Tauranga is ‘hot-housing' young potential scientists who might one day become the new generation Nobel Laureates like Ernest Rutherford, Maurice Wilkins and Alan McDiarmid.

And the rest of the country is watching and is impressed.

House of Science students Victor Limmer, 9, Poroaki McDonald, 10, and Sayuni Weerasiri, 9. Photo by Tracy Hardy.

The new breed are blowing things up at extracurricular science programmes after-school and they're queuing to do forensics, food technology and the like during the holidays.

'Science is fascinating,” says Chris Duggan the bio-chemist cum teacher cum director of the House of Science, an after-school science experience for young enthusiasts based at the Coastal Marine Field Station at Sulphur Point.

'Science is all around us, it explains how the world functions – it explains why the sky is blue and why water runs downhill.”

And that's what the kids are really getting. The House of Science was set up earlier this year to fill a void, to encourage children with a bent for science, one of the great under-resourced aspects of our education system.

'These are often kids that are not in sport and not into music or art. This is one thing they're passionate about and parents are excited about a worthwhile after-school educational programme.”

Science is neither unfashionable nor uncool. 'There's no kid aged five, six or seven who will say science isn't exciting.

'At secondary school a lot of kids will say they're no good at science but that is just because they've had very little exposure at primary school which is badly resourced.”

And the growth of the House of Science concept suggests science is ‘cool and fun'.

It started in February with one weekly after-school programme and 15 children.

'Now we have three programmes a week with 60 children and it doesn't stop at the holidays.”

And the House of Science is engaging minds around the country – new Houses of Science will spring up in the Hutt Valley, Wairarapa and Eastern Bay of Plenty in February 2015.

Each area will have their own unique flavour, reflecting the House of Science motto of ‘resourcing and connecting the local science community'.

'We are blown away by how we have struck a chord with students, teachers and industry,” adds Chris.

The House of Science gets them young and gets them interested.

It supplies 43 schools with resource boxes filled with science experiments and equipment – delivered on Mondays with a worksheet and picked up Fridays.

There's the forensic box – finger printing, fibre analysis, powder differentiation. There's the energy box – a whole lot of solar energy experiment. And there's also several robotic boxes.

Chris witnessed how a majority of minds coming into secondary college had little or no science knowledge.

'Which was a worry…you have two-and-a-half years to get them to NCEA.

'And if you cram minds then you have no time for the fun stuff like experiments. So the work done at primary school will have a real flow on to secondary, tertiary and the local economy.

A lot of students don't understand the science of the horticulture industry. 'They think horticulture is picking, packing and pruning.

'In fact there are hundreds of scientists employed right on the doorstep of kiwifruit and avocado industries.”

So we're not thinking highbrow, we're not thinking Nobel Peace prizes.

'Wouldn't it be just great if we could get some of these young scientific minds back working in the local economy.”