On Thursday 6 September nine Year 10 students from OGHS were involved with the GrowingNZ Innovation Challenge run by Young Enterprise and various industries like Dairy NZ, MPI and the Wool Industry.

It was a project-based learning challenge where 70 students from across the city were organized into groups made up of four students from two schools and then given a real life problem in industry. The ideas, discussion and imagination shown by all participants was inspiring and outstanding. Madi Wills and Sarah Ford were part of the winning team who came up with a solution to the current wastage of coarse wool in sheep breeds that are primarily grown for meat. Their product was to turn the wool into felt and construct an insulating, reusable bag for groceries, keeping your takeaways warm etc.

Our other amazing innovators from OGs were: Carinn Gaspar, Jade Todd, Bronwyn Tunster, Jemma Bezuidenhout, Kate Earl, Katerina Van Rooyen and Ella Chafer. The other challenge our girls competed in what the issue of keeping Stink Bugs out of New Zealand as it is a real threat to our economy.

Some comments from our girls included:

“We met new people from other schools and made many new friends in our group”

“Standing in front of everyone doing the talk at the end was nerve-wracking”

“ Everyone was creative”

“The topics were way different to what we thought they would be”