories of ice cream served up in the classroom.

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