The 2021 Prime Minister's Science Prizes

It's Prime Minister's Science Prize time! We meet some of the people awarded the 2021 prizes for their mahi.

The annual Prime Minister's Science Prizes recognise the best in New Zealand science research, teaching and communication.

Now the 2021 results are in. Congratulations to all the winners!

Listen to interviews with prizewinners Bianca Woyak, Carol Khor and Professor Dame Jane Harding in this week's episode of Our Changing World.

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Outdoor science for hands-on learning (Bianca Woyak, winner of the Science Teachers Prize)

Bianca Woyak is passionate about what she does - 'People call me high energy. I've got so much energy. I always give 150% into anything that inspires me and I want to do.'

Add a specialist science role, a supportive principal, large school grounds and an enthusiastic school full of students, and you've got a winning combination.

A teacher at Burnside Primary School in Ōtautahi Christchurch, Bianca has been awarded the 2021 Te Puiaki Kaiwhaaho Pūtaiao Science Teachers Prize for her success in engaging students in science through a range of environmentally focused activities.

These have included water testing in the local stream, riparian planting, beekeeping, growing trees for planting in Ōtautahi red zone areas and maintaining the school's veggie patch and fruit trees.

Bianca believes in the power of hands-on approaches and real-world learning that is student-led as much as possible.

This is how the B5 (Burnside Brings Back Boulder Butterfly) project came about. While studying the self-introduced Monarch butterfly the students started to wonder about local endemic species. Working with local experts the team decided to recreate a boulder copper butterfly habitat on school grounds and translocated some of these as yet undescribed butterflies there.

When a new generation hatched, they knew that the project had been a success, and the students are now working with other schools and the local zoo to create boulder copper butterfly habitats there too.

Claire Concannon visits Burnside Primary School to catch up with Bianca and tumuaki (principal) Matt Bateman and learn about some projects from the student scientists themselves.

Improving drug treatment for melanoma (Carol Khor, winner of the Future Scientist Prize)

With our high-UV exposure, Aotearoa leads the world in rates of skin cancer, and melanoma is the deadliest form…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details