Discovery Awards 2012

Discovery Awards 2011

The Discovery Awards Welcome event saw 7 students from around New Zealand including Christchurch, Nelson and the Wellington region attend a 2 day introduction.

During the 2 day event they were involved with interactive science sessions with Howard Lukefahr and Elf (James) Eldridge and also met their lab supervisors for the 2 week lab experience.  This year supervisors were seeing double as identical twins Isaiah & Tre Ratahi were joined by Nadine Houia-Ashwell (also a twin!) and Hoani Hotene from the Wellington region along with schoolmates Sophie Barron and Kristie-Lee Thomas from Christchurch and Rere Pope from Nelson.

The students are currently spending 2 weeks in laboratories at Victoria University of Wellington, University of Auckland and Otago University exploring Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials .

Discovery Awards 2010

The Institute received 29 applications for 8 positions. 3 pupils were hosted at Victoria by Shaun Hendy, Paul Callaghan & Justin Hodgkiss; 2 pupils were hosted at Auckland by David Williams with 3 pupils hosted at Canterbury by Richard Blaikie & Vladimir Golovko. Pupils came from Lower Hutt, Christchurch, Hastings, Auckland, Greymouth, Nelson & Kawhia.

Over two days, 2 and 3 December 2010, pupils were hosted by Victoria University, starting with a “Meet and Greet” reception and lunch for the whole group plus their support person. Three successful Awhina members also shared their experiences of university life and working in science. Lab sessions for that afternoon and the following morning were kindly provided by Howard Lukefahr, Elf Eldridge and Michael Miller. In the evening they participated in the 100 years of Physics event; and after dinner they visited the Gifford Observatory where the pupils were able to observe the night sky.

Two weeks from 10-21 January were spent in laboratories at Auckland, Victoria and Canterbury, getting an insight into life as a researcher. Reports from the pupils reflected the positive impact of the programme and the influence it will have on the decisions they make for further education.