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Making science and technology a sport

Kiwis love sport.

Just look at how the government doled out taxpayers' cash to fund The Rugby World Cup -- and see how many people have SkyTV in their homes just so they can watch more of their favourite sport.

Even school-kids love sport.

Check out how much of your average school's area is dedicated to sports activities and you can see how we are indoctrinated into the sporting lifestyle right from our earliest years.

And sport is good.

It keeps us fit and encourages a healthy spirit of competitiveness.

Sport also helps us learn to cope with both success and failure.

Unfortunately, sport does nothing to really improve the wealth of the nation or to increase our global competitiveness in key areas of commerce, industry and technology.

But can we change that?

What if we turned "learning" into a sport?

What if we were to make science and technology a whole new playing field for those kids who are perhaps not so enamored of, or suited to, full contact sports such as rugby?

Might it be time to "sex-up" technology studies to the extent that we have all kids lining up to become involved?

How do we do this?

I'm not sure -- but I do know that most kids enjoy playing computer games so maybe there's a way to bring some of the elements of gaming into the study of science and technology.

Perhaps, instead of simply sitting kids down in a lab or classroom and lecturing them on the works of Newton, the basics of electrical theory, the fundamentals of chemistry and biology -- we could simply create a set of local and national challenges then leave the kids to seek out the knowledge they need to accomplish them.

Teach the kids how to team up and form synergistic groups that can then leverage their skills and knowledge to compete in regional and national competitions with the goal of winning -- just as they do in rugby, cricket and other sports.

Robot Wars, rocket altitude attempts, model EV racing -- the list of potential competitions is endless and each would involve multiple disciplines, requiring those involved to gain new knowledge and gain new skills.

Incentivise the learning process by turning the whole process into a competitive sport and allowing students to show the rest what they are made of.

Might this not be a far better way to teach our kids and perhaps upskill parts of the adult workforce?

I have a feeling that, if implemented properly, such a strategy could turn "boring" science, math and technology studies into an exciting process that would attract students rather than simply bore them.

The other benefits would be that those involved would learn far more than just the science and technology involved. They'd learn project planning, strategy and the benefits of teamwork. Surely this would result in students with a much more rounded knowledge and a higher level of practical "smarts" as opposed to just "book learning".

Unfortunately, I suspect this would be such a radical process that it might have no place in our schools. After all -- how would the system cope with the hordes of those who actually *failed*? We can't have kids *failing* - that might irreparably damage their self-esteem.

Or might the ability to cope with failure be one of the most valuable things our schools can teach today's kids -- because, in the real world, nobody succeeds every time.

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