By Matt Scorer
Year Seven students at Hope Valley College recently spent an afternoon building their own trebuchets.
Students were set the challenge of building their own mini trebuchets out of lolly sticks that were capable of catapulting a marble. The exercise was designed to aid the students History studies in an applied manner whilst encompassing construction and maths elements.
Head of History Joel Thorpe said: "The exercise was a tremendous success that encouraged the students to use a whole variety of skills and produced some fantastic results. The exercise was very challenging but will hopefully have taught them some lessons about trebuchets whilst developing a variety of skills that apply across the curriculum."
The trebuchets were judged on how far they were capable of projecting a marble and encouraged students to consider levers, trajectory and angles, pivots and weights in the production of a functional trebuchet.
Mr. Thorpe continued: "The students really enjoyed the activity and will have a learnt a lot without really realising that they were doing all sorts of subjects such as physics and technology. The beauty of the afternoon was seeing the students explore all the different possibilities and experimenting with different methods and techniques."
The task was part of the College's Personal Learning and Thinking Skills (PLTS) scheme which encourages students to apply their skills to difficult scenarios. It aims to facilitate students to learn how to learn so that in future College life they have advanced learning skills when attempting to obtain qualifications.
Principal Bernie Hunter said: "This was a very successful project in our innovative Learning to Learn course. We are committed to assisting our students to acquire the appropriate skills to be independent learners in the future. This will be a key skill in the future as national labour markets will require flexibility and the willingness to acquire new knowledge and skills"
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