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If you are a magpie I suggest that you keep away from the
rural area of Hiwinui, near Palmerston North. Nick Williams, a Year 8
student at Hiwinui School, has recently designed a magpie trap for his
Bronze CREST award.|
I am just finishing a series of First CREST projects with year 7 children of varying ability. The quality of planning, research and project success varied with the ability and personal motivation of the children involved. Although I started off with a tighter focus this year which involved utilizing a number of very large and heavy cardboard rolls from Plypac, attempting to focus their thoughts. My original focus was to consider uses for these tubes for display and storageetc. We kicked a lot of ideas around in brainstorming sessions and the final results ended up as: |
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Bird Feeding Station Consultant: Curator of birds. Result:
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A Humane Possum Trap using a Tube Consultant: Good research using own father who is a trapper. Result:
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Humane Mousetrap
Two children have put a lot of time, thought and planning into this trap with an interesting internal mechanism. Consultant: Me, although these children required little input from me. Result: A tin can with a clear window and unique internal trip mechanism. To be tested...
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Blind Aid These two children eventually arrived with a pair of small double wheels off a pushchair and after much group discussion on disabilities, decided to insert a long handle so that a vision-impaired person could roll it along the ground so that it would ride over obstacles. Unlike, we believe, a blind white stick. Having just completed our electronics unit we entred into discussion on assisting blind people with our devices. One thought was how do blind people know when it is dark? Could it be dangerous crossing the road if you believe you were visible to traffic but in fact were not? Result: A set of small pram wheels on a flourescent painted handle with buzzer on light dependent sensor. This device buzzes when it gets dark to warn of approaching darkness. To be evaluated but, strange as it may seem, the project with possibly the most potential. The electronics can be fitted with a flashing L.E.D. instead of a buzzer, which would be activated in darkness to indicate the presence of the user or they both could be used at once. Will contact the Blind Foundation to evaluate. |
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Soap for Allergies Two children found the process challenging, despite my finding research with them, getting them books and suggesting avenues worked to complete their CREST projects. Have told them that it is not necessary to actually make the soap but a recipe of their own based on research would be enough. Result: Not hopeful of a result here, but they may come through. Change of plan! Childs book of Aquarium Figures One of the above children dropped out due to school commitments and after a long discussion with the parent of the other child, decided to persevere and extend the time limits to give her a chance of success. A lovely little book made up of removeable sea creatures in a series of clear sheets is emerging. Build your own aquarium really. Consultant: A parent who uses the technology in the film industry. Result: A super little project and a happy child. |
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Presentation Coasters Based on a school project but coming up with a logo to be impressed into acrylic plastic. Coasters to be presented to visitors to the school. Consultant: Me, with advice from an engraving company. Result: Experimenting with logos and the possibility of getting a metal stamp cut by engravers. The pupil has carved and impressed a prototype.
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Foyer Display Unit Two children designing a display unit using tubes. Consultant: Me Result: An attractive unit combining three tubes at various heights. |
Conclusion
A successful outcome for all participants although a struggle to bring some children to a fruitful conclusion. Considering the levels of ability involved, I am overall very pleased with the results. It seems to require a few weeks (one hour 15 per week) to kick initial ideas around as a group and stretch the initial list of ideas, then the selected ideas shape out alittle. The children reqire some assistance to think laterally. Once each group had an aim, half falling outside the original paramaters set for my own convenience, then it was a case of moving between them to assist, advise and encourage.
Neil Franklin
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Silver CREST at The Manurewa High School
As a decile 3 South Auckland school we are very proud of our record and tradition of achieving well in CREST. This year was no exception - in fact, it was one of the best! We had 104 students enter for CREST at the Silver level. There was no selection process as CREST is open to all at our school. A few of the top year 10 students were ready to 'go for Silver' - but most were from years 11 and 12.
Many year 9 students were introduced to CREST for the first time, with a high number of Bronze CREST certificates awarded. Those who failed to achieve Bronze in year 9 will go on to succeed at bronze level in year 10. Because CREST at the Silver level is assessed by external assessors with expertise in the topic areas, it takes a long time to get all the assessments done. We ran first assessments from April until August. By the time we got to second assessments we had lost about half our CREST students - those who lack the perseverance will often drop out before their second assessment. We are working on a strategy to reduce the drop out rate as we feel that many of these students were not far off being ready but obviously need closer monitoring and a bit of a 'push' at times. Second assessments ran from August until October. A total of 43 students were successful and achieved their Silver awards. Our planning for the future is well under way and we have identified the following aims:
* To improve the efficiency of the CREST system at our school - making it easier to administer. This will involve changing the format of our databases, working with the IT department, improving communication lines within and without our department, improving our recruitment of assessor's procedure and much more.
* To raise the profile of CREST at our school. Although CREST is well supported by the Science staff, we need to 'educate' the rest of our staff re. CREST. We want everyone 'on board'. We also aim to make CREST awards more prestigious (eg. By awarding CREST certificates at special assemblies, submitting CREST articles to the school Magazine, entering CREST achievements on reports and school references etc.)
* To utilize our CREST experience by helping other South Auckland schools get into the Programme - especially low decile schools. Our CREST students can be used as role models at schools where CREST has not 'taken off' due to student apathy or 'fear' of tackling what is perceived to be something difficult. We are liasing with teachers at such schools. We envisage video feedback of some of our more interesting topics, as well as taking some of our CREST students to talk to students at other schools about the host of Maori/Polynesian cultural topics available.
* To target Maori and Pacific Island students at our school. We need more CREST input from them, especially with the wealth of topic material available when such cultures are drawn upon eg. The physics of the poi, extraction of traditional tattoo dyes from Native trees, nutritional merits of hangi cooking etc are all topics which have been investigated by some of our students. From the large number of ideas we plan to trial it is obvious that to succeed with any programme such as CREST we must be flexible and open to new ideas, often gained by sharing with other schools. Communication lines to the students, parents, science staff, other staff, assessors, Royal Society, other schools etc must be well established and kept flowing smoothly. Starting up a CREST programme is hard work, maintaining it in a healthy state is hard work, and improving and building it up is also hard work. So whatever stage your school is at - expect hard work! But when you see the proud gleam in the eye of a student who has just emerged from an assessment appointment with a triumphant " I got it!" - it will all be worthwhile.
F Colyer
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