Pupils practise the art of science
THE University of Otago’s greatly expanded ‘‘Handson’’ programme for school pupils throughout the country is helping to break down undesirable barriers between arts and sciences.
That is the view of Spanishborn Otago Museum Discovery World coordinator Amadeo EnriquezBallestero who yesterday offered a lively science ‘‘snack’’ session for pupils, on astronomy and rocketmaking, at Dunedin’s BeverlyBegg Observatory.
‘‘Arts and sciences should be together,’’ he said yesterday.
Arts and sciences were once considered a single area of study, creativity played a big role in both, and it had been a bad mistake to consider the disciplines as ‘‘fully separate’’, he said.
The new Otago handson programme was enabling science pupils to learn more about the arts, and arts pupils to learn more about sciences, including through taking afternoon ‘‘snack’’ sessions in a wide range of fun subjects, including astronomy, he said.
Ten delighted school pupils yesterday watched and took turns to help at the observatory, including operating the observatory’s main computerguided telescope and moving the observatory dome.
After earlier operating successfully for 26 years as ‘‘Handson Science’’, the educational programme has been renamed ‘‘Handson at Otago’’, and over the past two years the intake has been expanded more than 80%.
That has resulted in this year’s 420 participating pupils including many humanities and 20 business studies pupils, as well as the traditional science cohort.
Mr EnriquezBallestero last year won the Otago Museum Science Communicator/Teacher Award, which was part of the inaugural Otago Daily Times Community Science Awards, offered in association with the New Zealand International Science Festival.