Over the February Exeat, eighteen Sixth Form pupils took part in the annual trip to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference held in San Jose California.
AAAS President Gerald R. Fink gave the opening address and developed the theme of the conference, Innovations, Information and Imaging, focusing on transformations across all disciplines of science and technology brought about by rapid progress in organising, visualising and analysing data.
The science programme included talks on The Online Revolution: Learning without Limit; Post-Evolutionary Biology: Design of Novel Protein Structures, Functions and Assemblies; Optical Deconstruction of Fully Assembled Biological Systems and Finding Your Inner Fish.
In addition pupils selected from more than 100 themed symposia with many talks on topical themes including Neutrinos; Exoplanets; Cannabis and Medicine; Privacy and the Internet of Things; Communication of Science; Sustainability and New Agriculture.
Every pupil found something of significant interest and took full advantage of the range of talks as well as the workshops on careers in science.
After the five day conference, the group travelled around Silicon Valley, and their programme included a visit to Google, a bus tour of San Francisco, visits to Alcatraz, Berkeley University, the Giant Redwoods at Muir Woods, and views of the contrasting geology either side of the San Andreas fault.
