Science Science at SJC provided many exciting and significant events and opportunities in 2015. These events not only brought the scientific community together but also provided the opportunity to expand the communication that exists between teacher and student. A Science club was started during Wednesday and Thursday lunchtimes to help students with scientific concepts, allow access to resources and help with homework. A group of volunteer students also joined forces to become a Science Enrichment group and complete electrical circuit challenges during lunchtimes. Examples of opportunities that arose included the Science and Engineering Challenge, Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) Titration challenge, Engineering students@work, National Youth Science Forum (NYSF) and of course the big event National Science Week. All of the events and opportunities promoted and encouraged interest in the areas of science, engineering, technology and innovation. They demonstrate how science is interesting, challenging, important and of direct relevance to our daily lives, the well-being of society and the environmentally sustainable growth of our economy. The first opportunity was on 23 April when we were represented by 24 Year 10 students at the Science and Engineering Challenge held by the University of Newcastle at Deakin University Waurn Ponds. The students were pitted against other schools in exciting and competitive challenges. The challenges ranged from creating a bionic hand, to building a strong bridge to withstand the most carrying capacity, to constructing a Mars Rover to quickly transverse an undulating surface. Our students really quite enjoyed the day and finished 4th overall. The team whom built the bridge earned the highest number of points of all the bridges and withstood the super ingot challenge.
Titration challenge
Deakin University Waurn Ponds also held a new challenge that we signed up for called ‘Engineering students@work’. This was a program for six students in Year 10 held from 17 - 21 August. Students who participated were: Ben Arcoraci, Charles Breen, Liam Keogh, Finbar Kinna,William Pile and Thomas Veitch.
Science and engineering challenge Engineering students @work
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The program involved providing the students with a set task or problem in the area of Humanitarian Social Justice. The students worked with Engineering lecturers and final year students, Deakin’s new machines and facilities to develop solutions and prototypes to offer ‘realworld’ solutions.
At the end of this hands-on week they submitted reports and presented their findings to CADET staff at Deakin University, Deakin staff, SJC staff and their parents. In addition two of our current Year 11 students Benjamin Kenworthy and Matthew Oyang have been accepted to attend the prestigious NYSF held in Canberra in January. This is a great credit to St Joseph’s College. As successful applicants in selection, Benjamin and Matthew will attend a unique 12-day program that offers the opportunity to test drive careers in the fields of science, engineering and technology (STEM). They will see guest speakers, join forums, join debates and make many laboratory visits. Through this they will learn to make informed decisions about study and career options in STEM fields, and develop a professional skill-set to help them realise their potential.They will come away from the program enriched not only by the inspirational speakers and lab visits, but also by friendships that will continue into university and their future careers. I would like to also take this opportunity to thank all of our dedicated team members for their diligent approach to promoting and running these activities and building our Science curriculum, as well as our students for their participation and continued enthusiasm. I look forward to an exciting and innovative 2016. Samantha O’Keeffe - Science Domain Leader (RACI) TITRATION CHALLENGE Students again participated in teams in the Royal Australian Chemical Institute Titration race this year. We had one team of Year 10 (Michael Bongiorno, Taz Parke and Isaac Travers-Hucker) and 2 teams of Year 11 students (Rhys Hegyesi, Patrick Zulumovski and David Motorniak; and Matthew Oyang, Alexander Fama and Joseph McMahon). They all worked really hard for two terms, giving up their lunchtimes, to practice and learn the concepts together.The students learnt specific chemical language such as mole, aliquot, titre, equivalence point, end point; and used specialist equipment such as bulb pippettes and burettes. Michael, Taz and Issac finished 8th out of all Year 10 teams in the state! Patrick, David and Rhys finished
