Curious minds drill to the core of geothermal Aotearoa

Rotorua Primary School students having a blast at their STEAM outreach session run by Mercury ambassadors. Photo: Amplify.

New Zealand Geothermal Week happens annually in July. STEAM outreach – with local schools and kura – is a big part of the event run by Amplify and the New Zealand Geothermal Association.

This year 620 students from 20 schools and 50 geothermal staff from eight agencies across Taupō, Rotorua, Whakatāne and Kawerau took part. STEAM ambassadors visited each school for a morning.

Rural Marotiri School – 34 kilometres north of Taupō – got involved for the third year.

Year 7 and 8 kaiako Fee Holdsworth says there has been some interesting challenges set for the tamariki. Building drilling rigs, testing earthquake resilience and investigating the school field’s geology to see if they could drill for a reservoir are standouts.

The goal: to get tamariki excited about STEAM subjects – with a focus on producing electricity using geothermal resources.

Real-life maths and science

MB Century staff Taare Black, Richard Adams and Sheryl Dowman led the akoranga.

Mercury STEAM ambassador Steven Grey reviews a turbine replica made by a student. Photo: Amplify.

Part of the session involved a challenge for 11 and 12-year-olds to create a turbine to connect to a small power station by connecting fan blades to a skewer, then attaching it to a motor which goes to a pulley and then lights up to give feedback on voltage. Ākonga had to use a model electricity generator and the winner was the turbine which produces the most electricity.

“Having industry experts come into the classroom and get the kids to design and build an engineering project is an incredible opportunity,” says Fee.

“Geothermal is our natural resource that’s important to our region, it’s our whakapapa.”

Fee says the tamariki had a lively discussion about the turbine’s design and how this would affect its power output.

Science was made real for the ākonga as the ambassadors talked through the design and build of their turbines, she adds.

“The students were doing maths and science for a purpose. They needed precision and accuracy to make their designs work.”

The right language

Taare wanted to use language ākonga would understand.

Marotiri School ākonga create a turbine and connect it to a small power station, with industry ambassadors from MB Century. Photo: Amplify.

“Many of the Marotiri students come from a rural background and they know what a shovel is, so I used the shovel as the familiar. Turbine fan blades are similar to a shovel.”

Once students learned ‘the bigger and wider the shovel is, the more air it catches to make it move’, Taare says he could explain RPM and the science concepts involved in the pitch of the blade, weight and balance.

Next tamariki learned how an increase in space between fans – and improved shape of blades – increases the distance between the folded edges and fixed back.

The demos meant ākonga had different ways to relate to what they were learning. Tamariki learned project research and development which helped them improve and change their turbines while they watched – and were sometimes inspired by – other teams’ designs.

Students from Te Wharekura o Ruātoki watch in anticipation as their teammate tests whether their drill rig will remain standing when the drill bit is attached. Photo: Amplify.

Future in the industry

The ambassadors also talked about jobs and skills needed in geothermal exploration and building power stations.

Fee says some students could “see a future for themselves in the local geothermal industry”.

The akoranga placed a strong emphasis on sustainability and kaitiakitanga. Fee says the tamariki were left with a sense of wonder that this renewable resource is in their local area.

GNS Science Te Pū Ao Geothermal School Science Competition

In the lead-up to Geothermal Week schools and kura were invited to enter the GNS Science Te Pū Ao Geothermal School Science Competition.

The challenge was to explain how natural geothermal features are interconnected with humans’ uses of geothermal resources – including electricity generation.

Seventy-plus students, in 16 groups, entered.

Schools and scientists connect

Entries included 3D geothermal power station models, a papier-mâché model of how geothermal energy works within the Taupō Volcanic Zone, use of Minecraft to create a geothermal power station, and hand-drawn cartoons showing the energy’s journey from the earth’s core into homes.

GNS scientist Dr Anya Seward with two of the Waipāhīhī School students from the winning science competition team, Kauri and Maia. Photo: Amplify.

Competition judge, geothermal geophysicist Dr Anya Seward says it is a great way for GNS Science Te Pū Ao to connect with the community.

“We live in the geothermal heart of New Zealand, where we see steam every day, and there are so many STEAM principles we apply at GNS Science to understand these systems that students can learn about at school.”

Waipāhīhī School’s ‘Geothermal Genius’ won first place. Their model included a QR code linking to a video explaining how geothermal energy is sourced and transforms into electricity.

Year 5 and 6 creators Kauri, Maia, Eva and Blair’s entry features a power station with a cooling tower, cyclone separators, turbine, switchyard and power lines which all sit above a geothermal reservoir.

Maia says teacher Moira Marcroft supported them and a Google search for geothermal power station components also helped. Kauri says they had help from whānau too.

“We learnt about the project at school and home,” she adds.

Local curriculum

Wairakei School kaiako Olivia Graham says the school’s ‘Geominecraft’ third-place entry was linked to their local curriculum across science, technology, English and digital technologies.

She adds, “This was the first year that students opted to use Minecraft Education Edition. ” Making their virtual creation gave the ākonga “complete creative control”.

Grayson, Sukhraj, Luka, Zayn and Lucas made up the team. Grayson and Sukhraj say the advantage with Minecraft was that “it takes much less time than actually building a real box-made power station. You can just delete the blocks if you have misplaced something.”

The tamariki added that creating the power station was “super-fun” and Minecraft allowed them “to build whatever our imaginations can think of”.

The winning teams received certificates, prizes and a tour of GNS Science Te Pū Ao’s Wairakei Research Centre.

Winning schools received House of Science resource kits and students placed got vouchers for Ōrākei Kōrako Geothermal Park.

To read more about the competition and winners, visit gns.cri.nz/news.(external link)

Whakatāne High School ākonga built turbine designs during their geothermal STEAM outreach session to demonstrate the principles of aerodynamics. Photo: Amplify.