Thornhill students enjoy capital city

Jun 10 2009 by Sara Bain, Dumfries Standard Wednesday

DR FULTON, Mr Jack and Mrs Dalgliesh recently accompanied 20 fourth year physics students from Wallace Hall Academy on a two-day residential trip to Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh.

After an hour and a half we arrived at the university campus and checked into the student halls of residence where we would be staying.

We then went off on a tour of the campus which took in the excellent sports facilities which had a football centre that was co-built with Hearts football team.

We decided to have a friendly game of football where the teams were divided into classes and the teachers went in goals. After a long game of blood, sweat and goals Mr Jack’s team was victorious.

This was followed later by a trip down to the physics labs. Here we engaged in first year university student experiments with help from some of Heriot Watt’s best physicists. After having a meal in the halls of residence canteen we headed to Edinburgh for our ghost tour.

The tour began when we were met by the really spooky tour guide Hayley who took us down into the ancient Edinburgh vaults. Here she failed miserably to scare us until she emitted a very high frequency scream. We returned to the university and after some hot chocolate we retired to our single, en-suite rooms.

The next morning we woke up and ate a pre-paid breakfast as well as lots of coffee. We then went back to the labs and watched some really cool experiments. These included ice bubbles, liquid nitrogen ice-cream and metal cutting laser.

This was followed by a bus journey to Pizza Hut where some students ate their own body weight in pizza at the all you can eat buffet. After pizza Hut we embarked on the journey of our lives in the time machine at Dynamic Earth.

After our time travelling we entered into a Mars exploration quest with our space rover robots. We then returned safely to school after our two-day experience of university life.