Junior School Science Fair 2007

All the Stands

Wednesday 28th March saw Dollar Academy’s 2007 Junior Science Fair in the Assembly Hall.  Over 90 competitors from J2 laid out their individual scientific projects, which ranged from the science behind hair colouring through finding the perfect paper aeroplane (Brodie Hunter) to a debate on the consistency of a colloid (Alasdair Mackie). The hall was filled with bright lights, bubbling displays, and an atmosphere of tension as a number of prestigious judges, including many scientists and professors, circulated the stands.

The exciting variety of displays comes as a result of months of hard work from the entrants: preparation for the projects began back in November. Judges choose two winners from each class, plus an overall winner, who will receive the Alexander Prize for Science.  Particularly noteworthy projects will gain a Crest Award from the British Association of Science. 

Overall winner this year was eleven-year-old Louis Stewart whose subject came to him whilst he was reading, on the way to London, an article in Scientific American about redheads needing greater amounts of anaesthetic.  With a history of red hair in his own family, he became interested and using ice, hot water and cocktail sticks together with grids which were placed over his subjects’ arms, he investigated their sensitivity to stimuli and pain. His conclusion, reached at the end of this novel set of experiments, was that redheads were indeed more sensitive than other people. Louis wishes to become a surgeon after he leaves school.

Other class winners included Jennifer Duncan (How fresh is your bread?), Max Cumming (Music and your brain), Angus Robertson (Keeping hot chocolate hot), Jamie Seed (Are adverts true?), Christopher Lau (Wind and solar power), Melissa Preston (Deceiving eyes) and Beth Hamilton (Why red eye?).

Ruari Jardine, now in Form I, last year’s Science Fair winner, went on to compete in Crest Award events in Dundee and London, where his project came second in its class in the national competition, demonstrating the quality of the work that is presented at the Dollar’s Junior Science Fair.

Junior science teacher Mrs Virginia Currie and Mrs Pam Ferguson, the biology teacher behind the event, believe this year’s interesting and dynamic science fair to be a reflection of the real effort and involvement of these imaginative young scientists.

Click on pictures for larger images.

Report by Louis Stewart and Jack Keely

Junior School
The Support for Learning Department