August marked the 150 year birthday of Lord Ernest Rutherford - an extraordinary Nelsonian and New Zealander.

Last week Maire class started learning about Lord Ernest Rutherford. We have been learning about him because the 30th of August 2021 was his 150th anniversary. Lord Ernest Rutherford was a scientist who was born in Spring Grove, near Brightwater in Nelson. One of the reasons why he is famous worldwide is because he was the first person to split the atom.  We also found out that he had 11 siblings and was very, very good at maths at school.  His mum was a teacher at Foxhill School. He played rugby and also golf.  He is the only person from the South Island to win a nobel prize.  He was extremely clever at science, especially physics.

We have entered a competition set by the Royal Society of NZ. We have been designing a $100 banknote as a tribute to this Nelsonian. We had rules on what we could do. We couldn’t colour it red like the real $100 note, and we couldn’t print something out and stick it on, however, we could trace it. We also had to add at least 3 Maori kupu (words). If we win, our design could be displayed on a billboard in Wellington!  Our class is also making a short movie about Ernest Rutherford to show other classes as we couldn't find any good kid-friendly movies about him online.  Otto is going to be Lord Rutherford.  Pepa has brought some science equipment to school and we're all going to dress up in old fashioned clothes.

By Mackenzie