Macleans College student awarded Brain Bee Challenge internship

The New Zealand Brain Bee Challenge (NZBBC) proved to be more popular than ever at Macleans College this year.

The NZBBC is a competition for Year 11 students to learn about the brain and its functions, learn about neuroscience research, and to find out about careers in neuroscience.

Thirty-eight Year 11 Macleans College students sat the round one test. Twenty-one students were selected to continue to round two. From the round two test, Anna Li (Snell House) and Bhaavana Rajeev (Hillary) were in the top 10 students in the North Island and qualified for the final.

Last week all 21 students visited the University of Auckland Medical School. Students listened to speakers, participated in quizzes, toured various departments in the Medical School and enjoyed lunch. Macleans College had the largest group of student participants for the visit, which had groups from 38 schools across the North Island.

The final round for the top 10 students was very closely fought and both Anna and Bhaavana did very well. Bhaavana finished sixth equal while Anna went into the last round for the top three. She led for much of the round and only lost after several nail-biting tiebreakers.

As part of her second place prize, Anna has been invited to participate in an internship sponsored by The Neurological Foundation at the Centre for Brain Research during the September/October school holidays. She will get the chance to visit the Human Brain Bank, see research in action and follow people from different research groups.

Thank you to Sophia Xu (Hillary House 2020 – 2023), Nicholas Choi (Rutherford) and Adam Choong (Te Kanawa), past participants in the Brain Bee who mentored the students.