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Figure 1.--. |
Entry level secondary students take gebneral science coursesm introducing to the scientific method and an introduction to the major desciplines. Basic couurses in biology, chemistry, and physics are offered to the older students. There are substantial differences un the science programs at New Zealand schools, depending on the size of the school. The science program, unlike some academic areas, is significantly affected by the physical facilities. An important part of the science program is the annual science fair.
Science students describe some of their class work.
Our science teacher is Mr McKenzie and we have science three times a week. We have been doing a unit on forces. As well as learning about the different kinds of forces we have done a number of construction projects. We had to make an egg carrier which could be dropped from 5 metres and keep the egg from breaking, a landing pad that would stop an egg dropped from 5 metres breaking and something that could measure force in Newtons. We were only allowed to use materials that could be found in the classroom or around the school grounds. Some of our inventions were very weird, however most of them worked (I won’t say how many eggs we broke.) We learnt a lot and we hope you will too if you read this web page.
Year 9 class, Middleton Grange School, 1999
Almost all New Zealand science fair give considerable attention to the annual science fair. Some teachers make it an important part of their teaching program. Many students find the science fair a challenge. Some conduct very impressive assignments.
Student comments about science fairs include:
The 1997 Science Fair has been a great success for us. This was partly due to our experience from the Form 1 and 2 Prep Science Fair. This year we tried for a more advanced approach and did really well. We based our project on Electric Motors. We tested for efficiency, total power and heat loss. We found the Prep gave us a big advantage with our project by helping us with our presentation and it also gave us a fair idea of what to base our project matter on. To our surprise we won a section (the most energy efficient award) of the Science Fair. The prize consisted of $50 between us and $200 for the Science Department.
Drew Smith and Randyl Illsley, Nelson Boys' College, Form Three, 1999
