Helping Kiwi kids’ put their energy to good use

Genesis School-gen has joined forces with Mind Lab Kids to help Kiwi kids’ put their energy to good use

While families across NZ are adapting to learning from home, Genesis School-gen has partnered with Mind Lab kids to provide Kiwis with FREE access to hundreds of fun and easy experiments and challenges online.
The Genesis School-gen programme, which has been inspiring future Kiwi innovators since 2006 to learn about Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM), will now explode out of the classroom and into homes across the country, via an online platform with partner Mind Lab Kids.

James Magill, Genesis Executive General Manager, Retail Markets, says he hopes the partnership will provide a little reprieve to families at home in their bubbles, while continuing to support kiwi kids’ interest in STEM.

“We’ve been helping energise young minds in STEM learning for more than 14 years through our School-gen programme and more recently through the School-gen Trust,” says Magill. “By giving Kiwi kids free access to a safe online space to imagine, create, and share – all easily at home - we hope this latest initiative will mark another successful chapter in the School-gen story.”

Mind Lab Kids has been developed by educators and includes hundreds of cool challenges to try online. Frances Valintine, Mind Lab Kids Founder says it’s a great way to keep those young minds occupied and learning at the same time.

“I’m incredibly excited to be partnering with Genesis to bring Mind Lab Kids to the homes of all Kiwi kids,” says Valintine. “Being able to help young students develop their creative and tech capability from their dining room table makes me immensely proud. Thanks to Genesis and their commitment to education, we can bring learning to homes across the country, combining education and fun together in one platform.”

Head online to schoolgen.co.nz/ to find out more.

School-gen is a Genesis community investment initiative that has been providing free educational resources to schools across New Zealand for more than 14 years. Initially School-gen’s focus was solely on teaching kids about solar energy, providing schools with solar panels and monitoring equipment so students could see energy being produced in real time.

Over the last few years, School-gen’s focus has evolved to get young kiwis interested in science, engineering, technology and maths while learning cool stuff about energy – how it’s made, how it works and how it can be managed. We want to encourage future innovators by helping them build the skills and knowledge they need for the jobs of the future – whatever they will be.

Genesis School-gen Trust
Genesis established the School-gen Trust in February 2019, to help schools who couldn’t afford to invest in STEM equipment and tools to support student learning.

So far, Genesis School-gen Trust has provided a total of $180k in equipment and solar panels to 14 schools – that’s a total of 4,610 students supported. Most recently moving quickly to supply 200 chromebooks to children before lockdown who needed a device to keep learning through the Manaiakalani Trust.

Genesis covers all the costs of running the School-gen Trust so that every dollar donated goes towards the purchase of equipment.

Mind Lab Kids

Mind Lab Kids is an educational, video-based platform where kids can create, innovate and share. It allows kids to access a bunch of fun learning challenges, all of which are completely doable at home, using things they find in their home.

We want to give kids agency to lead their learning in a direction that they choose, by putting that time at home and standard home technologies (brimming with unused potential) to use!

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