Week 16 - School visits and Rock drilling

A quiet week that I filled with learning how to drill rocks and collect the powder which will be sent off for analysis, visiting Murrays Bay Intermediate and Bucklands Beach Intermediate, and organising our trip to White Island.

I have wanted to get into the Lab for a few weeks now so my host has found the perfect opportunity for me to do so. She has been part of a study regarding cold water springs in marine environments. These springs contain a methane gas which has created these carbonate rocks. These carbonate rocks are a lot harder than the rock surrounding it and therefore have not worn away as fast - See my post from Musik Point as these rock samples were taken from there.

I had to do two lab inductions, a general safety one and a chemical induction so I was allowed in the chemical lab. It was eye opening to see the health and safety side of scientific research. It is understandable how much they need to go through in order to trust students in the labs unsupervised.

I have enjoyed drilling these rocks. It amazed me how they look so similar however are so different in density. Some were really easy to drill and others we really quite tough. After each rock I was required to disinfect the Drill to ensure there was no contamination, this is the reason I needed the chemical induction.

I visited Murrays Bay Intermediate and Bucklands Beach Intermediate to see how their STLP teachers have gotten on since their return to school. I was particularly interested in how they made changes with staff who haven't been on this incredible experience and how they made changes to their school wide assessment. I was impressed with the progress both schools have made. Particularly Bucklands Beach as they had a science specialist teacher, but as they are an IB school it means that they are required to teach science integrated into the mainstream classroom. Both schools had put large emphasis onto understanding of the Science capabilities and some excellent resource sharing happened.

The week ended off with the anticipated trip to White Island. Sadly after we got there and were checked in, we were called to say that the ocean conditions were not conducive to the boat trip over the next day. So it was back to Auckland to organise another date.