Last Friday (24.11), DP1 students organized a day, focused on presenting their science projects.

The Group 4 Project, currently renamed for the Collaborative Science Project (CSP) is a collaborative activity where students from different group four subjects work together on a scientific or technological topic.

The Group 4 subjects involve biology chemistry physics and computer science. The main purpose of the group for project is for the sciences to work together to create an interdisciplinary project.

Preparation

In the beginning, the students had to divide into groups. Each group had to include at least one person from each of the sciences included in Group 4 subjects. After dividing into groups every student had the opportunity to submit an idea for the general topic of this year’s G4P.

After all of the ideas were submitted everyone voted for one main topic and the topic that won this year was ‘Drugs’. Each of the groups had to now name a subtopic that their project will focus on. The subtopics this year were: “Drug tests”, “Drugs in Sport”, “Smuggling”, “Pain Killers”, “Plant-based Drugs”, “Steroids”, “Caffeine- the most popular drug”, “Pregnancy Prevention” and “Natural drugs”.

After submitting the subtopics, each group was supposed to create a poster, representing the main idea that they will be focusing on. The posters were later hung on the corridor and posted online for teachers, parents, and other students to vote for their favourite.

All the groups worked extremely hard, while discussing their experiments and projects with science teachers and constantly making changes to improve the results.

Presentation Day

The day began with a speech from two experts from ‘ADAMED’ that explained the process of creating a new drug. Both DP1 and MYP5 students listened and asked questions, expanding their knowledge on the topic.

When the speech ended, everyone went back to the classrooms and the presentations started. MYP students were divided into smaller groups, and along with experts that were grading the projects, they walked around each room and listened to the presentations. Each group showed their topic in terms of each of the four sciences.

One group, “Steroids”, discussed the usage of Steroids, with the emphasis on sport. The explained how exactly steroids work and how they can both positively and negatively impact the human body.

Another group, “Drug tests”, explained how drug tests might not always be reliable, and how easy it is for them to be wrong and incorrectly detect a drug.

The group “Plant based drugs”, focused on drugs that come from plants, and their antibacterial properties.

Next the “Pain Killers” group talked about the possible negative impacts of overdosing pain medications.

These are not all the groups, to feel the experience, you would simply have to be there.

The day finished with a speech from the school’s graduate, that explained why G4P and similar projects are important for our future. The speech was followed by announcing the winners for the best poster and best presentation.

Antonina Rost (DP1)