- Upper School
Grade 7 Students Compete in Nobel Prize for Biology Competition
Since August, Grade 7 students have been working on an Interdisciplinary Unit called ‘Life’ in their Science and Individuals & Societies classes. In this unit, they spent time looking at the history of the world since its origins. Students learned about Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, classification systems for plants and animals, and examined bones of horse feet to see how they evolved and changed over time.
The unit aims to encourage students to examine the evidence, weigh up the different ideas, and use the information they have discovered to come to conclusions.
In Science, students worked in pairs or small groups to create and describe an entirely new species. They were required to build a model to demonstrate how their new species had evolved and adapted to their environment, how they reproduced and maintained a healthy body and other considerations such as protecting themselves or catching prey.
The students presented their projects in a mock Nobel Prize for Biology before a team of judges. Students pulled together their ideas and decided how they would share the information with the panel. The result was a highly effective and knowledgeable series of presentations.
The judges awarded points for the new species’ feasibility, model quality, how their species fulfilled the four characteristics of a living organism (adaptation, reproduction, homeostasis, and metabolism), and finally on their level of preparedness. The results were:
Third Place Luna Waters and Luka Buroku
Second Place Ritu Rajesh and Ava Beaman
First Place Bree Sherrill and Dylan Rogers
- Newsfeed