On Wednesday 27 November we hosted our annual presentation event for the Extended Research Project strand of our university accredited Habs Diploma. The event celebrated the efforts of our current Upper Sixth students for their submissions completed at the end of the last academic year.
This year we had 23 prize winners from across our three faculties – Creative, STEM and Humanities and Social Sciences. At the ceremony we heard from our 1st prize winners of each category. To transform a 4000-word project into a 10-minute speech to share with an audience of peers, teachers and governors is no ordinary feat, but our three prize winners had the audience mesmerised.
Our Creative speaker, Elijah (SFJ2) fused ideas from across the curriculum showing a true polythematic approach. Can string instruments be made more sustainably with the development of new materials? He combined material science with the artistry of wood carving and reached the conclusion that whilst somethings can chance Rosin and its unique properties are something that are not replicated.
Our STEM speaker questioned whether silicon-based life would ever be possible. Dawei’s (SFC1) took a complex theory and broke it down in a way that the audience remained transfixed, leaving us with the love story of Silicon and Oxygen spoiling any chance of this element being a life form.
Our Humanities and Social sciences speaker took us through a chronological journey of the rising of the conservative right as a political force in the USA. Gavriella (U6 MO) helped us explore the reasoning of Phyllis Schlafly’s campaign against the women’s liberation movement and how this created a driving force, a pinnacle moment in uniting a party position which had been disparate up to that point.
It was fabulous to come together as a community to celebrate the academic curiosity of our students. Every student in the audience of the ceremony has or will complete an Extended Research Project. Being able to celebrate their attitude to scholarship was a reminder to the Upper Sixth of how far they have come and sets the bar to the Lower Sixth for what they should reach for.
To read the prize winning entries see below:
