Targeted support for science teachers - Annual Report 2025

20 June, 2026

One of our medium-term goals is to offer targeted support for science teachers. After consultation in 2024, we have chosen two key ways to support teachers in 2024/2025: (i) increased attendance at teacher conferences, including presentations and workshops, and (ii) the creation of a set of short videos that cover a diverse range of careers to highlight roles that benefit from physical sciences training.

One of the strongest advantages of being a long-lived Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE) is the extensive network of alumni that we have built and continue to support and keep in touch with. Drawing from our networks, we are creating videos profiling people who are alumni from our partner institutions who have graduated with a Bachelors or Masters degree in chemistry or physics and what their current job entails.

Following on from our support for the ChemEd BioLive teachers conference in 2024, in July we engaged with the SciCon teachers conference in Ōtepoti Dunedin - the biennial secondary science teachers' conference. We staffed an exhibition booth where we presented draft career videos and provided other resources (e.g. buckyballs and photochromic bead explainers).

As part of the SciCon teachers conference, our UoO-based researchers opened their labs for SciCon. The group of 24 teachers on the fully subscribed tour said they were "blown away" with everything they saw and heard and said they couldn't wait to pass on all they learnt to their students.

At the request of secondary school science teachers, we attended the Clutha District Careers Expo in Balclutha to showcase diverse pathways with science degrees to students from schools throughout the Clutha region, including from Tapanui, Lawrence and the Catlins. We really enjoyed the chance to interact with both students and teachers from the district and look forward to the connections that have arisen from this event. We also participated in the Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland (UoA) Teacher's Day in November, sharing safe and cheap nanochemistry experiments suitable for high school students.

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