Science News

Science Week

Monday 30 July - Friday 3 August

“Game Changers and Change Makers” was the Science week theme this year and, at Nossal, activities ran every lunchtime from the 30th July to the 3rd of August. Celebrated by students dressed in lab coats, the annual Science Week Assembly on Monday officially marked the start of 4 days of fun-filled events. Accompanied by two thrilling music performances, students showcased their commitment to a diverse array of Science-related co-curricular activities which included the SciCurious and Dolphin Research programs, The Graeme Clark oration and Nossal’s own Nossal Environmental Sustainability Team. Congratulations to Rahul Preman for achieving the award for Victorian Champion of the Australian Medical Research Association Competition!

We were visited by ‘The Snake Man’ during lunch on Tuesday which involved showcasing and interactions with reptiles. As well as learning about some of their fascinating adaptations and features, students posed with these wonderful (and at times terrifying) creatures with friends for photos.

A part of Nossal’s annual celebration of science week, we ended science week with a fun and friendly "Staff vs Students Science Kahoot competition" at lunchtime. Students got into teams of four and into the spirit of science week by attempting challenging questions in all aspects of science, including biology, chemistry, physics and psychology. With questions ranging from “What is the average salinity of sea water?” to “What temperature and pressure is needed to convert graphite into a diamond? and with the timer ticking away, it was a tense yet highly enjoyable competition. An initial round determined the champion student team who then competed with the teachers, including Mr Werm, Dr Schroor, Ms Denver and Mr Delaney. The student team, ‘Bosslady’ (which comprised of one student – Kayla Le), had won the competition, once again bringing victory to the students’ team just like last year. We would like to give a special thanks to the teachers for representing the staff team.

Thursday was another exciting day were invited students received the opportunity to attend the ‘Meet the Scientists Lunch’. Many scientists attended the event, including: Eve Khing, Beth Johnson, Keshia Hendricks, Amanda Berry, Bruce Verity, Parama Banerjee, Danielle Auldist, Greg Davis, Alison Green, Anna Walduck, Fiona Hogan and Shyh Wei Tang. This event provided a forum for students to interact with senior scientists specialising in a diverse range of studies in science. We were able to learn about research initiatives, challenges in the field, the areas of research and its impacts on contemporary society. The room was buzzing with excitement with students, teachers and the scientists being captivated in their conversations. The event was followed by a delicious lunch. Thank you to all the scientists for providing us with such a great learning experience!

Thrisha Srinivasan and Mariam Malak - Year 11

Graeme Clark Oration and Dinner

On the 4th of July, Shalini, Riya and I (Nattasha), along with other interested science students from Nossal, attended the annual Graeme Clarke Oration and its after dinner.  The Graeme Clarke oration is a lecture given annually on new discoveries in science, presented by the Science Convergence Network. This year's orator was Professor Paula T. Hammond from MIT and the topic was on the applications of nano engineering in medicine.  Nano engineering has two major components; nano and engineering.  Nano is a unit of measurement for something very small, 10^-9 meters to be exact.  Just imagine the width of a hair strand and one nanometer is 1/100,000th the width of that strand, which is incredibly small. As for engineering, it is the designing, creating and building of structures/ things using science and technology.  Thus, nano engineering is the building and creating of materials for real life applications, in this case medicine through the knowledge of nanotechnology. 

The lecture itself was incredibly interesting. Professor Hammond delivered a balanced oration, that included enough detail for the experts but was still comprehensible to us students. When it began, I (Riya) thought it might be too technical for me to follow, but we all found that by the end we had developed a valuable grasp of her work. This was a huge feat, but Professor Hammond managed to bring an enormously complex topic down to a simple level. She is a story teller as well as a scientist.

I'm sure that everyone else at the lecture was as much in awe as I was. Professor Hammond has taken a simple concept and applied it in multiple ways. She has integrated engineering, chemistry and biology into her applications which will continue to be adapted for many medical purposes.

Following the Lecture, the 3 of us were given the opportunity to attend a dinner with other scientists and other members of the scientific community including students from other schools and universities.  Along with our excellent dinner, we listened to guest speakers converse about the new and exciting opportunities developing in the sciences, especially in pharmaceutical science. Along with this, we were given the opportunity to talk and chat with fellow students and adults about the event and heard about opinions and preceptions, which I’m (Shalini) sure we wouldn’t have thought about or even considered before. One of the consistent conversations we had surrounded the ethics and the ethical concern that surrounds this technology and the implications it might have. More often than not, we conversed with  adults, who were as understanding and curious as we were, even those who weren’t from the same domain.

The amazing chance to experience this hidden world was greatly appreciated, and we would highly recommend everyone to seek such opportunities in the future.

Written by Riya, Shalini and Nattasha