After careful consideration and evaluation of various factors with key partners, we would like to inform the community that the Tauranga STEM Festival will not be taking place in 2024. We understand that this news may be disappointing to many. However, we are excited to announce that the Tauranga...
On Sunday 1st October 2023, STEM Wana delivered on the third edition of the multi-award winning Tauranga STEM Festival (STEMFest). The annual event is a highlight for many families and tamariki across Aotearoa and this edition delivered on a fun filled day full of wonder and discovery. Thousands got...
By Rachael Pratt Did you know Women only make up 14% of engineers in Aotearoa? At STEM Wana, it is statistics like these that we are aiming to change. How do we go about making a change? We go straight to the source! On Friday 28th of July, STEM...
The Western Bay Community Awards 2023 bring together all those who are involved in the not-for-profit sector; to celebrate and acknowledge their incredible community work that is helping make the Western Bay of Plenty one of the greatest places to live. STEMFest was thrilled to have been nominated and...
Tuesday 10th January 2023 – By Janet Van Jenkins The day was finally here – Tuesday 10th January 2023 saw queues stretching out across Tauranga Boys’ College campus as over 600 keen young scientists and space enthusiasts lined up (in the rain!) to come and spend a “Night in...
Monday 9th January 2023 – By Tia Lush The second stop on day two of our SWTxNASA Tour was hosted at the beautiful Rotorua Library. It was the first time that we had worked with the amazing team there and everything was in hand and ready when Tia arrived...
Monday 9th January 2023 – By Tia Lush The second day of our SWTxNASA Tour saw sunshine and good weather over beautiful Taupō. Our friends at Taupō library had been briefed and had already been hard at work setting up their Children’s area and turning it into a presentation...
Sunday 8th January 2023 – By Rachael Pratt Arriving in Palmerston North on Saturday evening, the realisation that it was finally NASA tour time hit. My first stop was to the amazing Blueprint Makerspace. Where Zak showed me around their fabulous space. What a fantastic resource for the people...
A once in a lifetime opportunity for tamariki to meet with a record breaking NASA Astronaut at an event in Tauranga on Tuesday 10th January 2023 TAURANGA, NZ — 04 JANUARY, 2023 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Record breaking NASA astronaut and microbiologist Dr. Kate Rubins will be touching down in...
Everyone is invited to come and meet Dr. Kate Rubins as she travels from Palmerston North to Tauranga from 8th January to 10th January 2023 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE TAURANGA, NZ — 22 NOVEMBER, 2022 Record breaking NASA astronaut and microbiologist Dr. Kate Rubins will be touching down in Aotearoa...
“Best organised & most informative free event I’ve ever taken my kids to!” Vicky McGreal – Visitor (Facebook 03 October 2022) The anticipation for the second award winning STEMFest was high, well before the big day, with tickets ‘sold out’ a week in advance. Sunday the 2nd of October...
After a challenging couple of years due to the global pandemic, we are super excited to bring back Tauranga STEM Festival on Sunday the 2nd of October. It will be the second edition of STEMFest. Following on from the first award winning event will be a challenge – but...
New Zealand’s young innovators have been set a mission of creating an InsectBot capable of surviving on Mars for the chance to win an exclusive VIP tour of the Rocket Lab facilities. The Great InsectBot Mission Competition is being led by STEM Wana Trust ahead of Tauranga STEM Festival,...
STEM Wana Trust were proud to host the official STEMFest Launch Party on Thursday 7th July 2022. Board Trustee Amanda Crowther welcomed sponsors, friends at Basestation and Tinkd Makerspace for an evening of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The organising team were delighted to share our exciting highlights for...
Prepare to take off for the best STEMFest yet as New Zealand’s largest science, technology, engineering, and mathematics festival (STEM) returns after a two-year hiatus. More than 50 exhibitors are expected in Tauranga from all over Aotearoa for the free, family-friendly street festival on Sunday 2 October, 2022. Highlights...
This summer over three days we welcomed hundreds of visitors to a very special series of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics sessions in Tauranga. It started on Thursday 20th January 2022 with a workshop covering Artificial Intelligence with Matias Iacono from Cucumber NZ in the morning. Our participants choose...
Thursday 20th to Saturday 22nd January 2022 STEM in the Community – Summer Edition is a fringe event of Tauranga STEM Festival with several fun hands-on activities and a STEM Open Day taking place at Basestation, 148 Durham Street, Tauranga during the summer holidays. There will be something for...
A big thanks to all those who attended our STEM in the Community events over the October 2021 school holidays. Our team really enjoyed travelling around to different locations in the Bay of Plenty and meeting all our STEM friends. We would also like to extend a huge thanks...
Tauranga STEM Festival is proud to present another STEM in the Community event during the October school holidays. Tuesday 5th October 2021 at 08:30am at University of Waikato, Tauranga Campus. Durham Street. Want to know what it’s like to work in STEM? Curious about how other people started their...
October School Holiday STEM Activities Introducing STEM in the Community for 8-12 year olds STEM in the Community is our outreach project held in locations across the Bay of Plenty, where we bring together amazing STEM content providers, smart venues and enthusiastic children and tamariki. Each location is run as...
Tauranga STEM Festival 2021 originally planned for 3rd October 2021, has secured a new alternative date later on in the year. This year’s event will be held on Sunday 5th December 2021. The team have continued to work during the latest lockdown and with the support of Tauranga City...
Due to the unknown nature of the situation with the COVID-19 lockdown, the Board of STEM Wana Trust have discussed our options for this year’s Tauranga STEM Festival (STEMFest) 2021. After much deliberation and discussion, it is with a heavy heart that we are announcing the postponement of STEMFest...
STEM Wana Trust/Tauranga STEM Festival (STEMFest) will operate under the guidelines for Alert Levels 1-4 provided by the New Zealand government. Full details of which can be found here: https://covid19.govt.nz/activities/public-events-and-entertainment/ Our team will also be working closely with Tauranga City Council events team, as well as community groups and...
Thursday 12th August 2021 saw sponsors, friends, and media gather at Basestation and Tinkd Makerspace for the official STEMFest 2021 launch. The Board of STEM Wana Trust and organising team were delighted to share our exciting highlights for STEM in the Community and STEMFest on 3rd October 2021. It...
During the school holidays 19th April – 2nd May 2021, we invited our families to take part in the STEM Explorer Trail in Tauranga’s CBD. We had reports of lots of STEM explorers enjoying the activity and getting out and about. There was a very special stop at Craniums...
Made by our community, for our community The STEM Explorer Trail was designed, developed and produced by the participants in the Youth Dev Challenge programme which ran for 12 weeks, as part of the 2020 STEM Initiative. Families and teams are invited to take part in an interactive explorer...
TECT Community Awards Recognise Inaugural Festival Held in October 2019 TAURANGA, NZ – 26 JUNE, 2020 — TECT Community Awards have announced Tauranga STEM Festival (STEMFest) as the winner of the Event Excellence Award. The Festival was the first-ever community driven STEM event to be held in New Zealand....
By Qi-Wern Lim – STEM Champion / Aspiring TeacherPublished Last Wednesday 6th May 2020 I was lucky enough to get to chat with Chris Lintott along with Alyssa Minshall and student ambassadors Micaela, Thomas, Anthony, Michael and Elliot from Otumoetai College. This talk was the first event in the Conversations in STEM series and...
Watch our online session on Wednesday 6th May 2020 Astronomers have gotten very good at finding planets around other stars. In this informal online session you will be able to get up close and personal with one of the world’s leading science communicators and find out how you can...
Tauranga STEM Festival 2019 has been shortlisted as a finalist in the TECT Community Awards under the category of Event Excellence. The team are thrilled to have been nominated by so many people and to be a finalist in our very first year is a real honour. Founder, Tia...
The STEMFest Elves have been busy working on a STEMFestive experience for STEM lovers of all ages. We have two awesome events for your diary… Saturday 14th December – 11am to 2pm If you missed out on attending STEMFest this year, or if you just want to re-live the...
“An outrageous success!” — Professor Chris Battershill, Coastal Marine Field Station.New Zealand Herald. WOW. What an amazing STEMFest that was! One week on and things are still very busy at HQ (no time to rest) while we start collecting and analysing all of the data, information, and feedback to...
The last debate of the STEM Debate Series, sponsored by Zespri International, was held on Monday at Zespri’s shiny new headquarters in Mount Maunganui. Zespri were our hosts for the evening and had arranged a ‘Presidential-style’ debate which saw two teams of four pitted against each other in 8...
By Debs Begbie New Zealand families brought their curiosity to Tauranga STEMFest to celebrate our city’s first, world-class gathering of innovators, educators, and cutting-edge technologists from the Bay of Plenty and beyond. Team STEMFest are grateful for the community’s contribution and commitment toward making the 12th October 2019 event...
We are launching a Tauranga, and New Zealand, first this year with the inaugural Tauranga STEM Festival (STEMFest) this Saturday the 12th October. STEMFest is a celebration of science, technology, engineering and science, and children and whānau from all over Tauranga (and New Zealand!) are coming to attend this...
STEM Debate Series 2019: Does having too much empathy constrain good science? To mark Ada Lovelace Day on Tuesday, 8th October, we held our second STEM Debate which was kindly sponsored by Zespri International. The event was enthusiastically organised by Jackie Evans, Head of Research at Comvita and held...
Last Wednesday 18th September, I had the absolute privilege of being a STEM Champion and MC at the very first STEM Challenge Day in Tauranga. This STEM Challenge Day was a fringe event of the main Tauranga STEM Festival which will be held on Durham Street on Saturday 12th...
On Tuesday 10th September saw the first event in our STEM Debate Series which is kindly sponsored by Zespri International. It was organised and hosted by STEMFest 2019 sponsor and friends at Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology and also formed part of Wiki O Te Reo Māori – Māori...
We are so thrilled to be involved in this year’s Groundswell Festival of Innovation programme of activities spanning two weeks from 26th August to 9th September 2019. Our FREE popup Play & Explore session was held on Tuesday 3rd September from 10am to 1pm at Basestation in Durham St. We invited those who...