Chris Duggan from the House of Science. Photo/John Borren
Chris Duggan from the House of Science. Photo/John Borren
Shocked at the lack of science education in primary schools, Chris Duggan opened Tauranga's House of Science last year. Now nearly every Western Bay primary school uses her charity's science resources, and the model is being replicated nationwide.
"The Science Lady" talks to Juliet Rowan about her passion for sharing science with kids and why we all need science in our lives.
"You're The Science Lady," the kids yell as Chris Duggan arrives to deliver a big box of experiments to a school.
"Where are you taking it?" they ask as they flock around the statuesque dark-haired Duggan who, at 6ft 4in (193cm), towers above them as she makes her way across the grounds.
"I'm going to Room 10," the cheery House of Science director replies.
The teacher is effusive in her thanks, telling Duggan the box guarantees impeccable behaviour until the science lesson, such is the eagerness of pupils not to miss out on the experiments inside.
Each blue plastic box is a treasure trove of laser pointers, cellophane squares, scissors and mirrors for making periscopes and the like, all organised into smaller labelled containers with worksheets and a teacher manual. The manual is thin on purpose so as not to intimidate the teachers.
Duggan and the charity's 40 volunteers deliver the boxes to schools for a week at a time, with each school allowed a maximum of three in one go.
The House of Science is only 18 months old, but such is the popularity of the boxes, that some are booked until April next year.
"We've got 49 schools on-board, which is just about every school in the Western Bay," says Duggan. "Every week over 1000 students in our primary schools are now doing science as a result of our resources, which is phenomenal, really."
Speaking to The Bay of Plenty Times Weekend at the hectic Sulphur Point "mothership" of the organisation, Duggan says "not in a million years" could she have predicted such rapid growth, and nor are her efforts going unnoticed. Last month, the House of Science won the Supreme Award at the Trustpower Tauranga Community Awards, and now Duggan is one of eight finalists in the innovation category of the national Women of Influence Awards.
Chris Duggan and the House of Science team get a little crazy in the lead up to Christmas. Photo/file
Since opening in Tauranga, she has granted licences to a string of other House of Science branches in Rotorua, Whakatane, Palmerston North and the Hutt Valley. At least five more are planned in Auckland, Wellington, Hamilton and Nelson in the coming year.
Talking in the only free room at the facility, while a group of noisy kids do experiments next door, Duggan says besides empowering children to be the scientists of the future, the ultimate vision is to ensure "every citizen has the basic ability to look at the world through scientific lenses".
A mother of two, one of whom is studying to be an air crash investigator, Duggan believes science education at an early age is crucial to giving children confidence to embrace the subject later in life.
She enjoys writing a column in the Bay News with experiments for families to do at home, saying teaching science to the young is a no-brainer. "Kids love science. They're so curious [and] what we're doing in many schools is actually killing that."
She says by the time most teenagers get to high school, they perceive science as too difficult or the domain of geeks.
Interestingly, House of Science surveys of primary pupils who have used its resources show a positive shift in attitude towards the subject when they are asked questions such as, "Do you talk about science at home?" and "Can you see yourself going to university to study science?"
Duggan says even after a week with House of Science resources, there is a 10 per cent shift in their thinking, standing in marked contrast to secondary students she has twice surveyed at career expos about the extent of their science education. "I say, 'Tell me about the science you had in primary school on a scale of 1 to 5,' where 1 was not very good and 5 was amazing, and they go, 'Zero. There was no science.' Two-thirds. Now that's shocking."
An Education Review Office study in 2012 revealed similarly poor results, finding most primary and intermediate schools did not have satisfactory science programmes in place.
Kids love science. They're so curious [and] what we're doing in many schools is actually killing that.
Duggan says the social and economic implications of this are huge.
"It's that big divide, isn't it? The haves and the have-nots, the knows and the know-nots, and more and more, the people who don't have that ability to critique what they read... then they're having to rely more and more on those who have that knowledge... and they'll end up with the power, and the majority won't have it."
Duggan was born in the Netherlands, where she says science education and learning to look at the world scientifically were par for the course.
"I found science easy when we came to New Zealand. I struggled with the language, but science was a breeze because I had those inherent skills."
Her mother was a chemist, but not what Duggan would call "a highfalutin, world-changing scientist".
Chris Duggan. Photo/file
"My father was a salesman. It's not like we've got huge scientific background in our family. However, it's about the way you look at the world, and I think I learned that when I was at primary school in Holland. Where I grew up, that was just the norm. We did science. We were taught those questioning skills."
After moving to New Zealand, she did a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry, working as a lab technician and research scientist, among other jobs, before becoming a teacher.
Her career as a high school science teacher lasted 15 years - the last seven as head of department at Tauranga Girls' College - before she left to start the House of Science.
"To be honest, the job I'm doing now, I feel extremely privileged to be doing. And everything I've done up to this point, I feel has given me the skills and the toolbox to do it."
Throughout her teaching career, Duggan felt shocked at the dearth of science knowledge among teenagers entering high school.
Initially she blamed primary teachers but now, working with many on professional development, she hears a familiar story of pressure they feel to focus on literacy and numeracy, and their own lack of science knowledge.
"They get into teaching because they love kids and they're passionate about teaching them to learn, but science is often very, very low on the priority or confidence list."
She says many primary teachers are loathe to use "the dreaded S word", instead calling science a "topic".
"Our topic is flight," she says, in her best schoolmarm imitation, adding that as a result, kids don't even know they're studying science.
In her position at Tauranga Girls', she began to feel a responsibility to do something to support local primary teachers to improve science education, but efforts over a number of years failed, including offering to show them resources at the college in school holidays. "Nobody came. When push came to shove, it was a day in their holidays, it was at the college - 'scary' - and [involved] the science department."
She also went into primary schools to try to get to know the teachers, but was equally unsuccessful. "I was frightening to them," she says.
When I laugh disbelievingly because she is in fact quite the opposite (rather, warm and gregarious), she responds: "Well, I am. I'm the head of science at this huge college next door and they just feel really inadequate."
In 2009, she read about a plan to establish a house of science in a newsletter from Tauranga development organisation Priority One and wasted no time talking to the relevant people.
"I said, 'Tell me more about this house of science. When you get it up and running, I want to be part of it. I don't care whether it's voluntary or paid, I'm so passionate about getting science more of a profile here in the community'."
Lack of funding meant it took several years to get the project off the ground but with the support of individuals, including Professor Chris Battershill of the University of Waikato, Duggan formed the House of Science Tauranga Charitable Trust in 2014.
She says the first year-and-a-half of operation has been "an absolute dream".
"I sometimes still feel like I should pinch myself because I can't quite believe the speed that this has taken off. The support in the community blows me away daily - the volunteers, the financial support, just the way that the teachers have embraced this."
Chris Duggan. Photo/file
Her team of volunteers work a combined 120 hours per week, and include a former science technician and a fisherwoman. There are four Year 12 students running a school holiday programme for 16 younger kids, Duggan saying they are happy to work every day in exchange for lunch.
Next week, the House of Science is hosting 24 children for a robotics course, which filled up without needing any promotion.
Duggan knows lots of the kids on the holiday programmes by name because many come repeatedly. The volunteers enjoy working for an educational cause, she says, and a long list of local companies and community organisations support the charity.
Schools are taking advantage of access to resources such as a full-size skeleton, which, at $800, is beyond the reach of most principals' budgets. However, funding remains a constant battle, and limits the number of resources the House of Science can provide in classrooms.
"Money's the only thing stopping us," says Duggan. "I've got the manpower."
For Duggan, science is inescapable, everywhere, and "an integral part of who we are and how we live".
"I think more people need to understand that so they can make informed decisions about lifestyle choices. I think that's a big part of it for me, that a lot of people are ignorant about everyday stuff and so therefore they'll follow some bad science."
She says citizenship science is particularly lacking in New Zealand because people don't see themselves as scientists and Google makes us lazier.
"You hear all these conflicting arguments and it depends on who's got the loudest voice as to who you follow, not on what should be an ingrained default setting of 'OK, where's the evidence? And, who's writing this? And can I trust it? And what does this mean for me?'"
She says even a basic knowledge of science is empowering and benefits the individual. "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to be able to question what's going on around you in a scientific manner."
