The last fortnight has seen two absolutely fascinating Lunch ‘n Learns for our STEAM enthusiasts!

Last Thursday, we had the pleasure of welcoming Erica Rowan, from The Royal Holloway University, who spoke to us about the science behind environmental archaeology.

She discussed archaeobotany, the study of plant remains from archaeological sites, and how plants and plant materials can be preserved through carbonisation, desiccation, mineralisation or waterlogging. We learned that so much information can be gained from just one seed found in a site: from the trade to the consumption to the disposal of that plant material in ancient times. Fascinating!

She also showed us some of her findings from sewers in Herculaneum, and how her team was able to compare the diets of people in different areas I ancient Italy. They did this by looking into the abundance of nitrogen, oxygen and carbon isotopes in the sewers of the different regions. From this information, one can decide whether the people in these regions had more plant-based or meat-heavy diets. Thank you to Erica for sharing her expertise!

This week at Lunch n’ Learn, we had the fantastic Kayla and Emily from Year 9 present their experiences from their Physics trip to NASA at Easter!

Each day was a new adventure, from watching the eclipse to building and launching rockets to scuba diving in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab, NASA’s underwater training ground. The fun never stopped when Kayla’s team won first place in the coding category of an engineering competition or when Emily experimented with insulating tiles to prevent a marshmallow from freezing. They even held a graduation ceremony to receive certificates for their hard work! This was a delightful talk, and everyone asked many questions to the NASA experts.

Join us next week for another exciting Lunch n’ Learn Lecture!

Gaby da Silveira Pinheiro, STEAM Prefect and Lower Sixth Student