13 Awards at NIWA Science Fair

Our Girls’ School students continued to perform well in the annual NIWA Central Auckland Science and Technology Fair, winning a total of 13 awards from 12 projects submitted this year.

Science Teacher Ms Jess Francis explained that this group of Year 8 cohort had been diligently working on their projects since Term 2. Ms Francis added, “The girls demonstrated depth of research in a topic of interest and were conscientious in applying practical solution using resources available to them to make an impact.”

Of the 13 awards, Chloe Ira and Caitlin Best achieved Joint Second Place in the Planet Earth and Beyond category. Chloe’s The Macro Problem of Mirco-Plastics’ explored if there are more microplastics on urban beaches than rural beaches and if there are microplastics in sea water, while Caitlin’s What is Safe Drinking Water? looked at the difference filters make, and which ones perform best. Chloe and Caitlin’s projects also received Special Prizes in the Silver Sponsors Awards category by NZ Coastal Society and Science Awards Trust respectively.

Amelia Paterson came in Third Place in the Food Science category for her project Can You Re-Use Coffee Grinds? which found that different grinds can be reused to produce drinkable coffee with expressos producing the best results.

Gemma Berkovits’ project Kings of Volcano – To tree or not to tree received a Special Prize Silver Sponsor Award from ESA Publications, and Jeanna Ho’s project More or Less? received a Special Prize Bronze Sponsor Award from SAANZ.

The judges who are all experts in each different categories assessed the projects based on students ability to produce investigations that demonstrated a sound process of carrying out and writing a fair test, innovativeness of idea, high level of scientific thought and understanding, accuracy in measurement and presentation.

Congratulations to all our winners!