Stephen Hawking project at San Andrea School

The Stephen Hawking Science and Technology Project is an annual educational initiative at San Andrea Senior School, L-Imselliet, aimed at helping students understand that the sciences are interesting, exciting and useful areas of discovery and learning that lead directly into the technological world around us.

The activity is compulsory for all Grade 11 (Form 4) students, and is held over a whole scholastic year. Students work in groups and present work in three areas of assessment: a written and researched assignment; a public viva voce presentation on the chosen topic; and the preparation and use of visual aids, audio-visual resources, three-dimentional models, experiments and all other means to show their understanding of their chosen topic.

Seminars and discussions are held as an extracurricular activity during the midday break during which students present their research to their peers.

The project will end with an exhibition during a science and technology soiree. The final shortlisted presentations are held in the presence of parents and an independent adjudicating panel. The school offers the group with the highest marks a return ticket for an educational visit abroad.

Topics previously tackled by such projects include the life of stars, satellites, horses, hatching of eggs in an incubator, the electromagnetic spectrum, the car engine, logic gates, the lungs, the heart, concrete and its uses, hydraulic braking systems, DNA, solar heaters, criminal scientific investigation, wine-making, photovoltaic cells, biomass, and wind energy.

Through this annual project the school not only tries to promote the understanding of science in everyday applications, but also to encourage all students to bravely plunge into undertaking a real science project on their own, irrespective of what they think of their capabilities.

Prof. Stephen Hawking's achiev-ements, and his admirable determination against all physical odds, to reach his goals and pursue his studies and research, are attributes that should be brought to the attention of all students.

His first publication Brief History of Time, which managed to bring science to the public in a very simple and rather attractive way, and his more recent A Briefer History of Time, are books that give a new understanding not only of life around us, but also of the whole universe.