Science ___________________________________Pages

from SJC Virtus 2017

Roll Call ________________________________Pages

SCIENCE WEEK

National Science Week is Australia’s biggest week celebrating science and technology. The theme in 2017 was ‘Future Earth’ and St Joseph’s College celebrated on Monday 14 August. We ran an electromagnetic bike challenge, providing green energy for our future. Students competed to see who could generate the most watts in three minutes. Competition was fierce but the eventual winner was Jameson Richmond, who produced 5.8 watts. As the winner, Jameson took home a nanodrone.

There was also a kokedama workshop. Students created beautiful hanging plants to help green up the school. The Science Week Quiz had three winners, each taking home a box cube puzzle as a prize. The winners were Nathan Fox, Declan Brown and Marcus Zulumovski.

Well done to all students who participated.

- Philippa Barber, Science Curriculum Area Leader YEAR 8 SCIENCE ENGINEERING EXCURSION

Year 8 science students attended Deakin University Waurn Ponds in the first week of Term 4, as their entry event to PBL Engineering. They received a presentation from Deakin University staff on what an engineer is and the types of engineers, as well as a tour of the CADET (Centre for Advanced Design in Engineering Training) Engineering building to see 3D printed bones, ears and gears, a virtual reality room with a CAD WALL, the civil engineering lab, a mini power grid of a city and of course, the high voltage room. Students used this experience to then complete theory and activities on energy, energy transformations and engineering back at school.

- Samantha O’Keeffe and Philippa Barber, Science Curriculum Area Leaders

Science & Engineering Challenge

Titration Titration Competition Science Week Science Week - Jameson - Jameson Richmond RACI TITRATION VICTORIAN SCHOOLS COMPETITION

Each year, the Royal Australian Chemical Institute invites students from Years 10, 11 and 12 in each state to compete in a titration competition. Students are required to apply skills specific to chemistry which involves the use of pipettes and burettes, determining the endpoint of an acid-base reaction using an indicator and calculating the concentration of an unknown solution. Those who participate do not need to have any background in chemistry. Teams consist of three students and this year St Joseph’s entered 15 students. These students gave up multiple lunch times during Term 2 practicing for the competition. This preparation ended with a 90 minute session to complete the titrations and calculations involved.

All teams placed in the top 50% of the 350 teams who entered across Victoria. Congratulations to the following students who competed: Year 10: Eamon Wheatland, Nathan Fox, Tom Anderson, Matt Davie, Charlie Roache, Ethan Near Year 11: Sean Wee, Tom Mahon, Xavier Dowd, Patrick Richards, Tom Boardman Year 12: Jackson Kos, James Bowers, Liam Jelley, Michael Bongiorno

- Joanne Board, Science Teacher SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING CHALLENGE 2017

There were 22 students who were a part of the Year 10 super group to represent St Joseph’s College Geelong on Thursday 18 May at Deakin University for the 2017 Science and Engineering Challenge. These students signed up for the exciting group collaboration challenges to immerse themselves as everyday engineers and scientists solving problems.

Science & Engineering Challenge

Science Week - Future Science Week - Future Spark Bikes Competition Spark Bikes Competition

The boys were divided into eight groups to tackle eight major hands-on tasks, some full day and others half day. The variety of activities that the nine schools competed against each other included building bridges, wiring virtual cities, designing bionic hands and building an earthquake resistant building. After lunchtime there was a score update, whereby St Joseph’s was in 3rd place. This was on the feedback of three ‘half day’ activities, so there were still another four half-day activities and four full day activities to be counted in the score by the end. Before the final bridge challenge the boys were in 1st place, however our bridge struggled to maintain weight, and whilst our supergroup were strong competitors, the St Joseph’s team placed 2nd overall. They were delighted with this! They had two wins in the eight challenges: coding in Confounding Communications and designing an earthquake resistant building in Helter Skelter Shelter! The winners for the day were Whitefriars College and third place was Geelong Baptist College. St Joseph’s College participate in the Science and Engineering challenge every year because we are keen to give students access to activities they would not normally experience in schools and show them that STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) is an important part of their everyday life; something they should think about as a possible career in the future. Deakin University in particular has also changed their engineering courses, optometry and medicine courses to be PBL/DBL (Design Based Learning) structure and the facilities really lend themselves to collaboration. It was fantastic for the students to experience these team challenges and collaboration built spaces.

- Samantha O’Keeffe, Science Curriculum Area Leader WHITEBOARDING IN PBL SCIENCE

In the final weeks of Term 1, students in Year 8A and 8J Science participated in a ‘What Do You Know Challenge’ to represent the knowledge they had developed across the term. The timed challenge, involved the use of mini-whiteboards and 40 keywords the students had come across throughout the ‘Let’s Get Rocked’ Geology Unit. Points were obtained by making sentences using one or more keywords to show understanding. The more complex the sentences and more links to other key concepts the more bonus points were available.

It was an intense 15 minutes, with strong skills of collaboration, organisation and leadership on display. Four white board markers, frantically writing on each whiteboard all in pursuit of the same goal. Competition was fierce, with prizes on offer and it was evident that all team members had to contribute for the team to be successful.

The completed whiteboards were impressive, very little space remained blank and the representation of conceptual learning evident. The competition was close and winners were elated with their success.

This activity integrated principles of STEM, Project Based Learning (PBL) and Literacy all current curricular focusses within the St Joseph’s College Community.

- Susan Dickinson, Year 8 Science Teacher YEAR 8 SCIENCE PRESENTATIONS

In Term 3 Year 8 students have been working on a project about cells and body systems. Their culminating event was to create several exhibition pieces explaining how body systems work, focussing on the key organs and specialised cells. They had to explain their work to an audience of teachers and other students. Several of the models were interactive, showing the function of the system. Year 7 and 10 classes came along to the event and one class was given the opportunity to explain their models and how they work to Grade 5 and 6 students from St Mary’s Primary School. The St Mary’s students also had the opportunity to make their own life size diagrams showing the organs that they knew.

A fun and educational time was had by all.