A team of six Provo Middle School scientists have worked for the past 8 weeks to prepare for the 2020 Fortis TCI Science Fair. Linked to our recent exploration of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, we wanted to pick an investigation that could positively impact our world.
Undertaking research in Microbiology, our Science Fair team set out to answer the question “Is boiling an effective means of making water safe to drink?”
Did you know that over two billion people do not have access to clean water? We felt this was a huge issue that deserved attention!
Middle School – Science Fair, 2020
5 March, 2020 Leave a Comment
Yr 6-8’s UN Sustainable Development Goal Assemblies
28 February, 2020 Leave a Comment
As a school, we have been learning about the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) over the last half term. These 17 goals, part of The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, are,
“an urgent call for action by all countries – developed and developing – in a global partnership. They recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.”
(Source: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs)
That sounds like something everyone should get involved in, doesn’t it? Well, our students certainly think so. [Read more…]
Catch us at the Fish Fry tonight for all your holiday gifts
19 December, 2019 Leave a Comment
Beautiful student art bags, mugs, calendars and greeting cards all ready for the Fish Fry tonight! Raising money for our field trips in Y7 & 8 this summer.
Year 8 Physics: Transfers of Energy demonstrations
4 December, 2019 Leave a Comment
So, as it turns out, it’s hard to imagine what elastic potential energy is. It’s hard to know when gravitational potential energy has given way to kinetic energy. And it’s even harder to conceptualise how these energies are transferred between objects all around us, all the time, everywhere we look! As one student put it, “physics is confusing!”
However, by conducting hands-on demonstrations of difficult concepts it is much easier to build understanding. No amount of diagrams or book-based explanations could replace the understanding that emerges from experience, experimentation and practical examples.
And so, with this in mind, Year 8 have set about conducting a range of experiments that demonstrate energy transfers. We wanted to share our experiment from this week with you.
Inspired by the wonder of a Newton’s Cradle in class, Year 8 set about observing the transfers of energy that occur in falling and colliding objects. Take a look at our video to see our amazing results and see how this helps us to observe transfers of energy in action.
Suddenly, by looking at a slow motion video of a basketball bouncing, it is quite easy to see, describe and explain the transfer of elastic potential energy into kinetic energy.
National Heritage Month: Provo Middle School head to the field to study our Islands’ heritage.
22 November, 2019 Leave a Comment
National Heritage month is always a busy one at Provo Middle School. We believe it is important to see and experience the varied remains of our Islands’ heritage in order to appreciate the past. This year, students in our Year 7 and 8 classes set out on a number of field trips linked to their learning on the Turks and Caicos Islands’ salt and cotton industries.
Year 7 first visited the national museum to understand the significance of the Salt Industry, which operated here for around 300 years.
The success and importance of this industry led to population growth on the islands, as well as creating tension between neighbouring islands who wanted to gain control of this profitable export. We learned how the Turks Islands were perfect for the production of natural salt, produced through solar evaporation, direct from our oceans.
Year 3 motivate our Fun Runners with their flags and cheers
22 November, 2019 Leave a Comment
Waving their positive affirmation flags, excitedly, Year 3’s support really encouraged our Year 6, 7 and 8 students, as they determinedly found the energy and endurance to keep going in the final laps of their Fun Run yesterday. Here’s what Year 6 wanted to pass on back to them:
Thank you for the signs, you really motivated us.
We couldn’t have made it without you.
Thank you for putting so much thought and care into the posters.
Thank you you all for the support and energy you gave us.
Year 3’s signs really encourage us when we were about to give up.
Way to go, Year 3! So great to see you being GAME ON leaders, motivating our older students!
When it was the Year 3’s Fun Run turn, they had lots of family and friends support too, as you’ll see in the photos below.
Middle School Film Festival video catches the eye of judges!
20 November, 2019 Leave a Comment
Providenciales Middle School recently enjoyed producing video entries for this past weekend’s inaugural International Film Festival High School competition.
We congratulate all students for their creative entries and powerful poetry, set to film, that they produced. We were especially proud that one of our student projects was chosen to receive an Honorable Mention in the competition, with the happy child picking up a cool $100 prize!
Our project brought the International Film Festival’s theme, Oceans and Environment, to life by giving nature a voice. Children wrote poetically from the point of view of Mother Nature, speaking about the challenges that face our planet with particular reference to human activity.
Germination Animation in Year 8!
10 October, 2019 Leave a Comment
Year 8 recently began some tricky learning about the processes of seed germination. How could we possibly tell a cotyledon from a plumule?! Or remember which is the hypocotyl and which is the epicotyl? We looked at seed diagrams at first, but they didn’t really help us to appreciate or imagine how the process of germination really works.
Time to get our hands dirty in biology!
Year 8 have spent the last week learning from a range of scientific activities to truly understand the complexity of this process. [Read more…]