Science Focus at Martinborough School

Science came to Martinborough recently, with the whole of the school focused on the theme of cause and effect. Sixty exhibits by Years 5 to 8 filled the hall, with the junior school’s posters around the walls. Subjects were intriguing and varied, including exploding eggs, melting ice blocks, chocolate, flammable fabrics and boat speed.

The title of Josh Nelson’s exhibit was “How can boats go faster than the wind?”, which he thought of because of the publicity around the America’s Cup boats being able to sail at double the speed of the wind.

Josh did some background research, experimented with a homemade boat on the pond at home, and created a video to show what he discovered. To make sure it was a fair test, Josh sailed exactly the same distance every time using different angles and wind speed. He found that the angle of the boat and sail to the wind are very important in making extra speed.

When he was deciding on a topic, Jack McLeod thought about a young girl in the district who was badly burned last year by her clothes catching fire from a candle. He wanted to find out how different fabrics react when set alight so that safety of children’s clothing could be improved.

In his “Flaming fabrics” experiment Jack used a range of fabrics including polyester, wool and cotton. He found that polyester was the most dangerous, especially because it melts as it burns, and wool was the safest. Jack says “I don’t know if the big companies would change anything, but it shows that they should”.

Rachel McCahon