Science Week

This Year Shelford Girls’ Grammar celebrated national science week: Innovation: Powering Future Industries by participating in some exciting lunchtime activities. Students engineered a balloon rocket to demonstrate how a rocket engine works. The air that was trapped inside the balloon was pushed out the open end. This caused the balloon to move forward. The force of the air that escaped is the “action”; while the movement of the balloon forward is the “reaction”. This is an example of Newton’s Third Law of Motion. 

Students also had fun building and launching paper rockets – and wow did they go far! This activity is referred to as ‘Stomp rockets’ and works by placing a paper rocket on a launch tube which is connected to a plastic bottle. When the plastic bottle is stomped on air rushes through the tube and fills the body of the rocket. The air pushes against the tube propelling the rocket high up into the air. 

Jessica McKenzie 

Head of Science