Baileys Court Primary School pupils don lab coats and goggles
April 22nd, 2015
Year 5 pupils from Baileys Court Primary School have today (22nd April) commenced a 12 week project in conjunction with UWE, supported by a grant received from the Royal Society.
Whilst thinking about the depletion of the earth’s resources and challenges created for future generations they will be gaining hands on experience in generating electricity from waste products. With Bristol being the Green Capital of 2015, the project is deemed relevant and we are delighted to be a part of it to share their progress with the community.
Microbial Fuel Cells (MFC’s) – a technology employing bacteria to produce electricity – will be the main focus and in small groups MFC’ s will be constructed and inoculated from where bacteria may live.
Today pupils added various combinations of yeast, sugar, salt, hot and cold water to bottles to see if and how large they could blow up balloons. Results were recorded. There was a great buzz of excitement from the pupils, one of whom said “it’s more fun that being sat at in the classroom” and another “I just love science and experimenting” .
Over the course of the project, they will vary the type and amount of food and monitor electrical output in order to observe the correlation between power and microbial metabolism. At the end of June Pupils will have the chance to visit UWE to present their findings and also experience what university life is all about.
A grand finale is scheduled for 8th July when hopefully individual MFC’s will be joined and used to light up lights or move a windmill.
