BBC Terrific Scientific!

Currently, fewer than 15% of 10-14 year olds aspire to pursue a career as a scientist and at Ferncumbe we want to guide and inspire the scientists of tomorrow. 

On Thursday, 26th January, Years 5 and 6 took part in a UK-wide study about 'Tasters'. We painted out tongues and counted the number of Fungiform Papillae (pink bumps) on our tongues. The more there are in a certain area, the more sensitive the person is to bitter tastes. We found that 15 our of 35 pupils were Supertasters! So a possible career in food tasting awaits these pupils. We were careful to work scientifically and discussed afterwards the different ways we could improve the experiment even more.

We have sent our data to the BBC Live Lessons and will be watching the Live Lesson on Tuesday 31st, where our data, along with lots more from other schools, will be going live, building the picture of Supertasters across the country.

The pupils did brilliantly and much fun was had by all!