Scoop has an Ethical Paywall
Work smarter with a Pro licence Learn More

Education Policy | Post Primary | Preschool | Primary | Tertiary | Search

 

New Zealand Schools Climate Change Competition

New Zealand Schools Climate Change Competition

NIWA, BP, The Royal Society of New Zealand, Geological and Nuclear Sciences and Futures Thinking Aotearoa are excited to announce the launch of a competition that will enhance the understanding of young people about the critical issue of climate change.

Climate change, and our response to it, is an issue of global importance, affecting food production, water resources, ecosystems, energy demand, insurance costs and much else.

Climateprediction.net is the largest experiment in the world to try and produce a forecast of the climate in the 21st century. There is a broad scientific consensus that the Earth will continue to warm over the coming century. Climateprediction.net will help Climate Scientists work out what is most likely to happen. The experiment uses ‘pc power’ i.e. the power of thousands of computers worldwide in order to gather the required information. The climateprediction.net experiment is based at Oxford University and is co-ordinated by New Zealand Climate Scientist Dr. Dave Frame.

This competition will provide an opportunity for students to take part in a ‘real’, global scientific experiment.

Competition Details

For full details of the competition, visit the NIWA website, www.niwa.co.nz/edu/students/ and follow the link to ‘New Zealand Schools Climate Change Competition’.

Who can enter the competition?

The competition is open to students in Years 9 – 13.
Students may enter the competition individually or in groups of up to three students.

Advertisement - scroll to continue reading

Are you getting our free newsletter?

Subscribe to Scoop’s 'The Catch Up' our free weekly newsletter sent to your inbox every Monday with stories from across our network.

What do students have to do?

Students will need to download and run the climateprediction.net computer modelling experiment on a home or school computer. Once the experiment has been completed, students will be asked to produce a PowerPoint presentation covering details of their climate forecast for the period 2050 – 2065 for a chosen location in New Zealand. Students will be asked to consider implications of this forecast, for example what the general public and local councils should be doing now to prepare for their particular climate change scenario.

What are the prizes?

For the students:
For the best presentations in the Year 9 – 10 category:
- 1st Prize: $300 - 2 x highly commended prizes: $100
For the best presentations in the Year 11 – 13 category:
- 1st Prize: $500 - 2nd Prize: $250 - 2 x highly commended prizes of $100

For the schools:
- For each category, a digital camera worth $500 will go to the school whose students have produced the winning presentation.
We are looking into the possibility of bringing students in the winning groups to Wellington to meet with Climate Scientists and tour research facilities, in December.

Further information:

Visit the website www.niwa.co.nz/edu/students/ and follow the link to ‘New Zealand Schools Climate Change Competition’ for full details.
The deadline for submission of PowerPoint presentations is Friday November 4th. However, it is advisable to download the experiment as soon as possible as it will take up to 4 months to run, depending on the speed of the computer used. Also note: it is essential to download the ‘Schools’ version of the experiment. Visit the climateprediction.net website www.climateprediction.net and click on ‘Schools’ on the left for further details.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Advertisement - scroll to continue reading
 
 
 
Culture Headlines | Health Headlines | Education Headlines

 
 
 
 
 
 

LATEST HEADLINES

  • CULTURE
  • HEALTH
  • EDUCATION
 
 
  • Wellington
  • Christchurch
  • Auckland
 
 
 

Join Our Free Newsletter

Subscribe to Scoop’s 'The Catch Up' our free weekly newsletter sent to your inbox every Monday with stories from across our network.