The Barometer Week 3 Spring

BAROMETER THE

WETHERBY SENIOR SCHOOL WEEKLY JANUARY 21st 2018 | WEEK 3

FUN IN THE PHYSICS DEPARTMENT!

FROM THE HEADMASTER

Dear Parents, This week we welcomed back to the School the ‘Good Lad Initiative’. The organisation works in schools, universities and in the workplace to help young men examine the unhelpful stereotypes and behaviours that can be damaging to relationships and communities. I visited the workshops and I was pleased to see many of the boys engaging with and challenging the visitors leading the sessions. I was surprised, and pleased, that the boys were so quick to raise the phrase ‘toxic masculinity’ and keen to understand why it had become such a buzzword in the media.

The parents’ session which was held in the evening was enlightening as the School’s project manager was able to share with the parents the key points from the wide ranging discussions that had taken place during the day and highlight what the boys knew and what they are still learning. Although

I hear it often from visitors to the School, it was nice to hear again how open, warm and friendly the boys were, how respectful they were of others’ views and how they don’t fit the stereotype of what a boy at an all-boys school is like. Some of the boys were interviewed

by BBC Radio 4 and the producer also commented on how much she had enjoyed interacting with them and how perceptive they were on these challenging issues.

Two groups of boys are out this weekend on very different activities. Some of the Sixth Form are making the trip to Manchester later today to take part in a Model United Nations conference. I have attended a couple of conferences as a member of staff in the past and they are an excellent way for young people to learn about global politics, to practise their public speaking skills and to make new friends around the country; die-hard MUN-ers I have known in the past

have had a large network of contacts that they met through these conferences.

Whilst there is no winner at these events, I wish the boys every success with their political manoeuvring.

At the younger end of the School, a group is competing in the regional round of the Lego Mindstorms EV3, a competition that combines coding and robotics. The boys that competed last year did well and I know that there have been some late evenings after school devoted to constructing their robot and equipping it for the challenges it will face on Saturday. I wish them luck and look forward to hearing how it has gone next week.

Enjoy the weekend,

WEEK A MONDAY

WEEKLY DIARY 28.01.18

‘Jerusalem’ for Year 12s studying English A level - V&A Museum archives 10:00-15:00 Talk for Sixth Form boys - Climbing the Angel Falls, Ben Heason - Francis Holland, Regents Park 15:00

TUESDAY

29.01.18 Football WSS U15 B/C vs KGS (A) - Ditton Field 14:30

WEDNESDAY

30.01.18

Rugby WSS 1st XV vs St Benedicts (H) 14:30

THURSDAY

31.01.18

Football WSS U14 vs KGS (A) - Ditton Field 14:30

FRIDAY

01.02.18

SATURDAY

02.02.17

SUNDAY

03.02.17

Lunchtime clubs and societies 13:40-14:25 English Assembly at Hinde Street Methodist Church 16:00-16:45

SERPENTINE CHARITY MOVIE NIGHT Plus pizza and drinks!

Tuesday 12th February 5:30pm Hannah House Hall Tickets are ÂŁ10 and can be purchased from Miss Maroudi until 1st February.

WETHERBY SENIOR SCHOOL WATER BOTTLE Help reduce our school's plastic consumption by using this personalised Active Bottle, emblazoned with the Wetherby Senior School logo and your own name. Made from highly durable materials, your Active Bottle is easy to open and close, won't leak and will keep your drinks hot or cold throughout the school day.

Active Bottle supports our planet by donating 10% of all their proceeds to Clean Ocean and what's more, all remaining profits from selling the bottle will go straight to support your school's PTA and their selective charities.

Can't get better!

You can order online at: https://activebottle.co.uk/ collections/wetherby

IMPORTANT NOTICES

MONDAY

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

Main: Spaghetti and meatballs

Main: Steak and mushroom pie

Main: Chicken curry

Meat Free: Totellini fromaggio with tomatoes, mushroom and spinach

Meat Free: Leek and gruyere tart

Meat Free: Lentil dhal

To Go With: Mashed swede, steamed florettes, parsley potatoes

To Go With: Chana masala, Fennel seed rice, Kachumba salad, mini naan bread, rhaita yoghurt

To Go With: Tomato, red onion and boconchini salad, salad, peas and beans, herbed diced potatoes

Dessert: Chocolate Brownie

Dessert: Orange tart

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

Main: Beef stroganoff

Main: Beef or chicken burgers

Meat Free: Vegetarian pizzas

Meat Free: Falafel and spinach vegetable burgers

To Go With: Pilau rice, French beans Provencale tomatoes, garlic and parsley pasta Dessert: Orange jelly bowls

To Go With: Chips, roasted Mediterranean vegetables, Calabrese with garlic and chilli

Dessert: Chilled Spanish style rice pudding

EVERY DAY

Homemade Bread Freshly made yogurt pots Fresh Fruit

Dessert: Baked jam roll and custard

MENU

YEAR 12 PHYSICS: MOTION The Year 12s have been studying motion in Physics and for this lesson they conducted an experiment to find a value of g - the acceleration due to gravity. For this experiment boys first looked at the origins of g by using Newton’s law of gravitation and his second law (right).

We then discussed why we take g to be constant for everyday situations.

The experiment you can see in the pictures is one way of calculating g from the kinematic equation s = ut + ½ at2 A timer is linked to both a pressure plate and an electromagnet, which holds a steel ball above the pressure plate. When the electromagnet is switched off the steel ball drops and the timer starts, when the ball strikes the pressure plate the timer is stopped.

By recording values of s (displacement) and t (time) the a (acceleration) can be calculated. The calculated value can then be compared to the accepted value of g.

Next lesson the boys will be looking at a source of systematic error in the experimental setup and deciding how this affected our results.

STEM CLUB This term in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Club, the boys have been learning robotics this term. Our Y7-10s are working on their Lego Mindstorms EV3 and are competing this Saturday in the London East regional tournament – best of luck boys! The photo doesn’t quite capture the ‘design area’ in full but it is safe to say that there is more Lego visible than carpet space at the moment.

Our Y12s are working on the VEX platform. This is their first foray into robotics and so they are aiming to build the ‘claw bot’, and you can see construction is well underway, and then they will code it to perform some simple tasks. The aim is to develop our VEX construction and coding knowledge this year to allow us to compete next year.

Both the VEX and EV3 platforms require boys to learn visual coding but the great thing about the VEX platform is that it also provides progression to Python. For any of our boys hoping to study engineering or physics at university this coding practice will be particularly useful.

THE POISONED AIR OF LONDON Talal H, Year 12 writes...

As someone who has lived in London for the entirety of my time in the UK, there is a near infinite range of ways science has impacted this particular city and its residents. But one of the most deleterious (and perhaps subversive) scientific side-effects of our modern urban lifestyles is that of pollution.

The capital of the UK has become infamous for its toxic air, particularly in its most central areas. Oxford Street broke the pollution limit with illegally high levels of nitrogen dioxide for 127 days last year.

On top of that, the UK has consistently failed to meet European standard limits for nitrogen dioxide pollution since 2010. And if things were not bad enough, some 9000 Londoners die early each year as a consequence of long-term exposure to such pollutants.

What is it exactly that these pollutants do to us during our time exposed to them, and why are fatalities so high?

Nitrogen dioxide (NO2), one of the main culprits, comes mostly from vehicle exhaust and is known to inflame lungs and reduce immunity to lung infections, particularly for vulnerable asthmatics and people with heart disease.

According to the aptly named Review of Evidence on Health Aspects of Air Pollution (REVIHAAP), it is likely that short-term exposure to NO2 has a direct effect on respiratory morbidity, while long-term exposure has a

“statistically significant,” link to harming the lung function of children and causing respiratory infections.

To put it bluntly, London has failed to control its pollution in an adequate manner and has allowed preventable health problems to turn into fatalities.

Particularly for someone who walks to school every day, breathing the unfiltered air of this city - learning that about a quarter of all educational establishments are in areas that breach the legal limit for NO2 is at once deeply unsettling and somehow laughable given the lack of concern for what seems to be a growing epidemic.

Indeed, although London cannot quite compete with Beijing and New Delhi for enormous clouds of smog, we are only a little bit behind them in our nitrogen dioxide levels – and quite far ahead of New York and cities in other developed countries at the same time. And while efforts have been made to reduce emissions – whether the congestion charge, zero emission single-decker buses or the planned new ultra-low emission zone – government projections show that the legal limit for air pollution will not be met until 2025.

So perhaps things are not so gloomy after all. If we take the right measures, we can lower NO2 emissions to a manageable point. In 2018, they reached the lowest level for the previous decade.

Another tricky pollutant which has impacted us is particulate matter (PM), loosely defined

as a mixture of solid and liquid particles which sit suspended in the air. PM2.5, where the matter has a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometres, is particularly problematic for Europe. It comes from the usual suspects: combustion engines, the combustion of solid fuels, and industrial activities. It can also be generated through natural phenomena.

Unfortunately, every area of the capital is in breach of the World Health Organisations’ limit for PM2.5. So what effect does this pollutant have? It is known to aggravate existing respiratory problems and increase hospital admissions, as well as resulting in a higher likelihood of lung cancer and deaths due to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.

Of course, children and the elderly are most vulnerable.

PM negatively affects the lung function of the young early on, such that the growth rate of the lungs and their long-term function can be damaged.

London is the largest city in the UK. 9 million of us gather onto crowded streets, long tube cars, and work, travel and live altogether across this amalgamation of brick, concrete, steel and glass. It is only natural that the conveniences of our more or less easy, more or less comfortable lives come with drawbacks that have begun to catch up with us. It is perhaps time to take note of the scientific impact of air pollution on our health as a society and take greater measures against it.

THE DIGITAL DESK Vadim M, Year 12 writes...

Before I joined Secondary School, my desk was a battle ground. Armed with an array of pens and pencils, notebooks and neon-highlighters I attacked the flood of sheets that occupied my desk. The onslaught of paper seemed endless and the casualties in the form of lost handouts were sky-rocketing. Those were my only tools when doing homework. It would be on rare occasions that any assignment would be done on a digital device let alone with others.

Sometimes when I look at my bookshelves and see my homework diaries, a gust of nostalgia blows through my room as I reminisce about those days. My desk has transformed to hold only one thing: a laptop. I got my first laptop in the autumn term of Year 9 but it was only when my school rolled out their VLE (Virtual-Learning Environment-online platform that hosts school resources) that it became a key player in my academic campaign. In Year 9 it was just a tool to look interesting things up on google and occasionally play the odd indie game. Now my laptop is my work environment and my desk is digital thanks to cloud technology.

What is the cloud? The cloud is the abstract concept of a multitude of devices being interconnected. Computer infrastructure can be shared and that includes processing power, access to applications

and storage. Data centres are the engines of the internet and without the scientific inventions that enable them to operate at full throttle, cloud technology would be severely limited or perhaps non-existent. Air-conditioning is required to prevent the processors from over-heating.

The science behind the rapid transmission of information impacts me most as if servers did not have the capability to process such massive volumes of data in short time periods the whole system of exchange of information would be heavily restricted.

would need to install word processing software on my computer, email myself a copy of the work from school or save it to a USB drive and then email it back to the teacher. All the hassle has been removed as within a couple of clicks I have access to word processing capabilities that can be saved to a remote location. My school’s entire repository of academic documents, worksheets and handouts no longer needs to get crumpled, lost or drenched in herbal tea stains. Now at my fingertips I can access any document I want, anywhere in the world.

In effect, what once would be processed on my computer at home is now being outsourced to computers all around the world. The same goes for storage. Whether it is for personal use or for academia, online storage services such as Outlook and Google, which offer hundreds of gigabytes of storage for free, have given me more freedom to access and create content as the constraints of space or the specifications of a particular device are not limiting factors. This has resulted in us being able to create, share and store much more data than ever before. It could be argued that cloud computing has democratised access to information.

Moreover, interactions with my teacher have completely changed due to the way feedback is given. Teachers can share notes and resources instantly. I can upload my homework to the cloud and they can in real time send me comments even if I am away from the classroom. Not only has it made me more productive as documents no longer get lost but also the cumulative benefit of not having to carry heavy textbooks daily has reduced the physical burden of going to school. As homework cannot get lost and the reminders buzz on my phone thanks to push notifications from the app, the likelihood of me not completing a homework on time has diminished. I can connect and work with my peers much more efficiently as we can collaborate on shared documents at the same time. No longer is my laptop a device but an access point to a digital desk.

An example of cloud technology affecting my life is the Office 360 suite that comes with our school’s VLE. Gone are the days when I

TOUCHSCREENS Gulliver W, Year 12 writes...

As humanity immerses itself in the 21st century we grow ever more dependent on the technology around us, with the vast majority of society having limited or no knowledge of the tools that shape our day to day life. I personally am extremely reliant on touch screen devices from my smart phone to the tube card top up machine and I felt it was necessary to try to gauge how these devices work, however have found some concepts quite mind boggling.

applied on to the plastic the ITOs meet creating electrical contact and carrying a current to a specific grid of the screen coded through an x and y coordinate. This coordinate is then transferred into a digital signal which is then sent to a processor to interpret and act on the command. Commonly I buy my movie tickets at the cinema without even thinking about the intricacies behind it. The machine conceals the true beauty within to somehow appear externally dull and simple.

One common type of touchscreen is a resistive touchscreen used in the first iPhone in 2007 and which still shapes some basic touchscreen technology to this day. A resistive touchscreen consists of two layers a flexible plastic with the side facing the screen coated with a transparent electrode layer probably ITO (indium tin oxide), and glass with the side facing the plastic coated with a similar layer with spacing dots between. (The most common see-through electrically conductive coating is ITO particularly useful for its optical transparency, conductivity and ease to be manipulated into a film shape).

There is a layer between the plastic and glass only to be connected via the spacing dots and the edge of a device. This means that when pressure is applied on a section only a small grid portion moves down not a large region allowing for more precise and also traceable commands. As pressure is applied on to the plastic the

However technology has become ever more complex since 2007 and yet has become such a simple routine part of the day. More modern touchscreens used in devices such as the latest smart phones often use capacitive touchscreens. These devices seem to make our lives ever less complicated and churn up solutions to a variety of problems at least for me. These screens have a transparent electrode layer in the form of a conductive material. But as technology advances so does material science and a new emerging contender is graphene, a new carbon allotrope, consistent with a honeycomb lattice which is only one carbon atom thick.

The thin shape is perfect for the electrode layer as it has a high tensile and compressive strength in addition is optically transparent necessary for a screen. Discovered in 2004 via the removal of a layer of graphite , graphene is becoming more and more

integrated into our life and touchscreen technology.

Electrodes in all corners of the screen detect the increase or decrease of current in the screen from the ITO or possibly graphene layer able to accurately pinpoint the region. This is transferred into a binary signal coding for a coordinate on the screen which is sent as a digital signal to the device’s processor.

Something that has innovated touch screen devices recently is projected capacitive touch screen in which multiple touches can be received and interpreted. The difference between a normal capacitive touch screen and projected capacitive screen is a three dimensional aspect. Created via multiple sheets of glass with electrode films. Individual multiple inputs of current can be analysed because instead of a x-y plain three dimensional depth is introduced allowing for an accurate input without scrambling the coded coordinates.

Having looked at touch screen technology I can only see a future of infinite potential.

New designs such as surface acoustic wave touchscreens will only make touchscreens more relevant to our daily lives. It is important to remember as we become more dependent on this technology and strive to improve it we take into account our world’s finite resources. It would be exciting to see development go hand in with good environmental credentials.

SINGLE USE PLASTICS Tom Z, Year 12 writes...

Most people don’t realise the significance and influence that the invention of plastic has had on one’s life. Over the span of 60 years, the use of plastic has soared and the benefits of it are plentiful: it’s light, strong, affordable, has a wide range of applications in the medical field and in food storage.

One of the fractions separated during the distillation of crude oil is naphtha, which is primarily used to produce plastics.

Monomers can be chemically joined together in two ways: addition polymerization or condensation polymerization.

Addition polymerization has three basic steps: initiation, propagation, and termination.

In this type of polymerization, the monomers join by adding on to the end of the last “mer” in the chain, just like making a chain of paper clips. Polyethene, polystyrene, and acrylic are examples of plastics formed by addition polymerization. These polymers are often thermoplastic in nature: they can be heated and made soft and then hardened when cooled. They are easily processed, reprocessed, or recycled.

During condensation polymerization, a small molecule is eliminated as the monomers join. Nylons, some polyesters, and urethanes are examples of condensation polymers. These polymers can be thermoplastic or thermosetting. Although all plastics are in a liquid state at some point in processing and are solid in the finished state, once a

thermoset polymer is formed, it cannot be melted and reformed.

The most common plastic that I encounter regularly is single-use plastic. Single-use plastic is, simply put, disposable plastic which is used for plastic packaging and much more and is intended for one use and then thrown away or recycled. Some of the biggest are plastic bottles and bags but I prefer to look at the more overlooked singleuse plastics, which I frequently encounter without realising.

I often find myself grabbing a cup of coffee on my way to school in the morning which is often served in a cup which, though they are made largely of paper, are lined with plastic polyethene, which is tightly bonded to the paper making the cups impermeable and therefore suitable to contain liquids which of course is a brilliant and vital use of plastic. However, whilst plastic bottles are sometimes reused and refilled by people, these cups are almost instinctively always thrown away and it’s incredibly difficult to separate the plastic lining from the paper, making it incredibly difficult to recycle. So, most cups end up in a landfill with other plastic pollution and instead leak toxins into the environment.

Staying with caffeine, tea bags, despite seemingly being made from paper, have a very thin layer of plastic called polypropylene and are heat sealed using polyethene in order to ensure that the tea leaves don't all leak through into the tea and

so this has become incredibly useful in the development of heat sealing. Heat sealing can join dissimilar materials, like paper and plastic, one of which has a thermoplastic layer.

I frequently drink from a can as well whether it be a soft drink or other and almost all of these, despite seemingly being made only from aluminium, are lined with a plastic resin, usually epoxy, to stop the drink contained within corroding the aluminium. The use of plastic for the lining is also true for metal bottle caps, which come lined with foamed polyethene or plastisol.

No matter how many advantages and uses we have for singleuse plastic and plastic overall, the danger it poses to our environment can't be overlooked.

According to Marine Insight an estimated 12.7 million tonnes of plastic end up in our oceans every year and the effects are clear. Big pieces of plastic are choking, and entangling turtles and seabirds and tiny pieces are clogging the stomachs of those that mistake it for food, from tiny zooplankton to whales. To many, this seems like a foreign concept that has no impact on your day to day life, however, the ingestion of plastic by fish and other marine creatures can affect us as the consumers as the harmful substances of the plastic can be ingested by us too and the toxins in plastics have the potential to cause or promote several health issues including cancers and immune system problems.

START YOUR ENGINES FOR THE GRAND TOUR! Tommaso S, Year 10 writes...

Picture this: you returned home from school, you are tired and need something that can add a spark to your Friday!

Interested in motorsports?

Anxious to see races from across the corners of the globe?

Then, my friends, the Grand Tour is THE show for you.

Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May star in an all-new Amazon show where they rampage across countries around the world, in amazing cars with the occasional bizarre escapade from the “Big Boss” (Season 1, Episode 4: Enviro-mental). As

the trio of Englishmen argue and expand explore their love of cars, from old Italian classics to new hybrid hyper cars, the audience enjoys different views from May (the visionary), Clarkson (the ape) and Hammond… the joker!

As cars are tested on the “Eboladrome”, celebrities interviewed on “Celebrity Brain-Crash” and a sapling of chat is planted on the concrete roads of Conversation Street, whether on the live set or at home in your couch, you will laugh your head off with these guys. In short small words, this is a must-see for all ages.

I’ve personally watched all 2 seasons and I watched 2

episodes every weekend. Now with an all-new Season 3, the three hosts are back, bringing adventure and idiocy to the show, travelling the world to drive everything (and I mean “everything”) But seriously, these guys will drive you bonkers!

INTERESTED? HERE’S A LINK TO THE AMAZON TRAILER FOR SEASON 3: https://www.amazon. co.uk/gp/video/detail/ B07KQNHZ73/ref=atv_dp_ pb_core?autoplay=1&t=0

SPORTS NEWS

Football 1st XI WSS vs Radnor House Twickenham 3-0

http://www.wetherbysenior.co.uk