The Edinburgh Academy

Biology

The new Biology labs have been designed so that there is the maximum flexibility of space, with all tables (including the teacher's table) fully movable, allowing us to carry out a variety of practical work that would have been very difficult before. We have video cameras linked up to microscopes and interactive white boards. In addition the Biology department is in the process of consulting with specialists on the construction of what will be intended as an outdoor classroom, with a wide variety of plants from diverse habitats, both native and non-native.

There is an enormous aquarium. We have used the opportunity of such a facility to ensure that a wealth of learning opportunities can be derived from it. Not only is it massive (1.5 metric tonnes of water) but it will have species of fish and invertebrates designed to form a community of animals that show a wide variety of adaptations. The aquarium incorporates both chemical and biological systems to maintain it.

Chemistry

There are three laboratories specifically dedicated to chemistry in the James Clerk Maxwell Science Centre as well as a preparation and storage room, but all nine laboratories in the new building can be used for any of the three science subjects as and when the need arises. All three chemistry laboratories are equipped with fume cupboards and interactive white boards with projection facilities. Pupils’ benches are fitted with gas, water and ample electrical points and in addition, each pupil space has individual intranet and internet access. Much laboratory equipment, including retort stands, clamps, bosses and Bunsen burners has been replaced and a considerable amount of interactive software has been purchased.

The new laboratories are light and airy and use space very efficiently to create a really first class learning and teaching environment.

Physics

Much time and effort has gone into the design of the new Physics laboratories. The labs are all fully equipped with the latest IT aids to enhance teaching and learning, to a specification designed by the Academy’s own staff. An extensive range of equipment is stored, including the state-of-the-art digital oscilloscopes and multimeters. Radioactive materials are stored safely in a special room, for use in the A-Level courses.

Science at the Academy is very much a hands-on practical experience for the pupils and the movement of equipment has been facilitated by the technician areas being linked by lifts and, across the foyer, by the Academy’s own “ Bridge of Sighs” (left.)

James Clerk Maxwell (EA 1841-7)

James Clerk Maxwell is a giant in the history of science. His most revolutionary achievement was his demonstration that light is an electromagnetic wave, and he originated the concept of electromagnetic radiation. His field equations paved the way for Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity.

"Physical Science, which up to the end of the eighteenth century had been fully occupied in forming a conception of natural phenomena as the result of [mechanical] forces acting between one body and another, has now fairly entered on the next stage of progress – that in which the energy of a material system is conceived as determined by the configuration and motion of that system, and in which the ideas of configuration, motion, and force are generalised to the utmost extent warranted by their physical definitions."

James Clerk Maxwell,
Matter & Motion (1877)

About Maxwell

"Before Maxwell people thought of physical reality - in so far as it represented events in nature - as material points, whose changes consist only in motions which are subject to total differential equations. After Maxwell they thought of physical reality as represented by continuous fields, not mechanically explicable, which are subject to partial differential equations. This change in the conception of reality is the most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since Newton."
Albert Einstein 1931

And on a lighter note ...

Maxwell wrote poems or songs, including one dedicated to The Edinburgh Academy. The best known poetic work is "Rigid Body Sings" closely based on "Comin' Through the Rye." Maxwell apparently used to sing while accompanying himself on a guitar. It opens with the memorable lines:

Gin a body meet a body
Flyin' through the air.
Gin a body hit a body,
Will it fly? And where?