29-05-2025
Outreach initiative marking 10th visit
Tūhura Otago Museum may have become a victim of its own success.
An initiative that started as a one-off science outreach visit to a school in Niue back in 2018 has grown into an international engagement programme spanning the Pacific.
Since that first trip to Niue, the museum has put on science showcases in Rarotonga, Aitutaki, Mangaia, Tonga, Fiji and Samoa.
The problem was, the year after it started, there was a 30% increase in the number of students wanting to study science at NCEA level, and the jump in numbers had swamped the small number of science teachers in the Pacific Islands, museum outreach programme leader Dr Craig Grant said.
"There have been some challenges resulting from the success of previous visits, that the team is now trying to address.
"We ended up partnering with experts from the University of Otago to run a number of Zoom science sessions, to help with the influx."
The partnership was about to go one step further, the University of Otago's biochemistry department donating a range of surplus science lab equipment to schools across the islands, he said.
Biochemistry department head Prof Peter Dearden said it was great to see the expos igniting such an interest in science.
"But to sustain that, the students need gear to practice science themselves.
"We're delighted to be able to help by providing some of our surplus equipment.
"Items that are no longer of use to us because of changes in lab tech will still be very useful in Niue — simple things like test tubes aren't that easy to access when you're an island over 3000km away."
Dr Grant is about to lead the museum team in another Science Expo in Niue, at Niue High School on June 10-14.
He said it would mark the 10th Pacific science engagement tour since that first Niue visit.
"It's just snowballed," he said.
"Our very first effort was to share the Far from Frozen climate change showcase with Niue High School.
"It was really timely and the response we got was fantastic.
"One of the community leaders commented they were reliant on social media for their information about climate change, so did not know what to believe or not.
"That's a terrible predicament to be in. So, we've made every effort since to keep engaged and share more and more science."
Key to the expo's successes had been presenting science in an accessible and hands-on fashion.
They were designed to be highly mobile and centred around an important topic or area of science, he said.
"Students love the hands-on interactives and demonstrations.
"They learn far more by the process of trying and doing, rather than being talked at."
The upcoming Niue Expo was titled Tūhura Tuarangi Space Science Showcase, and would feature a piece of space junk from Russian spacecraft Kosmos-482, he said.
The probe was launched in 1972, on a mission to land on Venus, but it failed to escape low Earth orbit.
It recently made news headlines after it crashed back on Earth.
A trail of titanium-based bits of the craft were scattered across Canterbury and North Otago.
"It'll be awesome to show the kids a real piece of space junk, alongside some actual meteorites, and get them to reflect on the fact that what they see in the sky at night is not all of nature's making."
