Hi tech support for children’s creativity

News Release

Hi tech support for children’s creativity

There is Earnest Rutherford and his atoms, Richard Pearse and his planes and John Britten and his ‘superbike’. New Zealanders have long prided themselves on being innovative, inventive and resourceful - and rightfully so.

However, our greatest inventors have had to start somewhere.

Now, Hewlett Packard (HP) and the New Zealand Herald’s popular Make a Newspaper programme are teaming up to provide school children with the opportunity to showcase their ingenuity and creativity.

HP is sponsoring a section titled ‘Invent’ where the focus is on encouraging children to think creatively about technology, inventions and recycling options.

HP Corporate and Enterprise Marketing Manager Jeff Healey says the company’s involvement with the Herald’s Make a Newspaper is a wonderful opportunity for students to explore the history behind some of our greatest inventors and their creations.

“The project encourages and fosters children’s innovation, creativity and curiosity about the world around them. After all, they are tomorrow’s inventors,” Mr Healey says.

Now in its fifth year, the educational Make a Newspaper programme provides all North Island primary and intermediate schools with the opportunity to produce their own 12-page newspaper during term two.

The programme is designed by teachers for teachers and is a unique and effective way for students to work on curriculum subjects while learning about current affairs and working as a team.

Each week for 12 weeks students get to work on a different page of their newspaper.

From a list of suggestions, students are asked to select two or three tasks to carry out.

In the HP-sponsored section, some of the tasks include inventing your own computer game and holding an ‘Inventors’ fair’ where children present their own inventions with a description of the process they went through to make the invention.

Students are encouraged to think about issues such as how computers will be used in the future, what happens to old computers and their parts and how computers can be recycled effectively.

When completed, the newspaper page includes a masthead, the name of the school, a selection of pictures and the school website address.

The top 10 newspapers win the schools $5,000 each.

The winners of the programme are announced in September and are featured in the Herald together with all entrants.

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