Fight Germs and Win!
09/08/2018
One of the most topical scientific issues of the 21st Century has to be the antibiotic resistance of microbes. This issue threatens, at its worst, to take our health system back to the brink of the 20th Century. At its best, it is causing a paradigm shift in policy, and thoughts and practises around the application, distribution and cost of antibiotics.As Science educators, we are the banner bearers of change. What we teach, and how we teach it, can expedite vital social change around attitudes to health, and particularly the expectations we place upon our medical practitioners.
The Health Quality & Safety Commission, Ministry of Health and ACC have just launched a national science-related poster competition to raise antibiotic resistance awareness among children in years 5-8.
The Health Quality & Safety Commission website ‘Fight Germs and Win!' has the antibiotic awareness poster competition information pack. It includes NZ Curriculum links (science levels 3-5), NZ context information about hand hygiene and antibiotic resistance, as well as teaching links and resources. There are prizes for children with the best posters, with the grand prize being a trip to Wellington to visit the Wellington SCL microbiology laboratory to learn about bugs from microbiologists and other specialists!
This year's nationwide competition launches off the success of last year's ‘Raising antibiotic awareness with school kids in New Zealand – a first step on a long journey’, which was piloted in Wellington. We feature the winning poster below:
This poster was created by Holly Bowman who was in Yr7, South Wellington Intermediate School
‘Raising antibiotic awareness with school kids in New Zealand – a first step on a long journey’ was highly commended in the Antibiotic Guardian Awards 2018, judged recently in the United Kingdom. South Wellington Intermediate School head of science teacher Matt Boucher was one of the drivers of the Wellington project and has been a key adviser for the national initiative.
The competition is now open and closes on Friday 28 September.
