Hutt STEMM Schools Challenge

Last Thursday I took four students to the Dowse Art Gallery to compete in the very first Hutt STEMM Schools Challenge.  It was a quiz for schools to compete in their knowledge about science, technology, engineering, mathematics and manufacturing.
Andrew, Toby, Sam and Max were up against nine other Year 7 and 8 teams from various schools in the Hutt Valley.

Four of the rounds consisted of a range of questions from 'How many bones are in a shark?' to 'What does H2O stand for?'  The boys did really well and it was a close race between them and one other school.  One other round involved the students using a range of skills.  They had to mix hot and cold water to as close as 37 degrees possible without using a thermometer, they had to cut a length of paper to as close to one meter without using any measuring device.  Andrew had to stop and start a blacked out stopwatch to as close to one minute - he did pretty well with a time of 59.83sec.


In the end the boys won the competition by just three points.  All the students from all of the schools looked like they enjoyed themselves and it was great to be in a room full of kids having fun with science.
The boys won a lovely cup and much to their excitement, a box of chocolates and some vouchers.

Thanks to Hutt Science for organising the quiz.