Last Friday saw four fantastic presentations by members of the Prep School, who, supported by members of the Lower Sixth, have been working incredibly hard in the Academic Peer Mentoring programme. The students delivered their research to an attentive audience of Prep and Senior School staff. 

The first presentation by Harry M and Lucas Y examined the concept of infinity. Titled “To Infinity and Beyond”, Harry and Lucas took us through the history of infinity, why there is a connection with infinity to Felsted School, and examined both the Infinity Hotel paradox and the notion of the Infinite Mirror. In the second presentation, Florence B, Emmeline P, Aleena A, and Winter C-W explored the issue of wave particle duality, highlighting the issue of whether light is a wave or a particle, before using a laser to give us a practical demonstration of how light can be both a wave and a particle. 
 

In our third presentation Constance W, Eva R and Isobel C turned our attention to the idea of using hydrogen to fuel cars. Highlighting how hydrogen fuel cells work, and the chemical processes involved, they then moved onto examining the advantages and disadvantages of this idea, noting how energy efficient they can be, but also, rather worryingly, the possibility of quite a large explosion! In our final presentation Jack R, David D, Harrison B, and Theo T started with a Dragon’s Den pitch of a new holographic desk that they had designed and the benefits of this system. Although we were all very excited about the possibility of this new revolutionary teaching tool, it turned out that this was a way of introducing us to the concept of Behavioural Economics, explaining how a variety of factors can affect people when deciding on their purchase choices. 

These presentations were an amazing insight into the intellectual curiosity of the students and all of the hard work they have been putting in over the course of the term. A huge thanks must go to Owen W, Varvara B, Tom W, Mason W-H, Spencer T, Bowen R, and Elle F for all the help and support they have been giving as Academic Mentors. We hope to be continuing the Academic Peer Mentoring programme next term, and are excited to see what different topics and issues we can explore next.