Outreach
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The NRCGD is a major funder of LENScience, which is a unique initiative established in 2006 that enables school teachers and students to access and interact with scientific research communities. LENScience offers a variety of programmes 
[200 kb] for student learning and teacher professional development, as well as initiatives focused on Māori and Pacific students.
Some of the LENScience activities take place in the Sir John Logan Campbell Classroom housed within the Liggins Institute, while others reach students throughout NZ through the LENScience Connect interactive television initiative broadcast from the Liggins Institute. The programmes have been overwhelmingly successful since their inception. In 2008, over 2,000 high school students from 55 schools (>40% of which are low-decile) participated directly in Classroom activities. A further estimated 3,000 students were reached through learning resources or school lectures. In addition, the LENScience Connect programme is broadcast to Year 13 students in over 100 schools across the country.
Professor Lord Robert Winston is one of LENScience's greatest admirers, and in 2006 delivered a schools lecture to a live audience of 1,000, with over 75 schools linking into a live webcast.
Learn more about the LENScience achievements from its 2008 Achievement Report [700 kb], or contact LENScience Director Jacquie Bay.
The NRCGD established the NRCGD–Brown Student Travel Award in 2008, in recognition of the contribution that Judge Michael Brown (a former Board member of the NRCGD) has made to young people, education, and the support of scientific research in New Zealand. Judge Brown has also played a significant role in establishing the LENScience programme.
The travel award sponsors able students from low-decile schools to attend conferences, and the inaugural recipients, Megan Gildersleve (Manurewa High School) and Anne Yu (Edgewater College), attended a science conference in Australia with costs fully covered (more details [100 kb]). They were chosen based on an essay of their vision for the place of science in New Zealand.
Together with the Liggins Institute, the NRCGD administers the Friedlander Foundation Scholarships for Biomedical Science. These scholarships, made possible with the philantropy of Mr Michael Friedlander, provide a unique opportunity for Year 13 students from low-decile schools to further develop their understanding of biomedical research at the end of their final year of secondary school. The scholarships include a 10-day intensive Biomedical Science Summer School hosted by NRCGD and Liggins (all course and accommodation fees fully paid), and contribution towards course fees for a biological science course at The University of Auckland.
The Friedlander scholars are joined by students from the Whakapiki Ake Project's Summer Exposure Programme, of which the NRCGD is a co-funder. Whakapiki Ake is a partnership programme run by The University of Auckland's Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences to encourage Māori students to pursue a career in medical or health sciences.
NRCGD project leader Professor Murray Mitchell is actively involved in the programme. He has supervised and mentored many Whakapiki Ake students over the years, most of whom have gone on to pursue medical, nursing or biomedical science University programmes.
Professor Sir Peter Gluckman and NRCGD Science Advisory Board member Professor Mark Hanson have co-authored a book based on NRCGD research and written for a lay audience. Titled Mismatch, the book explores how our present day environment is vastly different from that which our evolutionary history has equipped us for. It is argued that this mismatch has led to the rapid development of so-called lifestyle diseases such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Learn more about the book:
By Peter Gluckman and Mark Hanson Oxford University Press Published in paperback as Mismatch: The lifestyle diseases timebomb (2008) Oxford University Press |
Mismatch: Why our world no longer fits our bodies
The Liggins Institute publishes a biannual newsletter, Dialogue, which reports on the Institute's research and other activities and is directed towards a general audience. More information can be obtained from Pandora Carlyon, Communications Manager of the Liggins Institute.
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