PRACTICAL APPROACH TO SCIENCE

This year Mount Morgan State High School has introduced Science in Practice, an Applied Senior Science subject.

The school has widened its scope to include this subject and make science more accessible to senior students, due to the growing interest over the last few years.

The Science in Practice subject utilises a contextualised approach to deliver modules of work that include aspects of at least two different scientific disciplines, such as Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Earth Science.

The Term 1 is Forensic Science, where students will see the connection between all four of the aforementioned disciplines.

A wide range of topics and techniques are covered in the Forensic Science module including Observations and inferences, understanding memory and witness statements, fingerprints, Locard’s Principle, Blood Spatter, Blood Types, DNA analysis, Chromatography, Hair and Fibre Analysis, Hand Writing Analysis, Casting prints, Ballistics and many others.

“Unfortunately, this year we have not organised any visits from any Crime Scene Technicians, however we hope to do so in the future,” Science in Practice Teacher, Ms Sam Beggs said.

Follow-up modules for this year include:

• “Parasites, Toxins and Microorganisms, Oh My!” which investigates how environmental and biological factors can influence health and wellbeing. So that students will understand how chemicals, parasites, and microorganisms can affect the body in both the short and long terms.

• “Force of Nature” where students will examine what natural disasters are, the different types, and the effect they have on local and global ecosystems including drought, volcanoes, earthquakes, cyclones, tornadoes and flooding, and technologies being used to mitigate these events.

• “Ancient Weapons” Students will investigate how weapons have been used in cultures around the world as a show of strength and a way to advance civilisations.

They will examine the different ancient weapons that have been used from biological weapons through to early mechanical and explosive devises.

Students will study the forces and energy conversions behind the weapons, and the effect these weapons have on the human body.

Next year, students will move on to the study of the environment and ecosystems, alongside polymers and consumer science.

Above: Eli and Cain learn about blood splatters.