Kilgraston pupils visit Torness Power Station
Last week, our Lower Fifth Physics and Chemistry students embarked on an exciting and educational journey to the Torness Nuclear Power Station. This high-security site offered a unique opportunity for the girls to delve into the world of nuclear power, starting with an extensive tour that took us through the control room, the reactors, and the turbine rooms. An unexpected highlight of our visit included watching the special nuclear police force in action as they carried out their training exercises.
After exploring the intricate systems of the power station, the staff from the Visitor Centre presented the girls with a stimulating STEM challenge: to design and construct a rollercoaster for a marble using only sheets of paper and tape. The goal was to create a rollercoaster where the marble would take the longest time to complete its journey. Our students embraced this task with enthusiasm, demonstrating their creativity and problem-solving skills as they crafted some remarkable designs.
The trip was not only fun but also incredibly informative, offering a deep insight into the workings of nuclear power. The girls returned with a greater appreciation of the science behind energy production and a memorable experience of practical application in a high-stakes environment.
Mr Young, Director of Science
Sixth Form visit CERN
This September, a small group of Higher and Advanced Higher Physicists lead by Kilgraston’s Head of Physics Mrs Hewett and Head of Modern Languages, Mme Depreux set off at dawn for Edinburgh airport, bound for CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland.
CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire), is where Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web (originally for sharing data between scientists) and home to the 27km circumference Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest and highest-energy particle collider.
Friday was our big day at CERN. After an early start, we set off from the Old Town on Tram 18 to the CERN site on the border with France and Switzerland. After a brief but captivating visit to the Globe of Science and Innovation, we met Professor Makoto Ikeda (who suggested we call him Mac) and over three fascinating hours he took us on a tour of some of the main CERN sites, patiently guiding us through the history and the science of what happens at CERN and questioning the girls to make them think and work out the physics involved.
He talked about the early days of research in the 50s, when the calculations carried out by their first computer were checked by a Dutch maths genius as the scientists were sceptical about the new technology! The huge amount of data generated was (and amazingly still is) stored on magnetic tape.
As a young physicist working at MIT in the US, Mac used to carry these tapes back in his hand luggage! The girls asked lots of questions, some of them quite challenging, and Mac did his best to give each question due consideration. We learned that at CERN the majority of direct employees are engineers and computer scientists, whereas the physicists from universities across the world tend to come to CERN to work on specific projects. After our tour we tucked into a hearty lunch from the CERN cafeteria, sitting out on the terrace in the sunshine with many other scientists.
The girls made the most of the rest of our remaining free time, exploring the beautiful city of Geneva, including travelling on trams and the small boats called moettes and even swimming in the lake. The locals, wrapped in coats and hats, must have thought we were a hardy bunch!
We are already looking forward to returning to CERN.
Kilgraston goes into Space with Tayside Planetarium
Kilgraston went into Space recently courtesy of Matt Williamson, owner and presenter of the Tayside Planetarium.
This epic adventure began with a ‘Journey through Space and time,’ which saw both Lower Third and Upper Third pupils exploring our amazing Solar System. This exploration included the wonders of our beautiful ‘Blue Planet’ Earth, the rocky ‘Red Planet’ of Mars and finally to the gas planet ‘Jupiter’ with its raging storms and hurricanes and a gravity so strong it would crush you!
The pupils of Lower Four took on the ultimate question of ‘is there other life out there?’ In their search for other planets that may have been inhabited they focused on the ‘Goldilocks Zone of the Solar System– where conditions were neither too hot nor too cold!’ A prime candidate considered was a moon of Jupiter called Europa. Europa although an ice-planet is believed to have liquid water in the core beneath its icy crust – an essential for the existence of any life-form. A NASA mission planned for 2030 will send a robot to explore these possibilities.
Finally the Upper Four were educated on advancements in our knowledge and understanding of Space and possible career pathways in Space Engineering. They visited the ‘VLT’ (Very Large Telescope) located in an observatory on Mount Cerro Paranal in Chile at a height of 2,635 metres / 8,645 feet, where atmospheric pressure is lower producing much clearer images of Space.
They learnt about the professionals involved from Astronomers, Physicists, Computer Analysts, Engineers and Educators all working together to collect ground-breaking images and data. From Earth, Upper Four then went into orbit docking at the International Space Station. The Station itself is a giant feat of engineering built from individual modules and taking over a decade to construct. Here they observed experiments carried out by British astronaut Tim Peake.