Science and Technology Week at San Andrea Senior School

The annual Science and Technology Week was organised by the science department of San Andrea Senior School from May 16 to 20. Besides a presentation of shortlisted projects of the Stephen Hawking Science and Technology activity, the week included an exhibition of 3-D models and some results of investigations related to the Comenius pollution project in which the school is actively involved.

This year's winners of the Stephen Hawking Science and Technology Project were Darryl Schembri and Nigel Mifsud with their project on sound and noise pollution.

In the project, Grade 11 students are asked to research a science topic of their choice at the beginning of the year and present their findings in assignments and public seminars during April and May. This year the pollution theme was integrated in the students' investigations.

In the project, students are very actively involved in the process of discovery learning that links the scientific principles involved to applications in everyday life. In this manner the Stephen Hawking activity not only helps to bring science to the students in a very practical way, but also leads them directly to the significance of technology as the application of the theory they learn during the class-room interaction.

Furthermore, students are induced to develop such skills as research, creativity, imagination, doing and making, communication, synthesis and analysis, evaluation and many others. Students learn from a very young age, that it is the learning of these science principles and their practical applications, that bring about the little changes man performs in his life in order to live better and more comfortably.

The exhibition included project work about pollution as the main theme of the Comenius activity. The school is committed to instill in the minds of all students the need to take care of our environment. Pollution as the negative influence and effect of man on his environment was the key principle imparted to all.

Pollution was investigated in as many aspects as possible and project work included work on virtue racks to investigate the level of seawater pollution, levels of pollution in rainwater gathered by students from different parts of Malta, the aspect of pollution in culture and in language, pollution by exhaust fumes of car engines, the use of foreign words in our own language when commonplace Maltese idioms and words are available, ozone levels in the air we breathe, the levels of sound pollution and its danger to hearing, the damage that pollution does to the lungs and the respiratory system, economic aspects of pollution and many others.

This is the second year running that San Andrea Senior School is involved in the Comenius Pollution Project. The other schools involved in the project come from Sweden, Denmark, Finland and England. San Andrea is the co-ordinating institution. The Comenius pollution project has helped to infuse in the students an awareness on the need to take care of their environment, both natural and cultural.

San Andrea School is also currently involved in a waste separation programme and in a very ambitious project on alternative energy to be executed jointly with Malta International Airport.