Snaps from the Month
August has been a transitional month for Outreach
We continue with school bookings into Term 3, while also moving into a developmental phase for building out new programming for 2027.
We started off the month with a visit to Mairehau School to showcase our programme ‘Wavelengths: Light and Colour’. This unit delves into the dizzying nature of how we see colour, exploring how light is projected, reflected, and absorbed. This unit is very active and provides many opportunities for students to hone their 21st century skills using communication, collaboration and problem solving to explore the interesting ways that light behaves.
We started the second week of August at Rāwhiti School with the dome for a day of Solar System exploration. The following day we traveled a short distance down the road with the dome to St. Albans Primary School for another dive into planetary discovery. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the dome and scientific discovery is that every experience is unique. Each session offers a new and exciting opportunity for group discovery and growth. Many tamariki bring their prior knowledge to these sessions. We use this understanding as a foundation to facilitate group discussions that grow our collective understanding and fascination with the scientific world around us.
The following week we journeyed over to Marshland Primary School with the dome to explore what causes night and day here on earth. The Night and Day programme is great for younger primary school ages as it builds a strong understanding of the physics behind the phenomena of daytime and nighttime and serves as an introduction into space science. Later in the week we packed up and headed out to Leeston Primary School for another day of Solar System exploration.
The final week of August brought us to Tamariki School for a day of experimentation with our programme, ‘Big Reactions: Fire & Ice.’
From Delivery to Development: Building for 2027
The end of August brings a transition to the Outreach Department as we close out the booking season and enter the production phase of the year. The reception to our rollout of programming has stirred a desire to build a larger catalog of offerings, and this is the time allocated for that. This phase intentionally coincides with the rollout of the new curriculum. This allows us to develop content intentionally. Aligning it directly with the new standards. As we use these new guidelines to build a base of offerings for the new year, we are dedicated to creating a list of offerings that live up to our mission of providing hands-on, engaging STEM opportunities. It is a thrill and an honour to create and deliver engaging learning opportunities that captivate the mind and keep the spark of curiosity alive!