SCIENCE PRAISE

If you were thinking that today’s young people were only good for their mobile phones and computer games, you should have visited the Science and Technology Fair at the Turner Centre, Kerikeri recently.

On display there were over 150 different - and extraordinary - science experiments carried out by school children from Northland including from Kerikeri, Russell, Whangaroa, Kaitaia and Taipa.

If you wanted to know the effect of rainfall on microbial counts of coastal shellfish, whether expensive lipsticks were better than cheap ones (they aren’t), which mobile phones emit the greatest radiation, which candles produce the most light, or whether feeding dogs raw meat is better for them, then this was the place to go.

And among this mind-boggling array of tech-savviness, pupils were inventing computer programmes to alert tourist drivers if they were on the wrong side of the road, finding out which natural bait is the most effective for catching fish here, and discovering whether energy drinks or orange juice are best for recovery after exercise (it’s orange juice!).

Each experiment was carefully set out, with the working hypothesis, the methodology, variables, the tabulated results, and the conclusion – just like a proper scientific investigation.

The fair is sponsored by Top Energy and is now in its 15th year, growing in support from local schools and other sponsors all the time.

Sad to say, there was a very thin attendance of the public over the two-day period the show was on.

So next year, I urge anyone interested in our next generation, scientifically minded or not, to hurry along and sample this feast of work.

Our congratulations to all involved. Congratulations to the volunteers who are keeping up to 500 kids off the streets in Kaikohe by running The Mill gym.

Great also to see that when the call was made for donations to keep the gym open, Givealittle donees, Northland College, and the youth who use The Mill, all pitched in.

What stunned me was the huge organisation that represents Ngapuhi hasn’t assisted these volunteers – even when the call