National Association of Primary Science Educators National Primary Science Week These are the people who are keeping primary science in New Zealand alive and exciting. Our main initiative is National Primary Science Week, which brings interesting science into schools and homes around the country. In 2014, we partnered with Stardome, Auckland as a major supporter of Primary Science Week, with an emphasis on astronomy. Here’s a sample of some of the feedback we received about Primary Science Week:
“Our students loved doing lunchtime activities, and the teachers enjoyed the workshops.” “We had university scientists visiting the school.”
“We had great support from the local university.” “We held lunchtime activities at school - different themes, physics, biology, astronomy, chemistry…”
“Students took part in an astronomy night at our local observatory.”
Shadow stick observation Another successful part of National Primary Science Week was the ‘national investigation’. For this, we challenged students across the country to measure the shadow of a perpendicular meter stick at exactly 12pm. Then we compiled the data and generated lots of questions. Our hypothesis, that an increase in latitude will result in a longer shadow at midday, was correct.
Next year – 2015 Based on the feedback we received, we have identified some things that need to be improved for next year’s Primary Science Week. For example, we offer free services and support to schools and their teachers that are just not taken up at the level they could be. Teachers still tend to want people to come in, do the science, and then leave so they can tick science off the ‘to do’ list. Activities need to be extremely teacher-friendly and what we think are easy/simple many teachers are still finding daunting and intimidating. Other issues include a lack of support at school (meetings being run) and concern over visitors performing dangerous demonstrations at school. For Primary Science 2015 our focus will be on the YEAR of LIGHT!
Have fun with science! National coordinator – Sterling Cathman, sterling@MrScience.co.nz
Teachers Association on STEM delivery and teacher training. We held a successful but poorly attended meeting in Term 4 of 2013, where we had two invited guests speaking on the topical issue of water fluoridation in Hamilton: Dr Graham Saunders from the University of Waikato and Dr Felicity Dumble from the Waikato District Health Board. We did not have a quorum, so were not able to carry out any actions at this meeting. In Term 1 of 2014, we had a better turn out of members who enjoyed the opportunity to build and launch rockets under the tutelage of guest speaker
David Gilmour. We had discussions around key events including the NIWA Waikato Science Fair and the WSTA Science Symposium. Additionally, we discussed the proposal of hosting BIOLive 2015 and Kathy Saunders has expressed our tentative interest in running this event to BEANZ. We also had a useful session of sharing ideas and resources. NIWA Waikato Science Fair The Science Fair committee has been working hard to build upon the foundations for this annual event built by Rosalie McGeown. There has been a new category
added for the 2014 Fair: Scientific Video. The allocation of prizes has had a restructure, resulting in an increase in prize money. A ‘top school’ shield has been initiated and Kiwanis is organising the trophy for this. The 2014 themes were set as: »» Biological drawing theme: plants of the Waikato river »» Scientific wall charts theme: the effects of humans on the Waikato river »» Scientific photography theme: the natural science of the Waikato river »» Scientific video theme (Year 9–13): the effects of humans on the Waikato river.
The website has been updated and can be found at www.waikatosciencefair.org.nz/ niwa-waikato-region-scienceand-technology-fair. Science Symposium On Monday 10 November 2014, WSTA will run the second WSTA Science Symposium in conjunction with Simon Taylor of Team Solutions. The programme has been modified slightly to reflect the comments made in evaluation of the 2012 symposium. The process of organising speakers and workshops is underway. Sara Loughnane, chairperson WSTA New Zealand Science Teacher >> 77