Tauranga girls return from BIG Science Adventure

This week, a group of three Tauranga Girls College students and their teacher returned from a trip of a lifetime to the sub-Antarctic islands, thanks to their winning entry in last year’s Freemasons BIG Science Adventures DVD competition.

Freemasons BIG Science Adventures is an exciting and challenging contest run by the Royal Society of New Zealand, with major prizes for secondary school students and a supervising teacher.

The theme for 2008 was Darwin and evolution, to mark the 150th anniversary of the Wallace-Darwin paper on natural selection.

The Tauranga Girls, Brittany Smith-Frank, Holly Woulfe, and Chloe O’Shea, used different coloured M&Ms to illustrate how natural selection works; an impressively simple visual device, according to the judges. Their video investigated the evolution of New Zealand’s unique plants and animals and the effects of the arrival of humans. The judges noted the brilliant introduction and some of the best animal cinematography in the competition.

This entry won them one of the two major prizes in the competition, a trip to the sub-Antarctic islands with the Royal New Zealand Navy. The other winning team, from Nelson Boys College, won a trip to the UK, which they undertook last year.

The Tauranga girls visited Campbell, Auckland and Snares Islands, where they got a taste of life on Earth in one of the few places without human habitation. Royal Society Expedition Team Leader, Bruce Jones, said “It is a harsh and impressive environment with spectacular scenery. The trip held plenty of adventure, including changeable weather at sea and marauding sea lions ashore. It was a wonderful experience.”

Entries for this year’s Freemasons BIG Science Adventures DVD competition are now open. This year, the theme is astronomy, looking at how our view of ourselves and our world has changed in the light of astronomical discoveries. 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, and is 400 years since Galileo made a telescope which magnified objects twenty times, providing an astonishing new view of the moon and planets.

Information on the competition will be mailed to schools and teachers shortly. Also, see the competition website for entry forms and lots of exciting ideas at www.royalsociety.org.nz Entries must be received by 8 May 2009.

For further information, contact Faith.Atkins@royalsociety.org.nz Tel (04) 470 5781, Mobile 0211 778 779.