All Systems Go

The GATE Science club meets in Braemar after school every Thursday. So far the participants have launched air rockets across the Bird Bath Lawn, extracted DNA from fruit and made camera obscura from potato chip cans. 

Last week the girls had the privilege of listening to Professor Dearden talk about the 'Life Cycle and Genetics of Honey Bees'. The talk kept the girls spellbound for over 45 minutes before giving them the opportunity to ask all of the questions that they had about bees. 

Beekeeping is starting to become a popular activity at Columba, with a group of students visiting the Rent-a-Hive premises in Mosgiel, to learn more about how to look after Columba College's 60,000 bees. The aim of the beekeeping group is to learn more about apiculture so that we can look after the hive independently and hopefully harvest the very first crop of Columba honey. 

Huge thanks go to Mr Sparrow and Ms Hayden for their continued help with the GATE Science activities and to Professor Dearden for a witty and informative talk.

Year 12 students have the opportunity to take part in the Healthy Harbour Watchers programme which is organised by Dr Vickers and coordinated by Mr Duckett. It is always pleasing that Columba College continues to have Year 12 students who are willing to dedicate some of their free time to contribute to a long running citizen science project. So far this year there have been two collection days where the students have collected samples from the MacAndrew Bay sites before returning to the Mellor Laboratories to perform the bacteriological and chemical analysis of the water.

If you have any ideas for GATE Science activities or you would like to contribute towards the activities on offer, please contact the Science Department via your daughter's Science teacher or email me at bduckett@columbacollege.school.nz .