In recent years, the Boys’ School has held a Science Symposium, inviting experts from a cross section of New Zealand’s scientific community to share their knowledge with a large gathering of students, staff and parents at an evening function. As with all things in 2020, the impact of the Covid-19 lockdown had repercussions on how this year’s event would be organised.

The timing of the Symposium has always gone hand in hand with the annual Science Fair, although this too, had a slightly different twist this year. For generations, students have presented their science investigations on a presentation board for judging at school, before those selected move on to the inter-school NIWA Science Fair. This year, all schools were encouraged to prepare digital Science Fair presentations, in the event that lockdown may continue and would need to be judged online.

There are over 200 boys in Years 7&8 at the Boys’ School who have been working in pairs or independently on a project of their own scientific interest that required following a line of investigation and drawing their own conclusions.  Often the hardest part is coming up with a topic but once confirmed, the boys followed a rigorous line of investigation stating their aim, identifying the variables to be tested and making their hypothesis - a prediction of what the possible outcome could be and why.  The boys needed to identify their method of testing, gather their data, analyse and interpret their results and then draw their conclusion – noting whether this supported or disproved their hypothesis before evaluating their procedure.

From across the two year levels, 30 projects were selected for this morning’s Science Symposium. Whilst we weren’t in a position to invite in experts, we had plenty of our own to draw on! The weeks of preparation and investigation meant these boys had become experts in their own field and were keen to share what they had learnt. Parents were invited in and the boys shared their project four times each, across two sessions, with rotating groups of students. With each presentation, the boys became increasingly confident in their delivery.

The boys were also being judged and from the 30 projects shared, fifteen will be selected to be submitted to the NIWA Science Fair – but with the passage of time, and New Zealand still in the relative safety of Alert Level 1, the Fair will now go ahead in its traditional format - so the boys selected will be transferring their investigations and presenting them on a board! Good luck, we look forward to hearing the results!

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