COLENZO Mariner made this outdoor stove late last year. The project was part of classwork on energy use; students studied survival tactics for hostile environments like Antarctica. As well as the sausages, they cooked marshmallows on skewers. PHOTO SUPPLIED
BUBBLES the size of a person, a machine using air pressure to propel a ping pong ball high up towards the ceiling, and explosions… students from across the King Country are sure to have fun at the Science Roadshow tomorrow.
This year, Te Kūiti High School will be the area’s only hosts, with a teachers’ strike today cancelling a planned event at Kio Kio.
Te Kūiti High science head Ben Chisnall said all junior school students had been booked into the roadshow, especially year 9 and 10s. It was optional for older students.
There would also be visitors from schools around the area, from as far afield as Aria Primary.
“It will be a pretty good adventure for the students,” he said.
The roadshow has traditionally provided access to specialised equipment not available in this area, Kio Kio teacher Helen Twentyman said.
“The equipment they can bring, and the experiments they can do are just on a bigger and better scale than most schools can offer,” she said.
“Every year the exhibitions are different,” Helen said.
Her favourite experience from hosting in previous years was a large loop that creates bubbles big enough to fit a student inside, but she has also enjoyed an experiment where kids identified mystery smells.
Science Roadshow manager Esther Cullen said the show’s intention was to support students to make science part of their lives.
“Being able to get your hands on things and try them out, while having fun, is a great way for students to start a lifetime engagement with science.”
For roadshow director Ian Kennedy, it was about knowledge in the community.
“Every person needs knowledge of how scientific processes work and to have some level of scientific literacy so they can participate in the many science-related decisions that society must take. And it all starts with children,” he said.
Ian said it was especially important to come to rural and provincial areas, where there were not always the same opportunities and resources as people as in the cities.
“The look of surprise” on kids’ faces when they do the hands-on experiments is one thing that he enjoys about his work.
The kids especially enjoy making a plastic, key-ring sized object on the Science Roadshow’s injection moulder, which demonstrates the process used to make many plastic items, such as jandals, he said.
“They actually put the plastic granules in, and they get heated up, and then they [the students] can press out a mould and take away a small plastic item.”
Ian said this helped them understand an important manufacturing process.
The Science Roadshow is a mobile science discovery centre. Each year it travels the length of New Zealand in a 15m truck and trailer, bringing a range of interactive science and technology exhibits into communities.
