The University of Otago programme gives senior secondary school pupils a taste of student life in Dunedin.
About 370 participants stayed together at the newly opened residential college Te Rangihīroa, and were given the opportunity to try different projects, from making chocolate to surveying fieldwork, painting and making product prototypes.
One group of pupils discovered the use of liquid nitrogen at the University of Otago department of pharmacology and toxicology.
Tutor Matt Howes said the pupils were given information about drug discovery and natural products.
"Everyone knows of some drugs that you might take that are synthetic, but there’s a lot of natural ones, or natural-origin drugs as well."
Examples included morphine and aspirin, which were both derived from natural products.
Undiscovered compounds derived from plants could be used to make new drugs.
"And then what we’re going to do is have some cancer cells growing and treat those cancer cells with different concentrations, different amounts of each of these extracts, and see if they can kill the cancer cells.
"So it is a basic, quick experiment they can do, and they get to practise preparing an extract."
High school pupil Sam Raj had travelled from Wairarapa to be part of the event.
He found the experience interesting and was "pretty sure" he would return to attend university in Dunedin.
At the department of anatomy another group of pupils experienced what it was like to dissect a knee.
Teaching fellow Dr Niranjan Ramesh used deer knee joints to show them how to use a scalpel.
"The ligaments and all those structures are very tough, which means you are going to need some extra force to go through.
"You don’t want to be stabbing.
"The safest way to use the scalpel is to have this index finger right above, and drive it down ... You are never cutting up towards you."
Pupil Dhruti Keshaboina, of Wellington, said earlier in the day the pupils explored the university’s anatomy museum.
"And we did a little scavenger hunt to ... get to know where things are and how things are placed at the museum."
Being able to get hands on had been very helpful.
"Learning theory is one thing, but when you practically get to actually see what you are doing, that’s completely different."
