I3 Issue 4 2022

I3 Issue 4 2022

The I 3 Inspire Inquiry @ ISB

Issue 04/2022

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Welcome to the I 3 Newsletter

We are proud to introduce Issue 4 of The I 3 ! It has been over a year since the I 3 newsletter was launched and a lot has been accomplished by our students. We have published achievements from all areas of the school in all areas of STEM. It has been great to see how the school is more and more involved in the STEM activities. We have seen new faces joining the department and some leaving to go on new adventures; this is the nature of an International School… We hope that in this issue you will be informed about everything that is happening in STEM at ISB. If you would like more information about any of the activities in this newsletter, or how you can help out in the future, then please email [email protected] and we will get back to you.

Happy Reading!

The STEM team

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Farewell :(

Transitions are always flled with hopes and dreams, but parting is such sweet sorrow. As I prepare to move back to Singapore, it is with a grateful heart I thank the ISB community for making my stay here so memorable. I was fortunate to work with a wonderful group of colleagues and got to teach great kids. I am leaving a part of me here while taking a part of ISB with me. International Education is such a small world, I hope our paths will cross again.

Best wishes, Ms. Sharavanan.

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Meet the STEM intern

Clara Winguth

Interning at the International School of Bremen in the STEM Department has been a very unique, and fulflling experience. I joined the school in January 2022 as part of a six-month internship program facilitated by my university, Northeastern University, in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. I am pursuing a Bachelors of Science in Environmental Science and found interning at ISB a ftting opportunity to learn different teaching styles and strengthen scientifc communication skills, both of which are crucial to reach my goals of a career as a professor and researcher. In my frst few months at the school, I have already had endless opportunities, including teaching experience and involvement in extracurricular activities. I spent my frst few weeks in the school observing various teaching styles throughout a mix of classes. My primary focus has been on Grade 11 IB Environmental Systems and Society (ESS), Grade 12 IB Biology, Grade 6 Science, and Grade 10 IGCSE Maths. I’ve enjoyed analysing different approaches to teaching and soon transitioned into a more active role in the classroom, helping out where needed. In ESS, I’m able to pull from my university courses and work experience to provide context for their modules and help answer any questions that arise, as well as sitting down with the

teacher for the course, Mr. Needham, and lesson planning for upcoming units. In Grade 6 science, I break down complex topics such as kinetic energy and covalent bonding to help the students complete their classwork, while in Grade 10 Maths I explain a multitude of concepts from venn diagrams to linear equations as students work through revision papers. In IB Biology, I have taught a unit on plant biology, which included creating an interactive booklet that the students flled with diagrams and supporting notes. That was my frst experience teaching in the classroom and I will continue

teaching in May with Grade 6.

4 Recently, I have increasingly focused on ESL to accommodate the Ukrainian students that have

joined our school. I have done some ESL work since the beginning of my internship to help a couple non-native English speakers strengthen their STEM vocabulary, and applied the same approach to our new students, including helping some in Grade 3 and 4, which has been a huge learning experience for me when I have to break down my knowledge of maths into the simplest terms possible.

Besides my role in the classroom, I contribute to lab technician duties in our physics and chemistry prep rooms where I organise our inventory, clean glassware, and aid in chemistry, physics, and biology experiments. Additionally, I’ve provided a supporting role in Jugend Forscht, the I 3 Interviewing process, and had a lot of fun contributing to the Great Eggscape, where I created posters and hung them around the school and garnered enthusiasm for the project. I’ve also been given the opportunity to share my global internship and university experience through instagram takeovers for my University’s College of Science and global ofce, along with an article detailing my university years that can be found here.

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“I 3 : Have you ever wondered?” - an update

Grade 11 student

“I 3 - Have you ever wondered?” is a project in which students and teachers of the ISB STEM department partake in. The group currently consists of around ten members, with the number steadily increasing. Weekly, half-hour meetings are held every Tuesday during lunch in the science department. The project focuses on the idea to provide an insight to students about STEM subjects and professions. In order to accomplish this, the team of I 3 create fve-minute-videos in which people from STEM professions are interviewed. These videos are then processed by the ISB student team to form a concise and appealing way for other students to fnd out more about STEM professions they might want to pursue in the future. The Hans-Riegel-Stiftung is a partner of the group and provides monetary support to the group. The entire process of investigating, flming and editing takes about a month, but with further experience and growth in members, the group is making solid progress both in efciency and quality. Currently, the group is concluding trials that will allow for feedback and improvement. So far, the team has interviewed one candidate and is set to carry out another interview on the 21 st of April. If you are a parent or relative that works in the STEM department and would like to volunteer to take part in the project, please feel free to contact us at [email protected]. Thank you.

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Jugend Forscht and Schüler experimentieren

Emma Schmitz

Taking part in the Jugend Forscht was an interesting experience. Becoming familiar with a topic of your choice, preparing a presentation and fnally presenting it to a set of judges. The presentation was extremely different than I had previously imagined, it felt more like selling a product or in this case your research, than presenting your fndings; you had to evaluate what makes your investigation a good one and what still needs improvement. It’s a great opportunity to present your work to an ofcial set of judges, get proper feedback and an opportunity to see how things work outside of school. It was interesting because usually you get feedback and advice from people that know what you are working on and follow along for most of the process. Getting an opinion from an entirely different perspective was extremely helpful in allowing me to see the questions and problems that arise when a complete stranger reads your work. The post-presentation discussion with the judges really helped me in realising that even the little bits of information that one might

deem unnecessary while writing, may be essential in allowing others to follow your thought process while reading. So while the participation in Jugend Forscht seemed stressful and time consuming at frst, it really was not and in the end it really helped me to better my IA and I would defnitely recommend it to future IB students.

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STEM/MINT-mouse

Primary Student/ Mrs Balog

Objective: Find out if a dog‘s mouth is cleaner than a human‘s I prepared the petri dishes, cooked the agar and poured them into the petri dishes. Our volunteer is called Frodie, the neighbour’s dog. Here is Birger and Frodie during sample time.

I store the petri dishes in the heating room because we don’t have an incubator. But I found out it was too hot and I need to redo the experiment… In this experiment I learnt: To prevent the drying out of the plates I need to store them upside down and check daily for moisture formation on the led. (The frst trial I need to disposed because it dried out); Before using the plates, mom helped me to remove any bacteria from the plates. We gently passed a fame, over the surface of the agar agar. The best temperature to pour the agar agar is about 50°C to avoid bubbles. Facts: We have more than 700 species of bacteria that live inside our mouths. Good Bacteria: help to digest food, control bad breath and protect against cavities. Bad Bacteria: cause tooth decay, plaque formation, and gum disease. References: https://www.microscopemaster.com/petri-dish-with-agar.html

https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2019/05/mouth-microbes

https://arlingtontexasdentist.net/meet-the-bacteria-that-live-in-your-mouth/ https://www.hinsdaledental.com/blog/bacteria-in-your-mouth-the-good-and-the-bad/

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DRoPs 2021/22

Lennard Köhne

The DRoPS program has been an interesting learning experience for us, since we have been able to apply our knowledge of Physics into a meaningful experiment. During the last few months we have collaboratively worked and harmonised as a group, to design and execute our desired hypothesis. Despite the difcult situation at the moment, the meetings have been online every second week. Whilst planning our DRoPS project, we faced many challenges that we were able to overcome with a good team spirit and innovative ideas. In the process of gathering materials, we asked the Hilgenberg GmbH to provide capillaries for our experiment and were glad to hear that they were on board. To print our framework, we used the school’s 3D printer (Raise3D N2 Plus), using programs such as Shapr3D and FreeCAD to create the Models.

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Junior ING

Leefke Scheibner

Junior ING is a competition for students from Years 1-12 to challenge unknown or known engineering skills. What the contestants are supposed to build is told with the start of the new competition. Each year the theme is different, and the contestants are given exact measurements of how large the model is expected to be, and a list of permitted materials is provided. When we decided to participate in the competition none of us had had much experience with engineering, however we decided to give it a shot. It turned out that one does not need to be an expert in engineering. With some research and planning we were able to draft an idea, which we followed through as well as possible. Of course, not everything went exactly to plan, which you always need to keep in mind. First of all, many things took much longer than we had initially intended them to; working with wood can be tedious, and some materials such as glues did not react the way we initially anticipated, which is why one should always plan enough time for experimenting. It is also important to start as early as possible, because the project takes up a lot of time, but is feasible if this time is spread out over a couple of weeks, at best more than three, and if possible, longer.

Altogether Junior ING is an exciting project which may uncover unknown talents, as our group came in second place Bremen State-wide without knowing much about the topic initially. The competition opens eyes to a new topic with hands-on action, not only in building, but also in planning and executing the project, but also working with friends and coordinating the procedure.

The Honeycomb slope

The Skihopp

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Kangaroo Maths

Mrs. van Mieghem

We had 111 participants taking part in the yearly Kangaroo Maths Competition. Grade 3 to 5 did the paper version of the competition, while the Grade 6 to 11 did the online version. The competition started on Thursday, the 17th of March 2022 and was concluded on Wednesday the 23th. The students scratched their heads, but persevered in their attempt to solve the problems. Now we are awaiting the results.

The Grade 4 students, working with focused attention on the problems.

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Purple Comet

Mrs. Perfect

This is a new event here at ISB. Students get to compete in teams to solve some increasingly complex problems under time pressure. The challenge works at two levels: Middle School (Grade 6 to 8) and High School (Grade 9-12). This year

we entered two teams at each level. They worked hard in this extra curricular activity and it was delightful to hear our young mathematicians discuss their mathematics in such an engaging manner. They all showed resilience and determination during the course of the event. We now await the results.

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Below are two sample problems: the top from a previous Middle School competition and the latter from the High School competition.

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Outdoor School

Mr. Needham

The Outdoor School is progressing well with several developments completed in the past few months. We now have a large tent erected on the site that can be used as an outdoor classroom by any subject. The Grade 11 Environmental Systems and Societies braved the cold weather to test the tent out for a lesson and enjoyed the change of scenery from the inside classroom.

Inside the new greenhouse seeds are starting to shoot with peas, beetroot, chard and beans all growing well. Many thanks to all of the students and staff that have donated pots and seeds to help make this possible.

A new shed has also been added inside the vegetable plots to allow us to store tools for children to use as well as for

harvesting rainwater. With water scarcity being an increasing issue around the world we are trying to limit the amount of tap water used outside. Thanks to Mr Antoniou who managed to source a 1000 litre tank to store rainwater.

14 To help classes looking for bugs, and to give a good home to our small friends, EL2 and EL3 helped to build the bug hotel from pallets and natural materials. Hopefully this will aid in making the site a diverse habitat for many animals. So far, several classes have taken the opportunity to use the new outdoors area for STEM activities including Early Learning planting beans and hunting for bugs, Grade 1 looking for plants and animals, Grade 2 for maths and perimeters, Grade 3 fnding sticks to test forces, and Grade 4 looking for human made and natural items. Most recently as part of their science lessons

some Grade 6 students went looking for animals to classify. They photographed the animals they found and then made identifcation keys for them. These activities have enriched the children’s learning, allowing them to link their classroom learning to the real world.

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The Great Eggscape

Emma Sieling On the 1st of April, the STEM department organised the ‘Eggscape’, a fun, friendly competition between grades 6 and 12. For this Easter themed activity, the student’s task was to build a contraption that could safely carry an egg down the zip-line from the Stem department into the courtyard. Everyone was free to participate and no further rules existed in regards to the egg-carriers, except that they shouldn’t use a motor or other external force. During lunch on the 1st, many creative models were put to the test and successfully managed to make the journey to the courtyard, carrying the egg safely all the way. Overall the event was a great way to build community spirit and a fun opportunity to get creative STEM minds thinking.

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SuperTmatik

Mrs. Sharavanan

It is SuperTmatik time again! Since the beginning of March, our students from Grade 5 to Grade 9 were busy practising and completing the qualifcation rounds of SuperTmatik - International Mental MathCompetition 21/22. Students competed in two rounds of qualifcation games. The frst challenge was a race against time and the second challenge was to win against a robot. We now have 45 students qualifed to participate in the Global Finale Competition to be held in May. With our excellent track records from the past two years, the expectations are really high. Watch this space for more updates on the global ranks.

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Valentine's Activities in ICT & Computing

Mrs. van Mieghem

The Grade 1 to 6 students did various activities during the week before Valentine’s day, practising their copying and pasting, formatting pictures and typing skills, but also practising to be kind to the classmates and other students by writing kind messages and words. Here you can see some of their amazing messages.

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19 Extended Essay in Physics - A student's perspective

Elisabeth Wichmann and Tim Dennog

EE at Leibniz-Institut für Werkstofforientierte Technologien (LFM)

For our Extended Essay we made the decision to choose physics as our subject and have had the great privilege to do our research for the essay at the Leibniz-Institut research facility, where we have had the opportunity to use their equipment, such as the white-light interferometer (WLI), whilst receiving guidance at every step of the way. Each of us has chosen a different area of materials engineering to focus on. Tim : I chose to investigate how the transparency of calcium fuoride is dependent on its surface roughness. This is because calcium fuoride is an optical material, of which its surface roughness depends on the way it is machined, where a smooth surface is necessary for it to be useful in applications such as spectroscopy, thermal imaging systems or telescopes. I have been supported by the LFM in processes such as brainstorming ideas, how to conduct and report the experiment, and how to use the equipment which they supply. Currently, I have completed taking 48 measurements of different calcium fuoride surfaces using the WLI. I manipulated and edited this >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24

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