Girls in STEM

Tilly Bourke

My experience in the Ballarat Tech School’s ‘Girls in STEM’ program has been amazing.

Our group has been entered in the Peter Doherty Award Competition. This requires us to complete a Science Fair experiment, on a much larger scale than what we are used to. Amelia and I decided to do an experiment on whether carbonated water changes taste. We are also doing this with sugar water.

However, we had to find the ‘bliss point’, which involved me drinking 100mL of water with increments of 5g up to 35g of sugar added in. This led to me drinking 100mL of water and 125g of sugar (which is 3 times the recommended daily amount) and having a sugar crash.

We watched our friends from other groups complete their experiment with ice cream, and then continued on with ours.

Overall, I had a great time and made great friends. We are hoping to continue the experiment at school, even though we need a SodaStream to continue.

Amelia Strait

On the 25th and 26th of July, Tilly and I went to the Ballarat Tech School for another 2 days of learning.

On the 25th, we were told that we would be participating in the Peter Doherty Science Award. We learnt all about what this award is about, who Peter Doherty is, and what we could do for the competition. We used these cool sensors called NeuLogs to test the temperature of metal and plastic pipes, and what insulators work best. After lunch we had a cram session, and thought of heaps of different ideas. Eventually, we decided to focus on the ‘bliss point’ of water and sugar, whether carbonated water has an effect of the ‘bliss point’, and whether people would rather sugary water or carbonated sugary water.

On the 26th, we got straight into finding the ‘bliss point’ of water and sugar. We tested ourselves on several different levels of sugar, and ended up drinking well over the recommended level for a day. It had a bad effect on us! Once we found this point, we watched documentaries and read many articles on the subject. We tested one girl and recorded her results. As well as completing this, we saw all of the other girls’ experiments, from the level of PH in different substances to what ice cream tastes best. We can’t wait to finish our experiment back here at school and hopefully present our findings at the awards night next term.