Science

Under the able direction of Mrs

Lydia Roper-Willis and with the support and efforts of the Science Faculty, we have completed another successful year at Ave Maria College. Everyone has worked hard to present coursework in a stimulating and engaging manner, always striving to use a variety of assessment tasks to cater for rhe range of interests displayed by our students.

Activities undertaken to enhance and develop student interest and challenge their thinking included: Melbourne Zoo - Year 7

Art Gallery of Victoria -Year 9 Science Works - Year 8

CERES -Year 10

Marine Studies Centre at Queenscliff Year 1 1 Biology

Many students also participated in the Australian Schools Science Competition and performed very well.

The role ofScience in Society has never been more important with huge advances in

Medicine, Genetics and Technology. It is imperative that our students are given the opportunity to discuss and investigate these areas and are aware of the implications. The Human Genome project has been of particular interest to both Year 12 and Year 10 classes studying Genetics. It has led to wide discussion

and analysis.

Students at various levels have shared

their experiences and following reflections. Mrs Maria Gianni contributed rhe

Science Coordinator (Term 4) Year 7 Haiku Poetry: Food Webs in

home Uninvited guests, Creeping,

crawling through the food? rhe house. Where the

is all

Jessica Taylor

Looking and searching, These creatures scavenge for dinner, How long will they wait? Georgia Turville

Big, big harvestmen, Holding babies in their mouths. Eating when they're gone. Vanessa Surace

Uninvited house guests, Looking to eat other pests, Using mortein gets rid of them. Krystal Nasr

Year 10 Excursion to CERES

The Year 10 "Earth, Universe and Life" Science class went to CERES community environmental park for some insight into water quality, in particular the state of the Merri creek.

We studied rhe lower catchment area and conducted physical and chemical tests to see if the water was polluted. We also studied how the creek changed over the past few decades and the diversity of species found in the surrounding area. From this research we have gained an understanding of rhe great impact human activity has on rhe Merri creek and the environment surrounding it. Thanks to Mr Dunlop, Mrs Gianni and Mrs Brasher.

Becci Prenc 10R In Science, we studied a range of new topics that opened our eyes. Generics gave us understanding of how we inherit characteristics, and how diseases are inherited. We learnt new (and big) words like autosomal recessive, heterozygous and homozygous, and yet studied these concepts through making vegetable people! Studying species survival and chemicals in the environment gave us a great opportunity to take an excursion to CERES Community Environment Park. The weather was gorgeous and many informative experiments were conducted to give us a more complete view of how humans impact the environment. To finish rhe semester, we left the earth and looked amongst the stars. We studied the life of stars (such as our sun), and compared different theories of how the universe exists.

Alyssa Donald 10C

Recently we added a little bit ofdrama to our Science class. We were given the task ofputting on a role-play on disease. We ended up with people having babies, extremely geeky professors and covered with weird looking spots. Anyone watching may have thought what has this have to do with science! But behind rhe scenes a lot of hard work went into researching the cause ofcertain diseases and how to treat them. Watching these performances was a lot of fun. Performing our role-play on Malaria was one of the best projects of rhe year. Jacinta Nash 8B