Each pupil, with the aid of a subject expert from the teaching staff, selects a research area and, over the summer holiday at the end of Year 12, writes an undergraduate-type essay of about 2,000 words. On occasion, extended essays are submitted as part of a university application. Some abstracts from subjects across the range are reproduced here.
Cheks, Yr 13 Is Jurassic Park a complete fantasy? Spielberg’s Jurassic Park captured the imagination of both audience and critics. The events of the film concern the attempt to clone and resurrect extinct animals in order to create a theme park. The theory behind the formation of a ‘Jurassic Park’ and the revival of extinct species has its roots in a developing area of science called resurrection biology. But despite its scientific underpinning, how legitimate is the science behind the film? And will we ever be able to bring back the dinosaurs? Saatwik, Yr 13 Is the implementation of a decentralised, Blockchain-based currency as a globally adopted means of exchange viable and beneficial? The rapid rise in the price of cryptocurrencies has been the recipient of much hyperbolic media attention. However, they are scarcely used for their intended purpose: a digital medium of exchange. Some economists believe that this is because of a few intrinsic flaws, such as price volatility and high transaction costs. On the other hand, computer scientists tend to believe that these are minor hurdles. Through the combination of analysis on the original Blockchain technology and innovative new cryptocurrencies, this project attempts to decide if there is a future for cryptocurrencies as genuine currencies. Furthermore, this essay describes how they could transform the global economy by creating global privately supplied currencies.
Jacob, Yr 13 Geopolitical blame game: colonialism and environmental degradation What are the effects of colonialism - and its modern successors - on the global distribution and perception of environmental damage? Discussed are the lasting effect of imperialism, the modern equivalent of colonialism in the form of TNCs’ influence, and the political confusion that has led public opinion to blame the developing world for the decreasing health of the planet. Harry, Yr 13 John Bull, the Hermit and Dirty Dick: Crime and criminal justice in Georgian Dulwich This essay situates some conclusions, drawn from hitherto unstudied archival material, about crime in Georgian Dulwich in relation to the existing literature on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English society and politics. This material includes documents from the Dulwich College Archive, the London Lives database and the British Newspaper Archive, as well as seven contemporary accounts of the murder of the Hermit of Dulwich. It can be shown that by 1709 Dulwich’s self-contained criminal justice system had collapsed due to rapid urbanisation, and that it would take over a century for modernisation to occur. It can also be demonstrated that the Victorian mass media accounts of crime in Georgian Dulwich on which most modern accounts are based are at once sanitised and heavily romanticised, to the point of uselessness.
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