Westonbirt School Science and DT Challenge

Anna, Amy, Reno and I went to Westonbirt School to compete with other schools in a science challenge.

Mrs Lawson, our Science teacher, took us. The drive seemed to take forever and we listened to Amy's CDs in the car. As we drove up to the school it looked like a very grand castle. When we got there we were led into the hall which was vast and looked like the inside of a cathedral! We spent a while in the hall having biscuits and drinks whilst we waited for all the other schools to arrive.

There were about 20 schools and we were separated into teams - brilliant blues, groovy greens and raving reds. Dolphin was in the groovy greens. We were told that our challenge was going to be a murder mystery. Mrs Broom had been murdered. We had four suspects and we had to do tests to find out who the murderer was.

Before we started on the tests, we made an alarm. We were told that the murderer had put an alarm in the biscuit tin. It was light activated, so when you opened the lid the alarm would go off and wouldn't stop. Anna and I worked together and Amy and Reno worked together. Amy and Reno made the alarm, but it turned out that Anna and I had a broken buzzer.

Then we had lunch - sausages and potatoes followed by cake. After that we were ready to start the tests to try to find out who the murderer is.

We were told that a little girl had seen the shadow of the murderer. From what the little girl said experts worked out the length of this shadow. We were given little models which were a tenth of the height of each of the suspects. We measured the shadows of the models and from this worked out which suspect the murderer's shadow belonged to. At this point we thought that suspect 3 was the murderer.

We then did a quiz, which was the only thing we would actually be marked on. It was really difficult and Mrs Lawson wasn't allowed to help us. Part of the quiz was to watch a video and answer some questions about it. After that it was just general science questions. One of the easiest ones was, "Name the planets in order from the Sun", one of the hardest questions for us was "Which gas is used for photosynthesis?" Mrs Lawson had told us what photosynthesis was in the car on the way there, but unfortunately we did not know the name of the gas.

After the quiz we went to another room to study finger prints and blood. As we were working we were asked school by school to go into a dark room to do one more test. We were given a tiny bit of each of the suspects' coats, so that we could test if there was blood on them from the murder of Mrs Broom. Unfortunately all of the suspects' coats had been washed, so we couldn't see the blood by looking at them. We put a special spray on each of the suspects' coats and turned off the lights. Suspect 3's coat went bright blue which showed that that coat used to have blood on it.

Next we studied our own fingerprints to work out what type we had. Then by looking at blood types we worked out that the blood on the murder weapon belonged to Mrs Broom. No surprise there, but this didn't help in finding the murderer.

After that came the most exciting part - the lab challenge! Mrs Broom had found a note that she wasn't supposed to find and that's why she was killed. The ink from the note had been extracted and so had the ink from all of the suspects' pens. We made the ink run by dipping it in a special liquid and it separated into different colours on the paper. Suspect 2 and four's pen ink were the same type of ink as the ink from the note.

We then tested dirt from the suspects' shoes for iron and limestone. Except for the coat with blood on it belonging to suspect 3, everything pointed to suspect 2. She could have borrowed suspect 3's coat to kill Mrs Broom so she didn't get the blame. We had found the murderer!

After that came an assembly and the winner of the quiz was announced. It wasn't Dolphin. A forensic scientist, who is someone who does scientific investigation work for real, came to talk to us. One of her jobs was to find factories where drugs are made using sniffer dogs and other methods. She told us how drugs are made using old dirty equipment in hidden away sheds. So even if drugs were not illegal they could be dangerous because they may not be made using clean equipment. She also showed us the tests that policemen use on people they suspect of being drunk.

We then had cake and a drink and headed back to Dolphin. Today has been an amazing day. I won't ever forget it!

Thank you very much, Mrs Lawson for taking us on such an exciting trip!

Ayesha, Year Six