Academic Excellence

Aurecon Bridge Building Competition

Last week three Year 8 students, Ayden Ratnasekera, Bob Watson and Varun Shivnani competed in the Aurecon Bridge Building Competition. In the lead up to judging day, the students spent many hours designing and building a creative, innovative and strong bridge. With a set kit of materials and minimal equipment to be used, it made the task even more challenging.

Judging day began with a nervous wait to see if our bridge would withstand the weights added to it to test its strength. The bridge “failed” at 6kg but still looked mostly intact. Other schools were not so lucky as their bridges fell to pieces. The winning school's bridge, however, held a whopping 57kg. Engineers from Aurecon gave the team good advice as to how they could improve their bridge in the future. Congratulations to the boys on their massive effort. We’ll get them next year!

ECO-Challenge

Next week many of the Year 7 students will have the unique opportunity to join and compete with students from around the globe in the UNEP-DHI Eco Challenge Australia organised by Curtin University (in association UNEP-DHI Centre for Water and Environment). This provides an exciting and authentic learning experience for students to work in teams through the online strategic game “Aqua Republica”. Good luck to our Year 7s!

Tournament of Minds

We have a team of seven eager students from Years 7 to 9 working together to solve a STEM challenge. The students need to invent a thought to be extinct animal organism, show their discovery via video, and be able to explain the science behind it in a 10-minute presentation. We wish our budding David Attenboroughs well in their challenge.

Mrs L Cardenia (Academic Excellence Coordinator)