On Wednesday 9th December, Miss Phillips and three Year 7 students were lucky enough to be invited to attend an event at the Houses of Parliament, to promote the launch of the Space to Earth Challenge. The timing of this is due to the British astronaut Tim Peake going up to the International Space Station (ISS) for six months on Tuesday. The launch can be watched live on Tuesday 15th December at 11:02. Tim will also be doing interviews with many schools and television programmes during his time in space. The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures this year on BBC4 are entitled, 'How to Survive in Space'. Year 7 will be studying Space after Christmas, so we will be linking in many ideas from the Space to Earth Challenge project. Below is a report from George Smith, Daniel Curley and Hollie Denby about their day. It was a pleasure to spend the day in their company!
Today we had a tour around the House of Lords which had a golden throne which the Queen sits on. We also learned that the Queen is not allowed to go into the House of Commons. An interesting fact of the day was that underneath the entrance hall, named Westminster Hall, where we were standing, was where Guy Fawkes' gunpowder plot was discovered. After our tour we had a big meeting in one of the rooms off Westminster Hall. Ministers and scientists spoke about space and the Tim Peake mission. There was a boy who got to try on a space suit (none of us fancied it because we thought we would feel claustrophobic with the helmet on!). Other schools explained some things which they were already doing in their schools for the project. There was also a paralympian who spoke about how she has to train for 30 hours per week. She trains really hard and her bike with adaptions cost £10,000.
Our ambition for 'the challenge' is to do a range of sports activities, to complete a combined distance of 400km. This will be equivalent to the distance Tim Peake will be travelling from Earth to the ISS. We have ideas for a triathlon involving running, space hopper races and 'hot seat'. We will also learn about space and training to be an astronaut in Science and PE.