Department of Chemistry
The Chemistry Department offers presentations that are very popular with students, given their spectacular "flash and bang" nature! For safety reasons, it's preferred that groups come to the university for these.
'In house' days for local High Schools
Students come into the chemistry teaching labs and carry out extended investigations. We normally see about 200 students per year, increasingly we are being asked for opportunities for visits by years 10, 11 and 12 students.
Students carry out the required work in one block, rather than spread out over several weeks in school. Teachers report the students achieve better results and are more focused, the visit to the University motivates the students and they engage more with their project.
Contact Dave Warren for more information: dwarren@chemistry.otago.ac.nz
School visits for primary and intermediate schools
This currently involves around 2000 students and meets a need in mentioned in recent reports.
By running long-term involvements with the schools we build relationships with the teachers and students, support the teachers in their teaching and bring 'hands-on' involvement to the students.
Our program is delivered in schools using department students, initially graduate students but it is increasingly being run with undergraduates and we now offer an outreach-based project as part of our 390 paper.
Department of Food Science
The Department of Food Science does a substantial amount of outreach in the community.
Visit the For Schools page on the Department of Food Science website.
There are also a number of food-based experiments for Chemistry up on the NZIFST website.
Department of Marine Science
The Marine Science department takes public education very seriously, and offers programmes for primary, secondary, and gifted and talented pupils. They also offer school resources targeted to every age group.