From Water Testing to Award-Winning Science

When young people are supported with the right tools and trusted to lead, powerful things can happen. This story from Epsom Girls Grammar shows just that.

When Mayada Ghanim, the CREST teacher at EGGS, decided to run a water quality project with her Year 10 and 11 students, she reached out to Sean Winterbottom from the Sustainable Schools team. Sean provided Wai Care water testing kits and ongoing support, helping the students shape their science inquiries and mentoring them as they prepared for the NIWA Science and Technology Fair. The students went on to win four sustainability-focused categories, exploring everything from marine ecosystems to food security.

The class then joined the Mana Ora programme, a Auckland Council initiative which provides seed funding for youth resilience projects and connects students through collaborative climate action workshops. They connected with other schools and were inspired to build their own hydroponics lab. With support from local experts, including a hydroponics specialist who runs a commercial chive farm, the students designed and built the hydroponic system themselves. The system now produces fresh food for the school and income through produce sales, and the students are working on supplying a weekly meat-free meal to the hostel.

Year 13 student Rena Misra used the hydroponics lab for her award-winning project, earning the Prime Minister’s Te Puiaki Kaipūtaiao Ānamata Future Scientist Prize for her research on how fungi can improve stormwater filtration.

This project shows how effective partnerships between teachers, students and our Sustainable Schools team can create real-world learning with lasting impact. We provided professional development to the teacher, mentoring to students, and resources to the class, all in service of our goal: to empower young people across Tāmaki Makaurau to take collective action for a regenerative, resilient future.