This article was written by Dominic Wilson 9SDES

On the second of August, 20 year 9 students traveled to Cashmere High School to go to the Junior GATE Conference.

The conference all round was very enlightening and interesting. It was tough at times and made every single one of us think.

We started the conference with a lecture about if a snail has consciousness? It was really cool to see the way people figured out to ask that question, it did get a little confusing at times but overall, it made us think about consciousness as a whole, and if snails really are conscious.

We then worked in groups on the topic of “Is self-sacrifice ever reasonable” This topic was personally one of the hardest topics, both physically and mentally. We were given certain excerpts from press articles and we then had to come with our views and opinions on those topics.

Then we had another Lecture around “Nanotechnology” this topic was something that I think was quite new to a lot of people, this topic was really interesting to learn about how governments are funding research into Nanotechnology, and how Nano Tech is going to be intertwined into everyday life.

Finally we had a debate based on “This house believes Science has replaced God.” This was quite a full on debate, people had some really good points. In the end the house voted for the statement to fall.