Bright and early on Wednesday, College students in Kinder (Year 9) set off to London to visit The Crystal and the Emirate Aviation Experience. After arriving by train in rain drenched London, the party made their way by underground to The Crystal with time to dry off before a morning of environmental studies. Students spent time learning about the Crystal building and investigating the many ways in which it had been designed to make it more environmentally friendly. They explored the various displays, including using human-generated kinetic energy to power a car (only for 1 minute!) and working out how much households use in an average day, which is much more than anyone imagined.
On leaving The Crystal, the weather had brightened up so the everyone was able to have lunch by the docks, sitting in the sun. The next leg of the journey was over the Thames, riding in the Emirate cable cars. Despite slightly grey skies, these gave an excellent view of London and the many interesting skyscrapers, not to mention the iconic ‘Gherkin’.
It was a short walk away from the Emirates Aviation Experience. Once inside, our students focused on learning about the physics behind the A380 Airbus, and even got to see inside one of the impressive engines. As a final treat of the day, students were able to experience piloting Airbus in the flight simulator – a small taste at how difficult it is to take off and land a very large plane (and how easy it is to crash one!).
