The Science of Medicines project
Dr Karyn Maclennan from Ngāi Tahi Māori Health Research Unit at Otago University discusses why she wants to spark conversations about the science and significance of medicines and how the team chose the project’s themes and resources.
Questions for discussion
How does working with tamariki help to take information to others in the community?
Why do you think Karyn and her team chose a waka analogy when putting the programme and resources together?
Transcript
Dr Karyn Maclennan
The Science of Medicines project is an Unlocking Curious Minds initiative aimed at sparking conversations about the science and significance of medicines amongst whānau and their children.
All of us want to be able to make informed choices about our health and about how we use medicines so this was a way of finding out from communities what it is that they need and bringing accessible and engaging information about health and medicines to communities in a way that is comfortable, welcoming and culturally relevant.
There’s a lot of resources around about the science of medicines. It was really a matter of bringing together and tailoring those resources for our audience, which was tamariki and their whānau and through that their wider communities – for example, the Superbugs app, which is a very cool game about antibiotic resistance.
Mila
It can be a challenging game, especially in the higher levels, but it shows that these could be deadly if you don’t do something about them.
Dr Karyn Maclennan
And others we created ourselves as we talked with children and talked with communities and shared our ideas.
In terms of thinking about the resources for The Science of Medicines, we wanted to frame our project with a waka and wayfaring analogy. So it was taking tamariki and their whānau on a journey through the science of medicines, and each paddle of our waka steered to a different part of that journey.
So we created resources for each of those paddles, which were discovering where medicines come from. We created a nature’s medicine chest with drawers that had lots of rongoā or spiders or ants or all sorts of weird and interesting things, which medicines are drawn from.
The next paddle was about creating medicines, so we would have hands-on activities where children could formulate their own lip balm or they could look at liquid paracetamol under a microscope and see the medicine crystals under the microscope.
We had a paddle that was steering to exploring how medicines work for illnesses that are prevalent and well known among children like asthma and eczema.
And we had another paddle steering to ‘How do we use medicines safely?’ so that we can protect ourselves and protect our planet.
And then finally one about what’s up for the future. What are some exciting challenges? What are some really cool things happening in the future – some opportunities?
Acknowledgements Dr Karyn Maclennan, Te Roopū Rakahau Hauora Māori o Kāi Tahu | Ngāi Tahu Māori Health Research Unit, University of Otago Mila Community and school engagement images, information sheets and ‘Navigate your waka on a voyage through the safe use of medicines’ game, courtesy of The Science of Medicines with thanks to Green Grubs Design for some design work and Annah for use of some illustrative elements
