Friday

Budding scientists

By Celeste Alexander

In an article once written about the late American astronomer, Carl Sagan, it featured the now popular saying - ‘Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known’.

This can be used to perfectly sum up the efforts of local primary and sec ondary school students throughout the r egion who this month have explored a wide variety of scientific questions for the annual Marlborough Science & Technology Fair/Celebration.

Previous events have been held at the Marlborough Lines Stadium 2000 where judges would speak to students about their projects, judge them and award a selection of entries. It has been held for more than 20-years as a partnership between the Blenheim Lions, local schools and teachers, with Marlborough Lines as the lead sponsor, and further support from a number of other community sponsors.

However due to COVID-19 this year’s fair/celebration has been a virtual one; all done online.

Students from eight Marlborough schools pre-registered and sent in two-minute videos and log books to be judged by a panel of experts from within the community.

This gave students the opportu nity to be a scientist and carry out e xperiments to find out more about their world, to be a technologist, or to develop their knowledge through research, the arts or with a speech.

One of the schools taking part was Bohally Intermediate which invited the Blenheim Sun along to meet some of the students taking part in the fair.

Head of the science department, Phillip Johnson, says the school paid particular interest in the comparison between electricity sources while some students chose their own topics, including Aiden Clare and his group who combined science with their love for basketball.

“We love basketball so when we were told that underarm shooting is the most accurate form of shooting a goal we decided to test it out.

“It turns out that it was true, and it was a fun project as we got to be outside shooting hoops,” he says.

Maggie George-Harris and her science buddy Jayda Wills tackled a topic they hadn’t tried before called ‘Walking Water’. Their colourful science experiment was the perfect way to learn about capillary action and colour mixing.

Maggie and Jayda found that dif ferent types of paper towels provided d ifferent results, and that two paper towel sheets rolled into one worked the fastest in their experiment.

“It was really fun to watch,” Maggie says.

This year’s prize winners are:

Best in Fair – Olivia Cooke, Han nah Smit (Yr 12-13 MGC) in the t echnology category with their entry ‘Enhancing Effluent Waste’.

Best Intermediate Exhibit – Geor gette Herktz (Yr 7-8 Renwick School) i n the investigation category with her entry ‘As Clean as a Feather’.

Best Primary Exhibit – Maisie Cornelius, Jaye Wiapo (Yr 5-6 Sprin glands School) with their entry ‘An A pple a Day Keeps the Dentist Away’.

SciTec Fair committee mem ber, Hugh Lensen, says this year there was uncertainty around how the virtual fair would run, and the number of entries were limited but 172 were successfully uploaded and the standard, he says, was similar to previous years.

“Most students produced very good video explanations of their exhibits, though the judges were not able to ask them questions.

“For the Best in Fair prize the judges did go to a school to interview contenders, and all judging forms had to be available online and a special online scoring form was developed.

“It actually went very smoothly with Andrew Naylor, the chief judge, coordinating everything,” Hugh says.

Bohally Intermediate School teacher and head of the science department, Phillip Johnson, (centre) with some of the Years 7/8 students who entered into this year's Marlborough Science & Technology Celebration; Euta Meki, Aiden Clare, Katie Taggart, Maggie George-Harris, Tomasi Siovaeatu, Ben Pottinger, Lexi Nelson and Tylah Newton.

Ben Pottinger and Katie Taggart with their project 'Big Medium Small'. They looked at which size balls, out of a basketball, netball and tennis ball, would be easiest to shoot into a basketball hoop. They concluded that the netball was the easiest due to its size and weight.

Miniature metropolis teaches students life lessons

Witherlea School students James Parley and Seth Thompson are the mayors of their very own town! Called Skylands, this "labour of love" was started by Year 6 teachers Phoebe Quirk and PJ Muir as a way to continue the project based learning started during Lockdown.

By Frances Chin

The city of Skylands has a water park, a bird sanctuary, and a bungy jump. Neat roads lined with street lamps lead between the hospital, police station, and rugby pitches, and each house has a large garden and off street parking.

There’s even an island resort. Yes, the city of Skylands sounds like the kind of place people would spend big bucks to live in. However, it’s made of cardboard.

Skylands is a month long project by rooms eight and nine at Witherlea School – consisting of a town designed, created, and run by the students.

These Year 6 classes are taught by Phoebe Quirk and PJ Muir. The two teachers came up with the project post Lockdown. “It just got bigger and bigger.”

The project began with the classes investigating what a city looks like. After a name was decided for the town, the students had to appoint a mayor, and apply for positions in the city council. Every child in each class has a role, and gets paid for their work. From their “wages” the students save to buy property.

They can purchase items for their homes, which they make from scratch, and make mortgage payments from their wages. The students even have business cards, made by Prisma Print.

“The level of detail is so amazing,” PJ says. “It’s become a passion project.”

“It’s just been the most amazing way to learn. It’s touched every aspect of their curriculum.”

Students James Parley and Seth Thompson were elected as mayors of the residential areas, called Starview and Withersville.

They say that the experience of building and maintaining the town has taught them a lot about “real life.”

“My favourite part was the whole thing,” Seth says. “I liked the designing.

“It put you in a real life situation,” James adds. “I had to do a lot of emailing.”

Unlocking every boy’s potential

Thinking Boarding, Think Medbury. You are invited to attend the Medbury School Open Day to discover what makes a Medbury education unique. The Open Day is on Wednesday 21 October 2020 from 9.00am to 10.45am. The Headmaster will speak at 10.15am.

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