More students taking up science

The flexible teaching methods have resulted in students looking at science in a whole new light.

Delaney Yaqona is at the whiteboard, explaining focal points and light waves to a Year 12 Physics class. Judging by the eager responses Yaqona receives to his questions, the Head of Science at Tereora College has captured his students’ attention.
In fact science, once considered the dominion of eggheads, nerds and Jedi Knights, is a popular subject at Tereora.
“The science interest in the college is actually very high,” says Yaqona. “All our senior science classes are very full. In fact, in the last two or three years, we’ve had to put on extra science classes, particularly in Level 2 and Level 3.”
That science is so popular in the Cook Islands flies in the face of a recent story in The (NZ) Dominion Post which found Pasifika students in New Zealand were reluctant to study science.
According to Gail Townsend, CEO of Planning, Policy and Review for the Cook Islands Ministry of Education, a new science curriculum introduced in 2005 can be credited with the renewed interest in the five disciplines of science: chemistry, biology, physics, astronomy and environment.
Townsend, who was the MoE’s science advisor before taking on her current position, said the new programme allowed teachers to use varying methods to achieve the same educational result. For instance, learning about eco-systems might involve studying the lagoon on Manihiki, whereas students in Rarotonga were free to focus on the mountains, valleys and taro swamps.
“Teachers had the opportunity, therefore, to teach science differently,” says Townsend. “And I think that’s made it more accessible. Previously, science was seen as strictly academic and, therefore, not necessarily accessible to everybody, because it wasn’t being presented in a way that made it accessible.”
The flexible teaching methods have resulted in students looking at science in a whole new light.
“There is quite a lot of interest in the environmental area – the living world around them,” says Jane Taurarii, Education’s current science advisor. “As we go along, the teachers are more confident in delivering those aspects of science. Students are actually learning a lot about all these areas.”
Townsend says research shows students decide on studying science based on such factors as peer pressure, their personal timetables, and their parents’ perception of the subject.
“People used to think you became a nurse or a doctor – that’s why you did science, wasn’t it?” she says. “If you got people to draw a scientist, they’d draw an old man with a beard and a white coat, with things blowing up around him. That was the perception of science and we’ve actually worked really hard to change that.
“People don’t realize the science that sits behind a lot of jobs: air traffic controllers, physical trainers at the gym, even at the hair salon. How hair dyes break the sulphur rings of your hair – it’s amazing chemistry.”
Taurarii says students once considered science as a Western body of knowledge which had little to do with their daily lives, either at school or at home.
“Now they can see what they do at home on a daily basis is actually part of science,” she says. “It’s a shift in perception – opening up their eyes. I think that’s what makes science more enjoyable now, rather than being scary.”
The problem, Yaqona points out, is that, once his students graduate, their involvement with science pretty much stops dead. Higher education, which involves shifting overseas, is expensive and science scholarships seem to have, for the most part, disappeared into a government black hole.
“Science scholarships are, at the moment, very limited,” Yaqona says. “I’ve taught a lot of senior science students who have been brilliant students but haven’t had the opportunity to go to university, through government scholarships, to study science.”
The nation may not yet be in a position to replace highly-paid advisors with our own, home-grown scientists, but Townsend says it’s still important for the general community as a whole to have an understanding of how science is applicable to nearly every aspect of their lives.
“Decisions are going to have to be made by the community about some big issues, including around the environment,” she says. “So we do actually need our wider community to be more scientifically-literate so they’re making informed decisions rather than, perhaps, decisions based on media hype.”

Headlines : Times 290 02 March 2009
- Lucky $1,000 winner
- Century old palm trees and the French connection
- Koutu Nui takes part in Raui meeting in Moorea
- WOM Award Dinner for Ake Hosea-Winterflood
- Island of Atiu to host Koutu Nui AGM in June 2009