Kudos for enquiring mind

29/6/2009

There was no surprise in Year 13 pupil Nick Wyatt securing a place at an Australasian science conference in Melbourne, despite the fact he almost missed the call from the Royal Society of New Zealand.

He had his phone – quite rightly – set on silent mode because he was in class.

Nick Wyatt

While Nick says he was shocked to get the news, his Masters were not.

It was a ‘‘great honour’’ to be selected to go to the ‘‘highly prestigious’’ conference, Head of Chemistry Tim Ashdown, says. He rates Nick as one of his best pupils in 20 years of teaching.

‘‘He has a fantastic, inquiring mind and is always asking high level questions.’’

Head of Science Allan Garbutt noted Nick was the first Otago Boys’ pupil selected to go to the conference that he could remember.

‘‘He’ll be a great ambassador for the school and the country.’’

The conference, run by the Australian and New Zealand Association for Advancement of Science (ANZAAS), aims to give pupils an overview of where science is heading in Melbourne.

Nick says enjoyed learning how things worked and had always wanted to build and design things.

‘‘It always opens up so many more questions,’’ he said.

He will spend eight days in Melbourne, with 50 Australian pupils and another six from New Zealand, with the conference starting at the weekend.

Nick plans to study architecture or engineering at the University of Canterbury next year.