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Kemnay Academy

Kemnay Academy win at Go4Set 2014

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On 25th February two Kemnay Go4Set teams attended the Celebration and Assessment Day at Kings College in Aberdeen.  Both teams arrived sharply, leaving an hour so to set up out wonderful displays and get ready for the big assessment.  Both teams had worked very hard on the project over the past 10 weeks, spending lots of our own time on the project.  At 11:00, once our displays were all looking as good as possible, the first schools were being assessed by the judges.  At 11:15, it was our turn (Team One), so three judges from Scottish Marines, Stratosphere and Inktech Solutions.  These industry experts listened to our rehearsed presentation, and we talked them through our model and display.  Our task over the last 10 weeks consisted of four main areas, report, model, display and presentation.  We had to research ways that we could save, reuse and recycle water in our school.  In the first stages of our task we had to carry out research, to find the best possible ways to save water around our school.  We think the research was one of the hardest stages of the project, as no body in the team had any past experiences with saving, reusing and conserving water.  Over a couple of weeks, we managed to overcome over come our problem and put together a, what we thought, very strong final proposal.

 There were three prizes up for grabs, Pupil Choice, Best Team Work and Best Overall Project.  The best team work and overall project were judged by the judges but, as the name suggests, the pupil choice award was chosen by the pupils.  Each team was given an envelope with 6 voting slips in, one for each member.  They then walked around the room and made a decision on who they thought were the best.  After voting and having lunch, all of then mentors arrived.

Our mentor Kieran from Balfour Beatty who had helped us on various occasions throughout the project came to see our finally result which he was very proud of.  Once all of the mentors had had a chance to speak with their teams it was time for the moment of truth.  All of the teams were gathered at the front of the hall and John McIntyre proceeded with the award ceremony.

Torry Academy was awarded the Best Teamwork and £100 and Banchory Academy were awarded Pupil Choice and £50.  Kemnay Academy Team One (Samuel Payne, Lewis McDonald, Matthew Dailey, Ethan Gordon, Amy Emslie and Eilidh Morrison) won the best overall project, £250 and have been invited to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh for the national final on the 16th of May.  When our team was announced we were all thrilled that we had won and that all of the hard work of the past 10 weeks had paid off.  It was a very close competition and all of the teams did very well including Kemnay Academy Team Two (Sasha Ratnayke, Beth Thomson, Rebecca Mackie, Kirsty Mclean and Alice Hepburn), who all did very well!

Matthew Dailey 2E and Lewis McDonald 2D

Kemnay Academy, Kemnay Cluster

Science ‘snippets’ from Kemnay Academy

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Advanced Higher Biology Practical Day
As part of our Advanced Higher Biology course, our class of seven students was invited to take part in a practical day at Aberdeen University. We were given the brilliant opportunity to use equipment that is used in a professional laboratory as well as attending interactive lectures. It gave us a great insight into how we would be taught at the University.
The experiment we conducted involved cutting up DNA with enzymes and separating it with electricity. It is known as Gel Electrophoresis. Gel Electrophoresis involves DNA being extracted from the cells of a plant or animal. The sample is then chopped up using restriction enzymes, and the samples are placed into wells in an agarose gel. The gel functions like a sieve allowing small pieces of DNA to move quickly while larger pieces move slowly. The gel is covered with a conducting buffer and an electrical current is passed across it. Since DNA has a negative charge, it migrates towards the anode, leading to the separation of DNA. This technique is frequently used in Forensic Investigations to help solve crimes.
We all found the day very interesting and enjoyable, taking away skills we can transfer to our own investigations in the future.   

Ruth Bryce 6KEC and Keren Lovie 6AYD

STEM in the Pipeline

A team of S6 pupils are working on a project using their Science, Maths and Engineering knowledge and skills. They have to study geological surveys and make economic decisions to produce a field development plan for an oil well. The team are mentored by Chris Hill a Geophysicist at BP, and will present their work at an event in December. They are competing against 15 other schools from across Aberdeen City and Shire.

The team comprises Finlay Smith, Crawford Ritchie, Alex Knapper, Douglas Park, Sean Clark and Meriem Kouadria. The team is drawing on skills developed in their work for the Energy Apprentice competition last year.

Off-Shore Europe

A group of S5 pupils attended the Energise your Future event at Off-Shore Europe. Pupils met engineers from a variety of companies and were given a tour of the exhibition. Opito gave pupils information about the variety of routes available into a career in the Energy sector including the Modern Apprentice scheme.

Advanced Higher Sciences at Aberdeen University

Pupils in the Advanced Higher Biology and Chemistry classes have attended practical activity days at Aberdeen University. They enjoyed the experience of using new and unfamiliar apparatus and will use their skills and knowledge to help with their project work. Advanced Higher Physics pupils will have a similar event later next term.

Science Baccalaureate

Three S6 pupils have embarked on the challenging Science Baccalaureate Inter-disciplinary Project. They have chosen projects investigating foetal and maternal health, selective breeding in the North East livestock industry and strandings of whales and dolphins. Pupils will be sharing their research findings with other pupils throughout the year.

Advanced Higher Project Planning

Mike Duncan from Morrisons, the construction company, gave S6 pupils a workshop in project planning.  Pupils learned skills which will be very useful when it comes to planning any task or event in the future.

S4 Science

The National 4 Science class have been working on a unit about Water.  Craig Christie from Scottish Water visited to give an overview of local water treatment and use.  The class also visited the local stretch of the River Don with a Ranger to investigate the ecosystem.  Pupils sampled invertebrates and carried out measurement tasks.  On Fridays, the class are learning about the local environment with visits around the Kemnay area. 

STEM in the Pipeline

A team of S6 pupils are working on a project using their Science, Maths and Engineering knowledge and skills. They have to study geological surveys and make economic decisions to produce a field development plan for an oil well. The team are mentored by Chris Hill a Geophysicist at BP, and will present their work at an event in December. They are competing against 15 other schools from across Aberdeen City and Shire.

The team comprises Finlay Smith, Crawford Ritchie, Alex Knapper, Douglas Park, Sean Clark and Meriem Kouadria. The team is drawing on skills developed in their work for the Energy Apprentice competition last year.

 

Off-Shore Europe

A group of S5 pupils attended the Energise your Future event at Off-Shore Europe. Pupils met engineers from a variety of companies and were given a tour of the exhibition. Opito gave pupils information about the variety of routes available into a career in the Energy sector including the Modern Apprentice scheme.

 

Advanced Higher Sciences at Aberdeen University

Pupils in the Advanced Higher Biology and Chemistry classes have attended practical activity days at Aberdeen University. They enjoyed the experience of using new and unfamiliar apparatus and will use their skills and knowledge to help with their project work. Advanced Higher Physics pupils will have a similar event later next term.

 

Science Baccalaureate

Three S6 pupils have embarked on the challenging Science Baccalaureate Inter-disciplinary Project. They have chosen projects investigating foetal and maternal health, selective breeding in the North East livestock industry and strandings of whales and dolphins. Pupils will be sharing their research findings with other pupils throughout the year.

 

Advanced Higher Project Planning

 

Mike Duncan from Morrisons, the construction company, gave S6 pupils a workshop in project planning.  Pupils learned skills which will be very useful when it comes to planning any task or event in the future.

 

Kemnay Academy

A Scottish Baccalaureate First for Kemnay Academy

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This year two S6 students, Fergus Milne and Alistair Mackay, have been working on the Scottish Baccalaureate in Science.  This unique course is only open to students that are studying two science subjects at Advanced Higher level, along with an additional Higher subject.  The Baccalaureate project involves researching and collating information on a topic of the pupil’s choice, in preparation for a final presentation.  The presentation itself can take any form – it can be a written report, a talk, a video, or anything else that the student can come up with.  However, the majority of the work for the Baccalaureate lies in the many reports and progress reviews that the student has to complete throughout the course.

The topic that Alistair has chosen for his project is ‘Food Sustainability’.  This involves looking into the amount of food we consume in our culture and the inefficient practices inherent to their production.  Fergus’ topic charts ‘The Development of Prosthetics’, following the changing nature of artificial limbs through history from wooden Egyptian toes to thought-controlled bionic legs.  Alistair has chosen to present his findings in the form of a written report, while Fergus is planning to give an oral presentation to a group of students of different ages.

Old Rayne

STEM Business Breakfast at Old Rayne

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 On Friday 2nd November Old Rayne School held a science, technologies, engineering and maths business breakfast.

Both classes P1-3 and P4-7 are currently studying STEM projects and we set up the breakfast as a whole school enterprise, the upper stages class even worked with senior pupils from Meldrum Academy to help plan and set up learning stations for the event (the senior pupils then attended the breakfast with the depute from the academy.) We ran the business breakfast as an open morning with 15 expert stations set up around the school. Pupils, parents and staff circulated around the areas as the experts shared their specific expertise with us. It was also an opportunity for the pupils to display their work and show it to their parents and the invited experts. We had representation from to name just a few…

Aberdeen Uni         RGU          SSE – Peterhead Power Station            Aberdeen Branch of the Civil Engineers  

Chevron        Sub Sea 7        OPITO

… and many many Dad’s of pupils who left their companies for the morning to attend as an engineering expert.

It was a super event and the pupils got so much out of it from start to finish. We have invited a few experts back in to school to share more with us about their jobs as the pupils found them very interesting and want to find out more. We perhaps inspired a few more engineers of the future!

The Inverurie Herald and Inverurie Advertiser attended to take photos and do a wee write up that was in last week’s papers.

Fiona Eaton

Head Teacher

Well done to all involved 🙂

Kemnay Academy

Kemnay Academy Celebration of Engineering and Science 2012

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Representatives from Kemnay Academy Young Engineers Club went to the Glasgow Science Centre on the 8 June to participate in a “Celebration of Engineering and Science”.  This event hosted many YE teams from all over Scotland.

Each team had a display of their projects.  Judges evaluated teamwork, presentation and challenge presented in the projects.  Kemnay Academy’s young engineers had a submersible ROV which came third in the MATEROV competition in March, a Makerbot 3D printer that was given to the school be the Scottish Council for Development and Industry to promote new technology in schools and a Rampaging Chariot that is one of two that Kemnay Academy YE have built.

The ROV is made up of plastic pipes for its chassis and has attached tools, propellers and camera’s to make it operational.  It is controlled via a control box.  The Makerbot uses melted plastic to build up layers when it is printing 3D objects and receives its instructions from a program on a laptop that is used to input the objects dimensions.  The rampaging chariot uses two handheld drills to power the wheels and a remote control to operate it.

We had to depart from Kemnay at around 6.00am to arrive at the Glasgow Science Centre and set up our projects ready for judging at 10am.  When the judges arrived we showed them our projects and provided them with a good presentation.  As part of the event companies and universities provided a competition based on mini challenges.  We did six 3min problem solving challenges such as controlling pumps and valves to pump a liquid into a cylinder and building up deep sea pipes that were made up by oil companies like Shell.  We had our lunch and then headed off to the IMAX theatre for the awards ceremony.  Our Makerbot won a prize for the most interesting shape prize.  After the awards ceremony we headed home and discussed ideas to improve our projects further.  From the young engineers club we have all gained teamwork skills and improved our problem solving when it comes to engineering new things.

Martin Thomson S5

Well done to all involved 🙂