New Zealand-made tracking technology is being used to help conservation efforts around the world. Ellen Rykers learns how the ‘drone ranger’ was initially invented to track penguins on a remote subantarctic island.

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When the chance to study hoiho yellow-eyed penguins on the remote subantarctic Auckland Islands cropped up, Chris Muller jumped at the chance. “I had a rush of blood to the head, I quit my job and within a month, I was heading south,” he says. For three-and-a-half months each summer from 2015-18, Muller lived in a hut on Enderby Island and counted penguins for his PhD. A comprehensive estimate of the subantarctic hoiho population hadn’t been undertaken since the late 1980s, and Muller’s job was to figure out how the penguins were faring.

Bushwhacking to find nests

A work-day would start at 4am, counting penguins commuting between their nests – hidden in thick scrub – and the sea. After a second breakfast late morning, Muller would venture out to search for penguin nests. “The traditional way to search for nests is just crawl around in the scrub until you find one,” he says. But it soon became apparent that he wouldn’t be able to find all the nests on the island in time – at 6 hours per nest, it was going to take two months just to locate them all, leaving no time for actual monitoring of how breeding was progressing.

In the evenings, Muller would catch hoiho for microchipping – so he could tell who was who – and would cop a few gnarly bruises in the process. “Hoiho have really dense bones and big stocky arms, and they karate chop. They can hit you half a dozen times within a second or two.” He also had permission to attach dive loggers with little VHF radio transmitters to 10 birds. The idea was to track the hoiho foraging at sea, but Muller figured he could use the transmitter to track them on land too. Using a handheld antenna, he could locate tagged birds on nests in about an hour – much quicker, but still not quick enough.

The ‘drone ranger’

Returning to the mainland, Muller set about developing a new type of VHF receiver in collaboration with Massey University and the University of Canterbury. “A standard receiver is like a radio in a car: it can listen to only one channel at a time. Each animal has a different frequency – like a different radio station – so normally when you’re trying to find them you’ve got to track each one separately,” he explains. The new receiver was able to track 500 different frequencies (and therefore, animals) without having to change channels. This multi-frequency receiver, combined with a GPS and attached to a drone, could map the locations of all the nests in the study area in a 10-15-minute flight.

Returning to the subantarctic for two more summers, Muller’s tracking drone – which didn’t disturb the birds – allowed him to collect all the hoiho data he needed in record time. He found that the subantarctic hoiho have likely declined since 1989, but appear to have remained relatively stable over the 2010s – noting it’s tricky to compare numbers exactly. Breeding success varied each season – one year, a whole lot of eggs didn’t hatch, perhaps due to a weather event. And the subantarctic birds were foraging differently to their mainland counterparts – spending more time hunting for a fishy snack in the water column, rather than diving all the way to the seafloor.

Kiwi-made tech takes on the world

Since wrapping up his PhD, Muller has won awards for his innovative “drone ranger” tech. With assistance from Callaghan Innovation, he founded the start-up Altitude Conservation to further develop the wildlife tracking technology, which was a finalist in this year’s NZ Hi-Tech Awards. “The equipment has since been expanded for use on other platforms including piloted aircraft and vehicles, and we’re working with researchers around the world to conserve endangered species,” he says. It’s been used to track stoats and North Island robins in New Zealand, sea turtle hatchlings in Australia, and bats in Colombia. “By the end of the year, we’re hoping to add some more projects in Australia and maybe Africa and North America as well.”

Meanwhile, the hoiho on Enderby Island haven’t been intensively monitored since Muller finished PhD fieldwork in 2018. “Who knows what’s happening when nobody’s watching? Even though they seem to be OK at the moment… they’re not low risk by any means.”

Growing the scientists of tomorrow means making connections to students’ own lives and real-world problems, writes science education expert Sara Tolbert.

Long-standing debates about the purpose and focus of a school science curriculum have resurfaced this week as New Zealand is refreshing its approach to science education.

Some responses to an early draft of a proposed science curriculum warned it would “minimalise science”. But an updated curriculum for today’s world presents an opportunity to engage all students in science through contexts that matter.

As we witness record-breaking temperatures on land and in the ocean, “forever chemicals” contaminating drinking water in the US, and food and energy systems under strain globally, it is clear science literacy is not just about “learning the basics”.

Teaching science should instead be about developing systems thinking and agency, or “the ability to recognise and take action within complex systems”. A meaningful and robust science education is increasingly important for all students, not just those who want to become scientists.

Students must learn to critically evaluate and apply science knowledge, alongside other forms of knowledge, to make informed decisions and act on issues that matter.

Curriculum change is necessary

Decades of research have shown that school science that focuses predominantly on decontextualised scientific facts and theories has not supported student learning. This approach has ill prepared students to engage competently or critically with science, and has failed to expand participation in science careers or degree programmes.

Enrolments in traditional science programmes at New Zealand universities are declining. Fewer 15-year-old New Zealanders see the value of science compared to international peers.

As former chief science advisor Sir Peter Gluckman pointed out in 2011, New Zealand needs radical changes to the science curriculum to better prepare students for the complex issues of our time.

A 2022 background report to the New Zealand curriculum refresh reinforced this perspective. It highlighted how science education needs to prepare students for a world characterised by increasing disinformation campaigns, and growing environmental and other science-related social concerns.

What needs to change

The current New Zealand curriculum states the purpose of science education is to ensure students “can participate as critical, informed, and responsible citizens in a society in which science plays a significant role”.

But as a recent report issued by the Education Review Office revealed, New Zealand is far from achieving this goal. Students’ awareness of environmental problems has declined since 2006. A recent poll showed New Zealanders don’t understand how to act on climate change.

Faced with interrelated changes in the environment, science itself is changing. It is becoming more interdisciplinary. We see new fields emerging at the intersection of physics, chemistry and biology.

Scientists are increasingly working alongside Māori and other Indigenous leaders, drawing from multiple knowledge systems to collaborate on complex science-related problems. A science curriculum for today’s world must be interdisciplinary and reflect these changes. Students need to be able to see connections between traditional disciplines.

Teaching science in context

Research shows that students learn fundamental science concepts better when they are contextualised within real-world problems and issues. A contextualised curriculum also creates space for other valid knowledge systems such as mātauranga Māori and Indigenous knowledge.

Such an approach supports learning in multilingual science classrooms, which is particularly important given the growing diversity in New Zealand schools.

A science curriculum focused on contemporary issues will not only help prepare all students to engage more competently with science, it can also inspire more students to consider science-related career paths they might not have otherwise.

Curriculum wars in science are not new. Debates over the goals and content of a science curriculum are not uncommon, and meaningful curriculum change that disrupts the status quo is difficult.

It requires a bold vision but must also be buttressed by extensive support for teachers. Some non-Māori science teachers are keen to make the change but have expressed concerns about lacking skills; for example, how to teach mātauranga Māori.

Teachers are currently not well prepared to teach science in the context of the critical issues of our time, such as climate change. Teacher education and professional development will need to be “turbo-charged” with robust and sustained investments.

However, the goal of curriculum reform is to lay out a bold vision for education, which then drives and catalyses the required resourcing.

Fortunately, there are schools and kura in New Zealand currently leading the way. We can look to them to see what is possible and be inspired by all that science education can be.

Sara Tolbert is associate professor of science and environmental education at the University of Canterbury.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.