LENScience students excel at science fair

Media release

26 September 2011

LENScience students excel at science fair

Students from the Liggins Institute based LENScience Student-Scientist Mentor programme dominated the prize list at the NIWA Auckland Science and Technology Fair prize giving held at Kings School on 21st September.

Programme students picked up 12 of the 44 prizes on offer including first (Alvina Pau'uvale, Year 13 Tamaki College) and third (Shreya Handa, Year 13 Mt Roskill Grammar School) places in the senior science section. Alvina also won the NIWA Premier Gold Award for best overall exhibit in the fair while the team of Alfred Hazelman and Douglas Tata (Year 10 Onehunga High School) was named Runner-up.

LENScience Director Jacquie Bay describes the results as outstanding. “They are in no small part due to the excellent work that Senior Biology Educator Helen Mora is doing in running the mentor programme” she says. “The success further demonstrates the strong collaboration that the programme establishes between schools and the University, and between student and mentor. Students’ families also play a vital part, supporting the time commitment and encouraging excellence.”

News of the awards is very satisfying for Ms Mora who has worked with the senior students over the last four years. She is impressed with their growing maturity and communication skills. “They are asking important questions about issues that affect our health and environment - and investigating them using good science and complex technologies. Both have taken responsibility for driving their projects and managing communication with their mentors,” she adds.

Alvina, who as a Year 10 student in 2008 won a NIWA Gold award, received this year’s string of awards, including a University of Auckland fees scholarship, for Kauri Killer on the Loose? – study of human vectors and PTA hygiene treatments, a project which reflects the passion she has developed for environmental science. In this she investigated the effectiveness of measures that have been instituted to contain the spread of a soil-borne pathogen implicated in the recent decline in Kauri trees in the Auckland-Northland region. Throughout, she has had support and mentoring from Nick Waipara of the Auckland Council and Stanley Bellgard at Landcare Research.

Dr Bellgard has commended the respectful, professional and mature manner Alvina demonstrated in working with Landcare staff, noting her diligence and focus whenever she was in the lab.

“We would welcome her continued involvement in this project as she completes high school and transitions into her university studies” he says.

Also from the 2008 Year 10 cohort, Shreya Handa took home a University of Auckland fees scholarship and a DairyNZ Silver Award for Excellence in Biological Science in addition to her third place in the senior science category Her project Cosmetic Controversies investigated whether parabens, a group of chemicals that are widely used in cosmetics, shampoos and deodorants, increased the growth of melanoma cells in culture. Shreya’s interest in cancer research has been sparked by her mentor over the last 4 years, Liggins Institute senior research fellow Dr Jo Perry. “Given continued support, which I know she will get from Dr Perry, Shreya may well go on to do post graduate work with the Institute’s cancer research group,” observes Ms Bay.

The LENScience student-scientist mentor programmes are designed to provide opportunities for students who are showing a strong interest in science or have been recognised by their schools as having potential for success in science. Ms Mora says they provide a learning framework and links to mentors and organisations which the students can use to develop their own research in topics that are relevant to them. 90% of places on the programme go to Māori and Pacific students in recognition of the commitment of schools and the University to supporting Māori and Pacific students into science careers. The programme was established in 2007 through funding from the National Research Centre for Growth and Development (NRCGD), a Centre of Research Excellence hosted by The University f Auckland. It is now supported by a combination of funding from Te Puni Kōkiri and the NRCGD.

“The extraordinary value of the LENScience programme in mentoring and creating opportunities for students at lower decile schools sees them perform at the very highest level in science competition,” observes Director of the Liggins Institute Professor Wayne Cutfield.

Ms Mora is full of praise for this year’s students most of whom have received awards or commendations for their exhibits. She says, “Alvina’s premier award is well deserved, she is a stunning young woman destined for major achievement – watch this space!”

ENDS

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