Students' win joins past and present

By SIMON COLLINS science reporter

Pupils at Tolaga Bay Area School on the East Coast were told that the visitors were from the Education Department.

But that was a ploy to keep the good news a secret.

The main visitor was Paul Noon, first secretary from the British High Commission in Wellington.

And his mission was to tell the school that three of its pupils would be going to Whitby in England in June to observe the Transit of Venus.

Year 10 students Hana Parata-Walker, Sara Pethybridge and Dexter Waru are one of three student trios chosen from 72 entries to go to Britain in June on the basis of short videos they made about the transit observed by Captain James Cook in the Pacific in 1769.

The other winners are Riddhi Gupta, Sarini Naidoo and Sandy Tsai from Pakuranga College, and Patrick Downey, Michael Holmes and Michael Potton from Nelson College.

Tolaga Bay deputy principal Mike Horton said teachers cried and the whole school erupted when Mr Noon announced the win.

Mr Noon and officials from the Royal Society of New Zealand and the Freemasons, which sponsored the video contest, were welcomed to the school with a powhiri under the subterfuge that they were from the Ministry of Education.

"I think some of the students started to twig when he was introduced as being from the British High Commission," Mr Horton said.

"He started talking about the Transit of Venus and said we got into the top 10 and it was an excellent presentation, and from there he extended everything out and made it a longer story.

"The kids were on tenterhooks waiting to see how they had done. He finally announced that we were one of the three successful schools.

"Some staff members were crying with excitement and joy. The three winners were hugging each other, and the rest of the school was really excited."

Mr Noon said the three students were only seven generations distant from their ancestors who welcomed Captain Cook when he spent five days at what is now Cook's Cove in Tolaga Bay in October 1769, soon after making the first British landing in New Zealand at Gisborne.

Captain Cook came from Whitby, and the students will meet fellow-students descended from him when they visit the British coastal town.

"I know there are quite a few Cooks still around in Whitby," Mr Noon said.

"I went there in January to tell them about this project. They are really excited. They are having a four-day Transit of Venus Festival, and the expedition from New Zealand will be the highlight of it."

Prime Minister Helen Clark, who will be in France for the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landing by Allied troops in World War II, may also attend.

A spokesman said "nothing is certain" but officials were investigating whether a stop in Whitby would be possible.

Tolaga Bay Area School has 280 students aged from 5 to 18.

Planetary event

* Transits of Venus, when the planet Venus passes across the sun - as seen from Earth - have been recorded only five times, in 1631, 1761, 1769, 1874 and 1882.

* Each event provided a rare chance to make more precise measurements of astronomical distances such as the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

* This year's transit will be visible in much of the Northern Hemisphere on June 8. The next will be on June 6, 2012, and the one after that will be 105 years later.

Transit of Venus video competition winners and finalists